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Comment by tpush | Hacker News Reader

Why not? If that's a terrible idea (and I agree it is!) then people won't buy them, and Tesla would have to change.

Regulation makes sense if there's no alternative to (easily) switch to, but that also means that the first principle of a regulations regime should be to create the conditions so that all possible alternatives can flourish. Failing that (as I think the EU has with software tech), restricting incumbents is the logical choice.

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There's a duopoly (Apple/Google) in the smartphone market, that's not a healthy market.

> If that's a terrible idea (and I agree it is!) then people won't buy them, and Tesla would have to change.

What if it's a terrible idea, but is outweighed by other good decisions Tesla makes? Should they be encouraged to ruin things just enough that it's still worth buying their products? As long as the ppm is just above lethal limits, does it matter who is poisoning the well?

Many products are made inferior/worse for the purposes of price discrimination. Inkjet printers, lap tops, Tesla vehicles, etc…

Remember that Tesla can just send a OTA update to remove artificial software limits on the same battery capacity during disasters (Model S and X with the same battery capacity).

I'm not sure where the talk of poisoning has come from? In general though, yes of course companies should be free to make product decisions that their customers won't like.

And then people vote for politicians who say they will force companies to no longer put poison in your food to save money. Every important industry is regulated like that, why would smartphone appstores be a special case?

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