Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

Re:Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African w... by tshaddox on Wednesday August 25, 2021 @12:26AM (#28298043)

Of course it does, because “popular” in the original example was referring to their ubiquity and lack of over viable alternatives. An example of a once-dominant product that appears to be losing in the market to a fast-rising new alternative is not analogous.

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Re:Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African w... by nicce on Wednesday August 25, 2021 @12:39PM (#28303742)

Argument goes then more for “is this scenario possible at all for term ‘popular’?”, when it certainly is. Example was just weak.

Another example could be, why driving a car is “too popular” on country side to move between places. It might be popular, because there is no public transportation. Is the situation same with public transportation? Can we call it popular, because it is forced?

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Re:Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African w... by tshaddox on Wednesday August 25, 2021 @03:37PM (#28305924)

The whole point is that there's a difference between saying that the popularity of a product can be caused by the lack of what would be a viable alternative (like your example of public transportation versus cars), and saying that the popularity of one feature of a product is caused by the lack of alternatives that do not have that feature. The latter is more like saying "the popularity of 4-wheeled personal automobiles is caused by the lack of 3-wheeled personal automobiles on the market" or "the popularity of touchscreen smart phones is caused by the lack of smartphones with physical keyboards on the market."

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