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Comment by buran77 | Hacker News Reader

If governments didn't force people or companies to do anything then they would be allowed to do everything.

You're welcome to draw up a table which surgically defines what should be regulated or legislated, and what shouldn't. I'll just drop by later to tell you how alarming your assessment was.

After all who's the government to tell companies not to put asbestos in your walls or lead in your water. I'll be honest, every time someone complains governments shouldn't regulate I wonder if they realize they might be alive because of that.

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There is a pretty broad spectrum here. Both of the examples you cite are clear cases of public health and regulation followed discovery of damage. There is no such danger or clear public safety case for batteries which is why it feels like over-reach: regulation based on preference rather than fact.

> If governments didn't force people or companies to do anything then they would be allowed to do everything.

And that's okay. If consumers didn't like their products then they would stop buying them. iphones don't have replaceable batteries but people keep buying them because they don't see that as important. There are phones with replaceable batteries that consumers can buy if they want them.

Why do you think being allowed to do anything is about products and choice? If companies are allowed to do anything, then you get monopolies, wage slavery, then corpocracy. Environmental pollution, human rights violations. We don't even have real choices right now, and we especially wouldn't have if they were let go any further.

I guess I’m not sure why you’re invoking such broad, general issues here. I see it as an issue of choice because I remember when I chose to change from the bulky replaceable battery phone I had at the time to a thinner, more comfortable one.

Yet on the flip side my current phone is by the the largest phone I've ever had, the hardest to hold since the one which clipped on my belt and had a pull-up aerial, yet it's also one of the smallest phones on the market.

Because the context was literally someone saying they're in favor of a complete lack of legal restraint on the actions of companies or individuals.

No they wouldn't because of the power dynamic. That's exactly where the government comes in. Google (and the associated OEMs) and Apple have together far more bargaining power than most customers together. Your lobbying power is 0 and even with massive coordination efforts it's hard to compound that 0 into something measurable without serious help from the government.

You need a mobile phone and you have very few choices. How exactly are you protesting? By shooting yourself in the foot and not getting a phone? By going to boutique manufacturers who can barely supply 1% of the market?

Your reasoning is good on paper but not realistic. I'll say it again, the reason you don't have asbestos in your walls or lead in the air (from fuel) isn't because you voted with your wallet but because governments did their part. That should be evidence enough that your assumption is wildly idealistic.

It’s not a large market because people generally don’t want one, but it’s hardly limited to boutiques either. Nokia and Samsung both sell smartphones with replaceable batteries.

Not ones anywhere near the 'flagships'. It's a niche, but those us who do want hardly have even the option to 'vote with our wallets'. Especially for something that has become near a necessity.

And you completely avoided their very valid point that the likes of asbestos and lead. Perhaps because you have no counter to it?

I guess I'm not sure what your standards are here. If you're expecting that there should be phones identical in every way to flagship models except that the battery is removable, I don't think that's reasonable, since the entire point is that the design requirement of a removable battery requires tradeoffs.

I don't understand the point you're trying to make about asbestos and leaded gasoline. I support those regulations because they cover much more important issues. As far as I know nobody's gotten lung cancer from not being able to remove their phone's battery.

No, it’s not ok, anymore than it’s not ok for me to come punch you in the face anytime I feel like letting off some steam. Things that don’t have any negative externalities are ok for you to do at any point, but quite a large number of things that you may wish to do affect other people, and you cannot violate their freedom in the process of getting more freedom yourself.

In the case of batteries and other electronic components, the amount of e waste is very much becoming a problem that other people are being forced to deal with, and that’s not even considering future generations, whose freedoms I very much argue should also be protected.

“Your rights end where mine begin” is very much a laudable sentiment, but we need to be honest about when things sneak over that line, and not fool ourselves because the negative externality isn’t blatantly obvious.

> iphones don't have replaceable batteries but people keep buying them because they don't see that as important.

Primarc clothing sometimes comes with scraps of paper 'Help, i am being kept as a slave', but people keep buying it. That tells us they don't see slavery as important.

On the contrary, the fact that they were willing to die to end slavery doesn't tell us anything.

> Primarc clothing sometimes comes with scraps of paper 'Help, i am being kept as a slave',

I've never heard of that and couldn't find any reference to it with a internet search.

Edit: found it: https://metro.co.uk/2015/12/11/girl-finds-cry-for-help-note-...

The point is not spesifically about primarc, there are many products that awere produced with slave labour, from conalt mining to cotton in the 1700s and people keep buying them

>There are phones with replaceable batteries that consumers can buy if they want them

How are they going to do that when they're paid barely subsistence wages in corporate scrip that can't be spent on that?

There are almost no recent smartphones with replaceable batteries. None of them very good.

And that's because the companies making them have almost all the power. The power of the consumers' wallet is essentially zero.

Almost as if most people don’t care enough about replaceable batteries?

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