Apple, Epic, and the App Store
In the spirit of this particular story, I&#x27;d like to ask HN the following question:  Should closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be legal to sell?<p>Yes, it&#x27;s legal today but <i>should</i> we make it illegal?<p>To try another example besides Apple iPhone, consider the $35000 Prima Cinema movie server to play 1st run movies at home on day of release:  <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;search?q="prima+cinema"&amp;source=lnms&amp;tbm=isch" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;search?q="prima+cinema"&amp;source=ln...</a><p>In many iPhone debates, we throw around phrases such as, <i>&quot;unlike a game console, it&#x27;s a general computer&quot;</i> and <i>&quot;I own the device so I should be able to put any software I want on it&quot;</i>.<p>Understandable sentiments.  So the question is, should consumers be able to <i>knowingly</i> buy restricted hardware such as Prima Cinema?  They pay $35000 and own the computer but they <i>know</i> they <i>can&#x27;t sideload their own movies</i>.  They <i>know</i> can&#x27;t pick another &quot;movie store&quot;, or watch Youtube&#x2F;Netflix on it, etc.  The hardware has <i>anti-tampering</i> sensors so that it bricks itself if the owner tries to open it.  The hardware is a &quot;general pc&quot;.  It runs Wind River Linux.  I think the cpu is x86 but it might be ARM or something else.<p>You can&#x27;t argue that Prima Cinema should not be locked down (claiming anti-competitive behavior) because the paranoid film studios wouldn&#x27;t even license their content if it wasn&#x27;t. If a buyer wants to have 1st run movies at home, all those restrictions in place is they only way to get it.  It&#x27;s more restrictive than iPhone in that sense.