> It's like saying I bought a petrol car but I should have a legal right to fill it up with Diesel or make it work with electricity. It's illogical. The packaging said petrol and so I knownlingly bought petrol.

Though it's not really uncommon to modify a car for autogas or electric. Often it's also possible to change the radio receiver to e.g. one with android car.

I kinda expect the same freedom to modify other products including smartphones.

You're free to jailbreak your iPhone.

Jailbreaking uses vulnerabilities, there is no way to jailbreak a phone officially. Whereas Android allows sideloading apps officially.

There is also no official way to convert your car to diesel/electric...

Of course there is. At least in my country, there is a formal legal procedure to get your car inspected and re-registered after any changes are made.

It voids warranty though, doesn't it?

But there's a procedure enabling you to do it. On iOS, there are procedures preventing you from doing it.

The car doesn't have cryptographic locks on its bonnet.

Unless it's a Tesla.

At least with a Tesla there's a healthy aftermarket using the motors and batteries for vehicle retrofits.

But neither does the car manufacturer actively try to prevent you from doing so.

Jailbreaking voids my warranty, could be impossible, and disables a lot of features (OS security updates). It is unreasonable to compare this with another app store.

Modding your car from petrol to Diesel also voids your warranty.

It's not like car manufacturers go out of their way to update their new models with anti-conversion technology with each new release.

Unless the car is a piece of agricultural equipment, in which case, we can see exactly why walled ecosystems are bad.

That's a good point. Many farmers are as frustrated and stymied as many iphone users. Locked out of repairing a device that their livelihood depends apon.

> It's like saying I bought a petrol car but I should have a legal right to fill it up with Diesel or make it work with electricity.

It's not, no. It's like buying a petrol car and being limited to using BP to fill it up, and not being able to use Q8, or Shell, or whatever.

No one buys Apple/iOS and expects it to run Windows (although arguably you can, and you should be able to, if you weren't locked-in)

Interesting question, would this be legal? Could BP or Shell make a cheap car but with the caveat that it could only be filled at their stations?

> It's like saying I bought a petrol car but I should have a legal right to fill it up with Diesel or make it work with electricity. It's illogical.

A much more apt analogy would be a Keurig machine that's only designed to take official k-cups, and your legal right to make it work with off-brand k-cups.

You do have that right, but Keurig is under no obligation to help you do it

There's a difference between "we won't help you do something" and "we'll actively hinder your efforts at doing something".

Keurig does actively hinder doesn't it? Don't they have some kind of DRM/capsule authentication?

This argument works as long as there is healthy competition, so that consumer's preferences get reflected in the offer. If the market is a monopoly or duopoly you could get very undesirable outcomes.

The point is unlike a real monopoly which is due to real entry barriers (e.g. train operators need train tracks, internet companies need cables, phone operators need antennas and satellites, etc.) the mobile OS isn't a monopoly or duopoly. Neither Apple or Android were ever the only mobile OS providers. There was Microsoft over a long period of time, Blackberry, Nokias own operating system and many other smaller ones. Neither Apple or Google have any advantage which Microsoft or Nokia didn't have either in consumer base and market share of mobile phones. Same for Blackberry. The only difference is that consumers have actively rejected the competition because Apple (and Google) exactly delivers what they want.

Now arguing that consumers are disadvantaged because they don't get what they want is falsifying the actual state of the market, when really they get exactly what they want and it's only some bad actors like addictive abusive gaming companies or other dodgy businesses which are doing more harm than help to our society and they want to force Apple or Google into opening more up to allow them even shadier practices.

Nothing stops anyone to create a more open mobile OS. There is no actual barrier to enter like in what real monopolies or duopolies have.

EDIT:

It's also important to remember that Apple hasn't invented their strict walled garden after Microsoft, Nokia and Blackberry left the competition. They always had their walled garden as a feature, and that is proof that customers actively chose to use Apple despite having a healthy competition of other open marketplaces, which clearly didn't deliver what consumers wanted. Consumers don't have the time to vet everything themselves. They value Apple's proposition and are even willing to pay more for an app on average than on any other mobile system. People change their phones every 1-2 years and if the walled garden wouldn't appeal to consumers then we'd see everyone have an Android by now for a very long time.

