Comment by ndriscoll
6 days ago
> I can't sell my baked goods to my neighbors without a license, or replace the interior of my kitchen without a permit.
You can though. No one will stop you from doing either of those things.
> I can't build a deck, add an addition, or even install a new electrical outlet, without permission. Have you ever tried putting something in your front yard?
A deck or addition might draw attention and run afoul of some rule depending on where you live, but a lot of places won't care. If you want to put in an outlet, the world's your oyster. The only real consideration is if you're worried you may do it wrong and may run into insurance denials after a catastrophe or something. You don't actually need anyone's permission. And it's October; I have decorations in my front yard right now. No one was consulted about this.
It's like my air conditioner broke a couple weeks ago, so I ordered a capacitor off amazon and fixed it. I've never touched one of these things before, but the only one stopping you from unscrewing it and going to town is you. If you passed high school you ought to have a basic understanding of how stuff works and be able to do some light reading to make sure you're doing this correctly and safely. LLMs make this even easier.
These phone restrictions, by contrast, would be like if your AC or electrical panel somehow required a licensed professional to activate new parts. Or even more on point, required someone registered with e.g. Carrier (not actually any kind of professional certification; just someone gatekept by a business trying to monopolize things).
> No one will stop you from doing either of those things.
It's literally illegal in many US states and countries to do so. In my home state, MN, it is tightly regulated what kinds of "cottage food" you are allowed to sell.
You're confusing ability with legality. Try loading up some food you cooked in your kitchen and selling it out of your car, door-to-door, and watch what happens. This is despite, for most people, judging the health risks of food being wildly easier than the security risks of a sideloaded app.
> These phone restrictions, by contrast, would be like if you AC or electrical panel somehow required a licensed professional to activate new parts.
That already exists in car repair; with key reprogrammers and especially anything engine-tuning being restricted to licensed individuals. Also, good luck messing with your catalytic converter, without the ECU by law detecting it and getting very angry. Take my relative's diesel truck from 2015 - a single failed sensor in the exhaust, and it caps itself as low as 30 MPH.
> You're confusing ability with legality
No, you are. Google's restricting the ability, by decree. Laws restrict the legality, in certain places, by democratic consensus.
That's more a reflection of your neighbors not wanting to deal with your door-to-door nuisance of a business. If you have people that want to buy food from you, exactly nothing will happen. Same deal with e.g. babysitting/day care. Exactly no one will care if you do it or if you casually offer it in conversation with a parent. People might get annoyed if you go door-to-door soliciting about it and interrupt their day.
Ability vs. legality is the point; these things in practice aren't that heavily regulated, licensed, and restricted, and in fact no one will check up on you or try to stop you at all unless you piss someone off by somehow turning it into an annoyance. I don't know why you'd even think to check whether most of the stuff you listed is legal.
Using car restrictions (which are obviously mostly anti-consumer, especially for EVs) as some justification for similar actions in phones is interesting, to say the least.
You're saying these laws exist, they actively restrict our devices and our freedoms, but it's okay because they're complaint-driven (aka snitching).
That's worse, not better. Freedom by definition isn't subject to the whims of my neighbors.
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Edit, posting too fast, because I can't reply directly: What you are advocating for is a police state. Think about it:
1. Laws should be intentionally overbroad: Make everything illegal, then only enforce when something goes wrong
2. Competence is determined retroactively: You only find out if you were "allowed" to do something after a disaster
3. Rights depend on outcomes: You had the right to wire that outlet... unless it sparked, then retroactively you didn't
4. Selective enforcement is good, actually: Laws that could be used against anyone but usually aren't are fine
This is nonsense.
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note that you're confusing selling with ability. it's one thing for the state to say they can regulate and tax a sale, but to use your dubious analogy, this is more like the state saying I can't have my neighbour over for a (free) dinner because I need a license in food preparation and it has to happen in a rented location.
> Try loading up some food you cooked in your kitchen and selling it out of your car, door-to-door, and watch what happens.
There's a lovely grandma in my neighborhood who has been doing exactly this for years. She sells the best tamales around. Just sayin'.
But yes, how viable and/or legal this is depends on where you live.
Tamale Lady who hits every bar near Mission in San Francisco? She’s been at it for decades.