The right compromise here is that if the government is going to "protect" the company from copyright infringement, and reverse engineering, and enforce the companies' patents, then the government also has the moral right to regulate the company for the benefit of the people.

Comments like yours seem to advocate a very beneficial situation for the companies where they have all protections, all authority, without any responsibilities.

If your serious about getting the government out, including out of copyright and patents, then let's talk. Until then, let's regulate these companies.

> If your serious about getting the government out, including out of copyright and patents, then let's talk. Until then, let's regulate these companies.

I'm all for eliminating all government privileges and cronyism (which are really rights violations of the competition). In this world, there is no way we're going to get a grand bargain where all things will simultaneously change in that way. For each proposed change, ask whether we increase or decrease natural rights (especially to life and property). "Intellectual" property is a creation wholly new in human history before a few hundred years ago. Property in land and goods goes back to evolutionary times: it's basic territoriality, and respecting that keeps the peace. Free trade is the way forward to widespread prosperity.

Wouldn't being required to release hardware specs support that healthy competition though? I'm sure the market will eventually settle on the better product either way, but it will happen faster if systems are documented and interoperable enough that people can easily switch to a better competitor. Companies withholding data that would let consumers make better decisions, or deliberately making their systems incompatible, is anti-competitive and wasteful.

Of course, people having control over the hardware and software that rule their lives is a net increase in natural rights. There is absolutely no natural justification for "intellectual property", since this travesty runs absolutely contrary to actual property -- physical property cannot be freely duplicated, whereas intellectual property in most cases cannot be used without being duplicated in some form -- its knowledge is generally enough to do so. All this to enforce laws that terribly hinder free-market, while being abusively enforced by the violence of government? Something smells fishy about this argument...

> For each proposed change, ask whether we increase or decrease natural rights (especially to life and property).

I asked myself and answered: Requiring companies to document their hardware for right-to-repair or right-to-utilize reasons has no effect on life, and some effect on property. It would give individuals more power over their own property - more power over their old school, physical possession, basic territoriality, property. The government protecting people's right to repair and utilize their physical possessions seems like a good thing.

At this point you seem, to me, to have reversed position. Are you now okay with requiring companies to document their APIs for the benefit of consumers (in some cases at least)?

Either way, this conversation is frustrating to me, and one I wont continue here (you're, of course, welcome to respond and debate with others). I'm frustrated because the "no regulation, no government" view hides a lot of nuance and shuts down conversations. It's so easy to throw out "no government" and so hard to talk past it, and I think this is one reason libertarian views like this often cause people to just roll their eyes and ignore. I'm sympathetic to a lot of libertarian ideas, but I wish people would give more acknowledgement to why people want regulation (in this case) before a drive-by "no government please" comment.

> Property in land and goods goes back to evolutionary times: it's basic territoriality, and respecting that keeps the peace.

This basically boils down to an argument in strict favour of primacy, which doesn't strike me as as any more obviously moral than alternatives

Not everything that would be a net benefit to society has enough people interested in it that they can control markets through their wallets.

> If the market is not serving you, then look in the mirror and pick your priorities.

Tell that to all the big banks bailed by the government.

Two wrongs don't make a right. Please don't use one travesty to justify another.

Instead answer to yourself, why I should have any right to dictate the standards of the goods you may knowingly and willingly purchase, and particularly when the consequences of your substandard purchase are born by you? Should I literally be able to force you to upgrade to a product with iFixit-approved repairability? Under what moral code is that legitimate? Protect people from themselves, i.e., I may treat you as my child?

> why I should have any right to dictate the standards of the goods you may knowingly and willingly purchase, and particularly when the consequences of your substandard purchase are born by you?

They are not born by me, as I personally have a very low influence on the market. Market is dictated by the masses, and masses are manipulated (nudged) by media, which is again controlled by the corporations.

Your argument of blaming individuals for bad choices masses make is deeply flawed and skewed in favor of corporations.

Because we live in a society, and our choices affect each other, and we have democratic systems in place to collectively decide on things? You'd have a point if you alone were deciding these standards as a dictator-for-life, but that's not how it works.

Markets by themselves tend to explore only spaces where large parts of the population take them. Because of limited information, most of us often prefer clear short term benefits over long term uncertain and often unclear benefits. Legislation is a good tool to, at least temporarely, force markets to explore parts of the state space they are extremely unlikely to explore by themselves.

Next up: Let market forces put your car insurance company into the business of ensuring you drive legally. Surely nothing can go wrong.