Class Action Lawsuit over Pixel 2 XL? Doubt it will turn into anything.
I read about this and I kind of laughed. I laughed even harder when Apple warned that iPhone X user may experience the exact same thing. Neither company is likely to get hit with a successful class action lawsuit.
The problem? It almost doesn't even matter if the allegations are true. This IS a known drawback of OLED screens.
Class action lawsuits are difficult to get through the courts and win in the first place. Obtaining a class action lawsuit over a known feature (even if an undesirable one) of a product where drawing the line between normal and defective is both subjective and hard to measure is, I would hope, border line impossible.
I don't own a Pixel 2 XL and I'm not really sure just how bad it actually is. I'm not trying to say I'm OK with people getting screwed over. What I am saying is that part of the legal system's ability to protect ordinary citizens and companies is by ensuring lawsuits cannot easily and frivolously be brought against anyone. And in this case, proving the damage is difficult, especially given that this is being brought forward as a class action lawsuit.
With a class action lawsuit, you cannot basically bring in one example of a supremely flawed device and decide "now I want anyone who complains about their screens to be able to get compensation". One bad device only proves that the manufacturing process isn't perfect. But that is what warranty is there for. They would basically need to prove that Google intentionally sold a product it knew was so badly flawed that a large number of the devices would be considered defective right off the bat.
And like I said, everyone in the industry knows OLED screens do this. And anyone who did their research prior would have known this. It isn't important that the panels can suffer from image retention or screen burn in. What matters is whether or not the issue bad enough to objectively be considered faulty and widespread enough and whether or not it was done knowingly.
There isn't necessarily anything criminal about shipping a phone with terrible screens. Not even at $1000. And it is possible to do so unknowingly. But the problem is Google has a return policy and the phones have warranties and Google also needs to be allowed to offer recalls or other reparations if they weren't intentionally doing this. Google can also mitigate the damage through software updates. Perhaps even to a point which take the phone from being considered obviously defective to acceptable.
At the end of the day, I haven't read a single report claiming the problems are so bad as to render the device inoperable. A number of people have certainly said that they can't justify the price for the quality of the screen. But that is an entirely different argument than saying it is so bad that it could be considered defective. At the end of the day, if the screen alone makes it not worth the price... don't buy it. If you bought it already, return it. If you think yours is worse than described, try to get it replaced under warranty. None of these are great answers, but they are perfectly valid.
I think, if I were to post this on Twitter I'd simply link to an article about the proposed class action lawsuit followed by: #firstworldlawsuits.
At the end of the day, this class action lawsuit threat basically says "we want to sue Google because we bought a luxury device that isn't luxurious enough and couldn't bring ourselves to return it". I have zero motivation to defend Google (or their phone manufacturers). If you don't believe look back to my posts on Oracle vs. Google. I try to side with what makes sense to me.
The problem? It almost doesn't even matter if the allegations are true. This IS a known drawback of OLED screens.
Class action lawsuits are difficult to get through the courts and win in the first place. Obtaining a class action lawsuit over a known feature (even if an undesirable one) of a product where drawing the line between normal and defective is both subjective and hard to measure is, I would hope, border line impossible.
I don't own a Pixel 2 XL and I'm not really sure just how bad it actually is. I'm not trying to say I'm OK with people getting screwed over. What I am saying is that part of the legal system's ability to protect ordinary citizens and companies is by ensuring lawsuits cannot easily and frivolously be brought against anyone. And in this case, proving the damage is difficult, especially given that this is being brought forward as a class action lawsuit.
With a class action lawsuit, you cannot basically bring in one example of a supremely flawed device and decide "now I want anyone who complains about their screens to be able to get compensation". One bad device only proves that the manufacturing process isn't perfect. But that is what warranty is there for. They would basically need to prove that Google intentionally sold a product it knew was so badly flawed that a large number of the devices would be considered defective right off the bat.
And like I said, everyone in the industry knows OLED screens do this. And anyone who did their research prior would have known this. It isn't important that the panels can suffer from image retention or screen burn in. What matters is whether or not the issue bad enough to objectively be considered faulty and widespread enough and whether or not it was done knowingly.
There isn't necessarily anything criminal about shipping a phone with terrible screens. Not even at $1000. And it is possible to do so unknowingly. But the problem is Google has a return policy and the phones have warranties and Google also needs to be allowed to offer recalls or other reparations if they weren't intentionally doing this. Google can also mitigate the damage through software updates. Perhaps even to a point which take the phone from being considered obviously defective to acceptable.
At the end of the day, I haven't read a single report claiming the problems are so bad as to render the device inoperable. A number of people have certainly said that they can't justify the price for the quality of the screen. But that is an entirely different argument than saying it is so bad that it could be considered defective. At the end of the day, if the screen alone makes it not worth the price... don't buy it. If you bought it already, return it. If you think yours is worse than described, try to get it replaced under warranty. None of these are great answers, but they are perfectly valid.
I think, if I were to post this on Twitter I'd simply link to an article about the proposed class action lawsuit followed by: #firstworldlawsuits.
At the end of the day, this class action lawsuit threat basically says "we want to sue Google because we bought a luxury device that isn't luxurious enough and couldn't bring ourselves to return it". I have zero motivation to defend Google (or their phone manufacturers). If you don't believe look back to my posts on Oracle vs. Google. I try to side with what makes sense to me.
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