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Comment by jvm | Hacker News Reader

I think parent was speaking as a consumer, not moralizing about it. In the eyes of the law or economics, of course this is completely reasonable, it is absolutely Apple's right to do this. But the consumer experience is horrible, something parent is probably not used to from Apple.

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Is it Apple's right to do this?

Didn't IBM lose the case where they said you can only run IBM software on IBM 360s?

IANAL but it sure would be nice for someone that is to speak up on why many of these old cases don't apply.

Is it that it is legal, Apple just doesn't have to feature it in their store? Phone companies were forced to allow 3rd party phones on their network. So where/are mobile companies as far as I know. Car companies are require to honor car warranties even if you change out the car stereo AFAIK.

Is there some reason similar rules don't apply to Apple (and Nintendo, and Sony, and Microsoft)?

> Is it Apple's right to do this?

It should be.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is_ought_problem

Well, the real problem is that "right" is a very broadly-defined term that sometimes refers to is and sometimes refers to ought. I was operating on the definition (which I think is more useful) that a "right" is something a person (or corporation) deserves regardless of whether they're actually given it, so it's appropriate for me to answer with ought.

Oh, and I forgot to add: did you read the article you linked? The is-ought problem is when someone confuses the two, which I clearly did not do.

Well, but as a consumer, you have options, and your number one way to make your voice heard is to switch to a better option. (The number two way is to threaten loudly, I think.)

You have to do the latter. If you just switch without making any noise, then the company just sees you as percentage of users using the competitor's product. Not very meaningful.

You have to write a short letter saying why you once used <product> or refused to purchase <product> because of <reason>.

Not according to the EU law, did you see how the microsoft IE case got resolved.

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