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This argument falls apart since there is no real freedom of choice, and the importance of smartphones in our lives.

People are becoming more aware that they don’t want a corporation in control over this essential near ubiquitous technology.

I see no good reason to follow a “it’s a corporation they can do whatever they want” mindset

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Who is forcing you to exclusively buy into Apple’s ecosystem?

Are other competitors banned where you live?

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To be blunt it doesn't matter if you have a choice or not - this sort of behavior shouldn't be permitted either way. It's an appliance that at this point serves an essential function in society so user hostile behavior ought to be strictly prohibited.

The guiding principle should continue to be that manufacturers and retailers don't get to control the second hand market or dictate what users do with the things they purchase. Digital controls used to thwart the owner's freedom should be outlawed.

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Appliances have had safety mechanisms that would equivalently prevent user modification of certain elements long before digital controls existed.
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Apple is, because of vendor-lock in. Once you're sufficiently dependent on Apple's ecosystem it becomes painful to switch to a competitor because it requires switching to a different smartphone which then locks you out of most of Apple's ecosystem.
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Who the heck are you? Are you a real person? I don't understand how any human can argue that this is ok.
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You are correct and I don't get OP's point. Don't want apple rules, don't use apple products. They are the business, they can do what they want with it, right?
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We have consistently made exceptions to this rule in situations with limited choices. We would not abide by the electric company dictating a range of things, even of you have the option to run your own generator.

The truth is there are two reasonable platforms, as long as that is the case we should apply scrutiny.

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I'd go even farther than that. The US should adopt an equivalent of the second amendment regarding end user control over personal electronics and it should bind not only the government but also private enterprise. We are increasingly dependent on these devices to go about our day to day lives and they have not only been used against us for mass surveillance but are also quickly gaining the ability to exhibit intelligence and act autonomously.
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Car makers cannot do anything they want and call it a car. The motivation there is safety, but it's long been argued that personal computing devices are today extension of our lives.

Even more comparable is postal rules: at least here, there are very explicit rules about opening someone else's mail, or even destroying it. Even if postal/courier services are businesses, they have to operate within the boundaries a society sets up for them.

And finally, you can take it even further: some "businesses" operate on the fringes of legality and sometimes illegally too (think loan shark operations, casinos, betting markets... but also "protection services" and similar).

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I don't think that's the way to look at it.

There are standards for interoperability and user-friendliness with all kinds of devices, and we should expect the same from modern devices.

It would have been pretty peculiar and unacceptable if your telephone in the 80s couldn't call your neighbour because the telephone company just decided to not make them interoperable, why shouldn't it be the same here?

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Email probably could not happen today.
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This is true of 98% of regulations.

(The only exceptions are government-granted monopolies.)

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