So you say: if Apple rejects your app, just ask users to reinstall another OS or buy another device?

Yes, I say if Apple's walled garden feature doesn't appeal to a user, then don't buy an iPhone.

If Apple was to change how their App Store operates and it stops appealing to the mass, then the mass will react and Apple will see sales drop over time and consumers will migrate to Android. Not the next day, but it would certainly happen like it did for Nokia users, Blackberry users, etc.

However, Apple didn't change their App Store guidelines. Users who bought a phone get exactly what they got on the day of purchase. It's Epic who tries to violate a feature which consumers have purchased and now Epic is suing Apple for having such a feature to begin with. This is not Apple vs. Consumers. This is a gaming company not finding a way to apply their shady practices on the Apple consumer based and they are pissed off. Consumers are happy for it though.

Isn't the barrier to entry that Epic needs to become a phone manufacturer? It's not like phone users can sideload another OS to play fortnite either.

But your kids want Fortnite as a product on their smartphone. They want a customer relationship with Epic Games.

Apple prevents that to a certain degree.

This is not a two-way relationship. It’s three-way. People expect businesses to have a store front in the App Store. If there is none, they don’t think it’s Apple‘s fault.

If a company informs in advance, a job of 12 hours a day paying less then minimum wages, should they be allowed to hire people against it?

That’s not an apt comparison because it’s questionable whether what Apple is doing is illegal or not. OTOH, paying below minimum is explicitly illegal.

A better comparison would be hiring people at a maximum of 10 hours a week, and then the employee getting upset they don’t get 11+ hours.

> if a company advertises a product as a walled garden, specifically claims that one of the things it does is to vet and prohibit apps which violate their guidelines

Could you please show me such an advertisement? I do not really follow Apple, and have failed to encounter it.

Further, what if I'm a user, who wants to purchase the hardware (and even operating system), but does not want the added security. Mind you that Apple has their own CPU and OS which is unlike anything in the competition. Don't I also buy the product for those benefits, and don't I have a right as a consumer to opt out of arbitrary limitations that I have no option but accepting?

In the past, you had no option but accepting tracking cookies in every website, GDPR showed that as a society, we decided to force companies to provide an option.

> Further, what if I'm a user, who wants to purchase the hardware (and even operating system), but does not want the added security. Mind you that Apple has their own CPU and OS which is unlike anything in the competition.

Tough luck my friend. I mean only because you want something unreasonable doesn't make it a right.

Example:

What if I want to buy the engine of a Ferrari but not pay the price for a Ferrari and just have it inside a Volkswagen?

The answer to that is also tough luck. You want a Ferrari engine, well it only comes in a bloody Ferrari so either buy the whole thing and then mod it yourself or tough luck. Same for Apple hardware. If you want just want one piece then you'll have to buy the whole thing and mod it yourself.

Nothing in this world gives you a right to have all your wishes fulfilled by others.

If Ferrari and Volkswagen are only two companies in world and Ferrari disallows changing Radio and Car Seat without authorization from company. I would say screw them, law should prohibit this. If you don't like the law you are free to go sale somewhere else.

If Ferrari and Volkswagen are the only two companies in the world, you just go and build a third company with a unique proposition. There's enough capital around to build a new car maker, the problem is the lack of appealing value and necessity for another clone.

Isn't though the point of software, to be easily transferable from device to device? Otherwise we've just reinvented hardware.

My point is that a car is a complete piece of hardware, all of which is necessary for it to fulfil its purpose, while computers have the advantage (over other machines) to be easily modified by software.

You are correct that my wishes should not affect others, but what about the wishes/needs of multiple people? Even if it's just a wish/personal preference, and not a fundamental property of software, should people's opinion affect private corporations directly?

All of this assuming that there are multiple people who agree with the notion of software freedom.

There are multiple instances where this is done in all societies. For example taxes are an indirect way to do so. Mandatory military service is another. Jury duty, or staffing vote counting for elections, etc etc

they all are a great example of a violation of the same moral principle, and you are right that taxes are an indirect way of saying "give it to me or else", which is in the same category of "we claim your finite time on this earth so that you pursue our goals instead of your own, and if you refuse we will make sure you will regret it"