Maybe your attention is circular, when you can't even think outside of a single comments.

The discussion is about smartphones, not consoles. And I explained that the technical base is irrelevant for whether it's a walled garden or not, because the purpose and usecase are different. Smartphones and Consoles are both universal computing platforms, but only consoles are also used as a universal device, while consoles are walled by design/purpose. So consoles being walled gardens has no relation to whether smartphones should or should not be walled gardens.

>Smartphones and Consoles are both universal computing platforms, but only consoles are also used as a universal device, while consoles are walled by design/purpose

This is a very loose concept that you are arguing should be law. Fine, smartphones are "universal computing" platforms. Tablets are mostly used for media consumption - is the iPad exempt? If a manufacturer releases a Windows PC and calls it a "Home Theater PC", are they now exempt from the "universal platform" rule? If Sony allows users to install other OSs on their PlayStation, the PlayStation now a "universal device"? If a developer releases a calendar application or Slack on the PS4, will the PS4 be converted to a "universal" device?

Or now that we have this carve out for "universal platforms" should Epic continue to pay the Apple 30% because it's a "gaming app"?

Your console carveout is completely arbitrary.

The judge in the case - an actual lawyer - disagrees with you.

Everyone knows judges and lawyers are widely respected among fisherman for their deep and nuanced understanding of bodies of water and the organisms that reside within them.

This argument is a fallacy as they all have assistants and do research before making their case/ruling. Replace tech and fishing with any activity you like and the fallacy remains and remains obvious as that.

If you think "a judge said [X] about tech issue [Y] so you should just take their word for it" is a valid way of arguing a point on HN, I don't know what to tell you :-)

That isn’t what I was arguing I’m arguing that it’s the job of judges and lawyers to be as informed as necessary and that they do their due diligence for each case. To pretend modern tech is an example of the one field where the people in charge of creating precedent can’t do that job is a fallacy.

Never did I say take their word for.

So if you don’t trust the court’s competence to decide legal matters around tech, why would you trust legislatures to pass laws? Are legislators smarter when it comes to tech?

[sarcasm noted]

I bet there are people on Law News somewhere who are silently reading HN shaking their heads about how the geeks don’t understand the nuances of the law....