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If you buy a home in a neighborhood with a restrictive homeowners' association covenant, you still own your home even though you're not allowed to paint it blue and put plastic flamingos in the yard. You may not like those restrictions, but they're the restrictions you literally bought into.

I really think this is a more accurate take than "Apple restricts what you can do to your device therefore you don't really own it." Yes, they restrict what I can do with the device, but yes, I really own it. And bonus: f I decide those restrictions are too much to bear, well, buying a new phone is way easier than buying a new house.



Using your analogy, there's is a boundary that can even be considered reasonable. In the example you gave, you know the limits, when you bought and you thought they were reasonable.

But suppose that they define which cars you need to have to live in that neightborhood? You would start to think that now they are being unreasonable..

The thing is, Apple can change those "ok, now this is unreasonable" things behind your back without you even being aware of it. How can you know that you would want that car that the "owners" of your neighborhood did not allowed that car seller to offer you? (And no, this is not a stretch, remember that your digital life is a whole big dimension of your life, imagine a centralized point of control)

You wont feel as you would if they forced you to a limited set of cars, but there are a lot of damages happening by allowing them to do as they please, and not only about your rights as a owner of the product, because there are developers and other technological, social and political issues happening with those decisions being made like that.

Unfortunately it cant be compared as just a house that you have not full control of it, because in that case it would most "damage" you in the end.

The decisions Apple are making hurting digital and material property rights have broader implications to the society in general.




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