But why though? I’m serious. People willingly want to be customers of this. They know that *polies are going to have leverage on them and still buy their product. Why should we say, ‘No, we’re not going to let you do that’? Or maybe you think that people are just not informed enough and don’t understand the consequences of their actions? Then maybe we should educate them instead of trying to control?
But that’s the thing - they aren’t. Not once they’re bought. At that point, they’re my device, or your device.
Well, you may want it to be completely yours, but in fact, there are many things that you can’t and sometimes don’t want to control on your phone. But Apple never claimed that you can control everything. Apple never advertised their phones as having many application stores; quite the opposite, actually. You don’t expect a satellite connection from a phone that doesn’t have it; you don’t expect a phone without water resistance to work underwater. I understand if some product does not meet your expectations, you’re frustrated, but in this case, you received exactly what you asked for. Want something else? Buy from another company. Why force this company to do things your way?
Surely you can see how having a single supplier can be a bad thing, right? That supplier has no incentive to deliver quality. Why would they?
Of course, I can see that having a single supplier can and will cause many issues. The problem for me is that I don’t believe in monopolies. Monopolies are very unstable. Firstly, for a monopoly to form, a few things with low probability should happen: in your analogy, there should be no other cookie provider (neither now nor in the foreseeable future), and customers should be willing to buy cookies that I produce at any cost. In reality, there’s always someone else who’s willing to (or at least can) produce more cookies, and customers are not complete idiots. If I increase the price or lower the quality beyond their limit, very quickly I will be left with full warehouses and a bad reputation and go bankrupt. Secondly, you always have a choice. Present me with a situation, and I will tell you which choices you have (they all may be bad, but whatever they are, they are options). In the case of Apple, there are obviously plenty of choices. They’re not the only company producing smartphones. And even on their phones, there’s Cydia. So, what monopoly does Apple have? Well, they’re the only corporation that can produce iPhones. Should we allow other companies to produce iPhones in this case?
I’m an anti-Apple advocate and an Android user. And I’m against this law. What good does it bring? These are Apple’s devices; let them do whatever they want with them. Don’t like how Apple does business? Buy another brand. Advocate against Apple. Suggest alternatives. But do not force them to do things how you like. It’s just toxic. I believe that the most anti-consumer thing is when governments try to decide what customers want or need. I hate it when they take me for an idiot (I might often be, but let me make my mistakes and learn from them).
Wow. Yeah, it doesn’t work anymore. I tried a similar thing (printing numbers forever) about 6 months ago, and it declined my request. However, after I asked it to print some ordinary big number like 10,000, it did print it out for about half an hour (then I just gave up and stopped it). Now, it doesn’t even do that. It just goes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5… and then skips, and then 9998, 9999, 10000. It says something about printing all the numbers may not be practical. Meh.
Great guide!
2% for the reliable independent monetary system seems like a good deal. How much does our current one consume with all its flaws?