What are your talking about? I suggested an alternative, didn't force anyone to do anything.

The thread is about stopping Apple and people being forced to buy Android.

Exactly, and I said that we have more than just two choices, i.e., stopping Apple does not force you to buy Android.

Yes, but it does force people not to buy what they want.

Adding another alternative doesn’t change that.

If you want Apple then an alternative will indeed not help you. If you don't want Android then the alternative provides an opportunity not to be forced into Android.

Sure, but as I said, that’s not what this thread was about.

I disagree. The original quote: "I really don't want to be forced to buy an Android phone". One can interpret it in a way that the person does not want to be forced into Android as the only alternative to Apple. In this case, my comment should be helpful.

You edited out the first sentence which read: “Please don’t stop them.”

Does this sentence change the meaning? The OP did not say they wanted Apple. They said they didn't want to be forced into Android. Of course, without Apple, in the absence of any other alternatives, you are forced into Android.

Yes it does. Clearly the OP wanted Apple, since otherwise they wouldn’t have made reference to ‘stopping Apple’ affecting them.

If they didn’t want Apple, they wouldn’t care if Apple was stopped.

No, it doesn't. The OP never said they wanted Apple. But without Apple you are forced into Android (because there's no other obvious choice) and this seems to be the problem.

In this explanation, you have neglected the meaning of the statement: “Please don’t stop them”.

Why would they care about Apple being stopped if they didn’t want Apple?

For your explanation to make sense you need to account for the meaning of both sentences of the paragraph the OP wrote.

> Why would they care about Apple being stopped if they didn’t want Apple?

Because without Apple you only have Android.

Sure, but if they didn’t want Apple this would be irrelevant.

If you don’t want Apple, you only have Android regardless of whether Apple is stopped or not.

That sentence is relevant to the meaning of the paragraph, and implies that they do want Apple.

> If you don’t want Apple, you only have Android regardless of whether Apple is stopped or not.

No, there are also GNU/Linux phones.

Quoting you: “Because without Apple you only have Android.”

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25350315

Yes, unless you know about alternatives. This is why I commented in the first place.

Right, but both of us believe that the OP didn’t know about the alternatives, so they clearly were saying they did want Apple.

If you want to claim that they would change their mind about wanting Apple if they knew about the alternatives, that is unlikely but not impossible.

However when they made the comment, they clearly did want Apple because otherwise they wouldn’t have cared about whether anyone ‘stopped Apple’.

They might also choose Apple, since otherwise it would be Android (i.e., even worse). Apple has a lot of drawbacks too after all. This is not what I would consider "wanting", it's a forced choice (just like choosing Android when Apple is "stopped" would be).

That’s not a real distinction.

There are always a finite number of platforms to choose from and they all always have drawbacks so any choice of platform can be arbitrarily deemed ‘forced’ by this logic.

The distinction therefore has no meaning, and doesn’t change the implication that the OP wanted Apple.

Duopoly is not the same as "a finite number of platforms to choose". Duopoly means both companies can restrict the rights of users and stay in business, despite the users may not like them.