Ask HN: Any legal way against forced software upgrades and feature removal

I think you forgot the /s tag? As a longtime android user, google is one of the worst offenders in this. One of the recent OS updates broke my bluetooth connection to my car, and that was the only new "feature" that I noticed.

Both platforms have their own problems unique to them, but both platforms do share this issue.

This is the so called "enshittification" that's happening market wide. Vendor lock in sucks -- regardless whether it's Amazon, AWS, Apple or 1Password.

The only real solution is to take your money and go elsewhere. Stop buying Apple products, say.

Hell, I've even experienced vendor lock-in on FOSS products when the program crippled something I needed to use, or refused to fix an issue that caused me hours of tedious work-arounds. Or they decided to go closed source and go to a subscription model. (Their choice, but I'm not using it).

In America, almost certainly not, for a few reasons:

1. Almost every consumer agreement contains an arbitration clause. This means the number of consumers that actually can sue becomes incredibly small.

2. Security updates are real. In which case, let's say a company wants to add or remove a feature you may, or may not, want. If there was such an obligation to support exactly the same feature set, the company would be obliged to bring security patches to every major version of a software platform - which is possibly, technically, impossible. Imagine Apple being forced to provide individual security updates for iOS 15.4, 15.5, 15.6, 16.0, 16.1, 16.2... all the way back to iOS 11 I suppose. Most likely, this actually would slow down innovation. Let's make modern WebKit run on iOS 11 - what could go wrong?

3. Some features may need to be removed in the future due to patent lawsuits (like Apple vs Massimo removing the Blood Oxygen sensor in future models). Other times, the design of a system needs to be changed, or wireless compliance logos need to be updated, or radio strength needs to be reduced (Apple in France lawsuit), or so forth. There's also public interest reasons for updates - for example, if a flaw was found in iOS that allows bypassing anti-theft locks. There's also legitimate corporate interests in the eyes of the law - like fixing a copy protection loophole. There's also features in a platform that have recurring costs and licensing from third parties, that may expire [1]. Then what?

4. As much as we gripe about Apple and 1Password, they are really the exception to the rule right now. The main problem that legislators are concerned about is that most devices don't get updated, particularly cheap IoT devices or Android phones after a few years. Putting new rules on getting updates out is the opposite of the public interest concern at the moment.

[1] Edit for this hypothetical: Imagine that your music player shows cover art. That's almost always provided by a company called Gracenote and it requires a license. Let's say a manufacturer's device, 8 years down the road, has that license expire. Is that reasonable, or does Gracenote need to be paid for, by the manufacturer, forever, for using their API? It's removing a feature "you paid for" if it goes away. You can see how this becomes sticky quickly.

Roku is the worst thing to happen to TVs since motion smoothing.

Let’s please not turn this into a flamewar. There are dozens of reasons to not use Android, like there are dozens of reasons to use it. It’s a personal choice. When someone asks “how can I avoid this one thing”, the answer isn’t “switch to this alternative which has seventeen different problems you’ll dislike more”.

The OP is asking a question on Hacker News. Surely they have heard of Android. They might even use it, since the given example concerns macOS, to which Android isn’t an alternative in the slightest.