And that only applies (in theory...) to US citizens. The Bill of Rights doesn't apply to non-citizens, which is what this issue is about.

And you answered the problem.

"Home computer users are here tomorrow."

They aren't going away. These companies can focus on the whales today secure in the knowledge that when the whales do die, they can just go back to relying on home computer users tomorrow. Home users can't go anywhere else, competitors aren't just going to pop up overnight and take away their business. And because of this, investors LOVE it.

The issue is that the companies that make RAM also need to report to their investors. So they have 2 options:

- Sell to the public and state "We made X profit this quarter"
Or
- Sell to the server market that will pay more to secure the RAM and state "We made X++ profit this quarter"

And when it's your job to make as much for their investors, which will you choose: to keep your job or be let go for someone else?

>It's a laptop formfactor. Apple has not to date shipped a laptop formfactor device with iOS

Those are called iPads, with the magic keyboard case. They've been around for years, over a decade.

>The phone maker who makes money off hardware, and not ads and surveillance, which inherently suck.

So, literally only Fairphone.

No, thats for learning about computers as a subject.

They need computers that aren't locked down "golden cages" that can do the basics but can ALSO do non-basic things for people to learn, adapt, and understand how to go beyond a few rigid rules.

Part of the issue is with those devices is they are locked down, and actively discourage trying anything "new" or "exploring". It's been well commented and stated that tablets and Apple computers are "golden cages", and when you raise a child in a "cage" that actively prevent them from trying to do anything out of the basic guidelines you can't expect them to become adults and suddenly think "outside" of a cage and it's limits.

So many of us here grew up with computers from a young age and didn't have these problems and self-imposed limits. But then again, we didn't have devices that actively fought against us from tinkering, trying, and learning new things.

Except this isnt about online games. Its why there is the mentioning of "certain games", because it only deals with certain games.

Its not dealing with if WoW suddenly goes offline, or FF14, or any other MMO. Those are online only games, and are strickly based on online gaming modes. They arent going to demand an offline mode or eternally run servers, or anything like that. Not even open sourcing the server code (there are sometimes legal issues with this, go see the whole WinAmp source code issue about why this can be an issue.)

The issue is more along the lines of if the Diablo servers stop running and you can no longer playing Diablo offline in single player mode that is already built into it. There is no reason that this should be tied into a suddenly dead server, and this is about making it sure that if they decide at some point to turn off the server, then at that point they need to remove the server check altogether. They arent saying they need to remove DRM either, it can just be a different form that isnt tied to a dead server.

I was hoping you'd actually read my post before you replied, but here we are.

I'll repeat it again, UPGRADES to Windows 7-8-10-11 were all free. Buying the whole OS isn't upgrading. Windows offers free OS upgrades, same as everyone else.

And Apple does deliberately require hardware upgrades and stops supporting video cards (NVIDIA), with OpenCore Legacy Patcher showing these aren't needed in order to upgrade.

And this was all based on the starting arguement of "By forcing your customers to upgrade by means of: Dark patterns, threats, coercion, arbitrary expiration dates, and on and on." There never was a point of "free OS upgrades" or not. That was something you added to distract from the original point.

Maybe you should look at the whole picture and not being a Apple apologist and claiming that even though Apple does the EXACT same thing, that they are somehow completely different.

PS, I use Linux, so no, I'm not a MS apologist.

When they are some of the longest supporters of hardware in the commerical space?

Yes.

Microsoft on average will support hardware for 10 years. macOS, iOS, and Android average 7 years. Only ChromeOS supports 10 years.

Apple kills all OS support on hardware after 7 years (4 major OS updates, and that final one will get 3 total years of security updates). Microsoft typically gives 10 years of support. This isn't a good thing.
Android and iOS typically have the same 7ish years on hardware, again, not quite the flex you were hoping for.
The only one that can match would be ChromeOS which typically has the same 10 years.

And Windows 8, 10, and 11 were all free upgrades so this again matches (assuming the hardware was supported, same as all the others).

Name a commercial OS that doesn't also do this?

>> only one source for iOS devices. Many sources for Android.

> Are there?

Who else makes iOS devices? You already acknowledged there many sources of Android devices.

Also, while 7 out of 10 sounds good, this represents less than 20% of the total market. And Apple only makes "premium" class phones so this would be their only market. A more accurate title to this would be "Apple sells less than 1 out of every 5 smartphones", and since you've already pointed out that for the most part there seems to be only 3 major Android companies and 1 iPhone maker, that makes it look worse as out of 4 major companies you'd want to be making at least 1 out of every 4.

I think it's the whole "blood in the water" effect. Google Play Store and Apple App Store are being sued and losing, so next target that could match is Steam.

The issues I see here is that Steam isn't anything like the other two. Steam isn't the default app store of any OS besides SteamOS, and even it gives more easy access to competing stores then Android. Not to mention, this lawsuit is based on sales from 2018, way before SteamOS was revived, so it wouldn't apply. Because of this, the lawsuit can't claim a lack of competition due to muscling out others from "their" devices.

While they can claim that Steam is the largest player and thus a monopoly, it wouldn't work because they aren't using their size negatively against their competition. They aren't blocking others on their devices, they aren't putting up road blocks to competitors, and unless I'm missing something they haven't been making deals to prevent competition. Google and Apple have had court loses due to these types of abuses of power, but again, unless I'm missing something, Valve hasn't done any of those.

Maybe Google is copying Apple here and using it to sell ads.

If you read the privacy policy of Apple Pay, it does mention that Apple does collect info about your Apple Pay usage for ads ("Helping you to discover features that are most relevant to you", "Sending you communications about Apple Pay and other Apple products, services, and offers that may be of interest to you" is how they refer to it.)

"Apple may use this information to improve other Apple products and services, for marketing, and for fraud and security purposes."