And to add my own message: first, it’s no one’s individual duty to worry about other people’s earned income. Second: the money paid for works often doesn’t go to the authors to any significant extent, but rather to some rights holders or middlemen. So this is just a smokescreen. The production of knowledge and art will not suffer because we download works from Anna’s Archive. If anything, it suffers because access to information is unnecessarily hindered. Third: ownership should be strictly limited to physical goods (if at all). Your article, book, or audio recording doesn’t disappear just because I’ve downloaded a copy of it. This is a deep-seated intuition that should be taken as an axiom rather than being questioned simply because people claim the right to profit from information asymmetry.

The ban on encryption is a good counterpoint! I’m not saying that everything the regulators want to do is good or in line with my views. But ultimately, I want to live in a world where policymakers set the framework and the market finds good solutions within that framework, not in a world where market players are given completely free rein and every political intervention is viewed as if someone had licked the sacred shrine of a deity with their tongue.

What kind of rash response is that? No one here is making a blanket claim that the market solution is categorically suboptimal.

> I mean, who told us that smartphones with user-replaceable batteries are better...

Let me repeat: you have to FIRST define what you mean by “better” and then ask that question. I want a phone with a removable battery, and it’s immediately clear to me that making this a requirement is a measure that removes a lower limit on the devices’ lifespan.

> Regulatory processes are shaped by the same incentives as market ones.

That’s just another one of those market-driven circular arguments. There’s no alternative to market logic, because in the end, everything follows the same incentives. You should be able to see that this is nonsense just by driving down a public street or standing under a streetlight at night.

> opposite direction from "help the market"

I would rephrase that as: “help the market move in a desired direction for the benefit of people” and I do believe that regulation can achieve exactly that.

> It's simply better than when a regulatory body implements its "quirky, special requests" at the expense of everyone else.

At whose expense, then? People who are upset that batteries are replaceable again? People who now find their smartphones a few millimeters too thick or a few grams too heavy? Are these people also upset about safety and environmental standards for cars because they make cars a little heavier, more expensive, or more complex?

Most consumers are like pigs who simply eat whatever the market throws into their trough, because ultimately they have better things to do than to get deeply involved in every purchasing decision.

> If replaceable batteries were better, they would already be available.

Developments like those in the smartphone market involve complex path dependencies. That’s why you can’t simply assume that competition will lead to the product offerings converging on the best product. Furthermore, “better” needs to be defined in some way. If we leave that up to the market, it becomes a circular argument: (1) The better product prevails in the market. (2) The product that prevails in the market is the better one. This circular reasoning is the biggest flaw in market ideology. I don't understand why people can't see that. The market moves in a certain direction, and they say, “There it is—progress!”

> Regulation hinders progress.

Perhaps, at times, the opposite is true. Even if we set aside the fact that “better” is defined in a circular manner here, the path-dependence of market development sometimes causes the market to get stuck in a local optimum. Regulatory interventions in the market can then serve as an effective lever to help the market break free from that situation.

> If you want a removable battery, you're simply in the minority as a consumer.

That’s another point where I just don’t get market ideologues: why should I reject regulatory intervention on the one hand, but on the other hand, if the market doesn’t give me what I want, I’m supposed to just shut up and accept that there isn’t enough demand for my quirky, special requests? I’ve been missing removable batteries ever since they disappeared from the market. That must have coincided with the rise of smartphones. Come to think of it, maybe Steve Jobs is to blame. With iPods, there was still a public debate about the issue [1]. With the iPhone, it was just the way it was.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuTcavAzopg

It’s not "no one", but rather "almost no one". The difference is small, but still big enough to make room for me and a surprisingly large number of my friends and acquaintances—including our raised middle fingers.

We don't have to be in the majority; the main thing is that there's a niche for us. If the whole world is smoking crack, that's not ideal. But at least we don't have to go along with it.

Sorry, I mixed up the terms. I meant GSM. But that’s not quite right either: as far as I know, connected cars use 4G or 5G. I do use GPS regularly in the car, but always via my smartphone with the Osmand app.

Edit: I just realized that your question was specifically about losing a smartphone. I’m not sure if “half a day” is a universal estimate. I can easily imagine that many people would completely lose access to their digital lives because they only realize the implications after the fact. I think I’d need at least half a day just to figure out how to unlock the scooter again after losing my smartphone. I have absolutely no desire to deal with that.

> your second paragraph is at odds with your third

Well, well. That didn’t take long.

The teenager was a carefully chosen comparison. The state’s authority over the citizen is similar to a parent’s authority over their child. This is quite humiliating and emasculating. And I agree with libertarians on one point: if the state is against you, you don’t stand a chance. A healthy approach to this has two components. (1) You make sure that the authority is benevolent or at least allows enough leeway for a good life. (2) You create enclaves of freedom. The teenager hides his weed and smokes it secretly, or smokes his cigarettes on the way to school. The citizen leaves some income untaxed and runs a red light now and then. What does the teenager who categorically rejects parental authority do? Run away and become homeless? The difference between them and an adult is that the latter should have enough sense to realize that the romantic notion of a life free from the burden of authority ultimately leads to sadness, coldness, loneliness, and misery—or, if it succeeds at all, merely re-establishes structures in which forms of authority are entrenched. Libertarians feel most oppressed by the state every time they have to wait at a red light or obey a speed limit. They fail to see that, in doing so, they are submitting to a principle of order that is necessary for road traffic to function at all.

> Is that a semantic difference, or do you think there's something substantive to it?

That is a very important point! Philosophers distinguish between the particular and the universal. Libertarians recognize only the particular and reject any notion of the universal, because it negates all particularities. For them, a group is always just an accumulation of individuals. A genuine community—which consists precisely in the participating individuals restricting themselves to some extent for the sake of the community—is inconceivable to them as something positive. Hence the infamous Thatcher quote: “... and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families ...” That is an ideological divide that cannot be bridged through discussion. I’ve gone over this enough times already.

I see it exactly the other way around. I want this to be clarified upfront, not after I’ve already cut my tongue. What I don’t understand is why market participants are being given special treatment here. There are laws, and they must be followed. That applies just as much in other areas.

> personal problems don't give one a moral claim on other people's labor

Which problem is personal and which isn't? You seem to be twisting this to suit your questionable argument.

> You have no idea what I do or don't hold in my mind

But I read what you write and interpret it. Just as you read what I write and interpret it. Here’s another ad hominem for you: in your worldview, there is no morality at all. At least, none that is consistent. People like you behave toward the state like moody teenagers toward their parents. You don’t want to be told what to do, but you wouldn’t survive a single month without the institution you so despise.