> You have no legal cause of action if the company is refunding your purchase of the device in full [snip]

You absolutely do. Companies who sold you something do not have the right to steal it back in exchange for a refund. Its your device, the transaction has been made, they are out of luck. They can offer you 10000x the price you originally bought it for and you are still free to decline.

Of course, this (and basically all law surrounding ownership) applies to things and not services, and charitably I assume that these devices are stopping working because an online service is stopping working, and not because Google randomly decided to hack into your device and break it in plain violation of the law, but let's not pretend that "giving a refund" is a generally acceptable solution.

And of course... if you have a contract with North (now Google) guaranteeing that they will provide the service indefinitely, and that contract doesn't include a term allowing Google to stop providing the service, you could still sue for injunctive relief requiring them to continue running the service. I assume you don't just because most companies aren't stupid enough to give out such contracts.

> You absolutely do not. Legal damages are measured in monetary terms, and your putative damages are the amount you paid for the good. If the company refunds that in full, you have no legal cause of action; moreover, you are likely to end up owing the company for the legal fees they incur in defending themselves.

Monetary damages are not measured in purchase cost, but replacement cost.

There are also punitive damages.

There is also jail time (if/when a prosecutor decides to charge the individuals involved).

> You can certainly do so. And the court will almost immediately toss out any case you may file against the company.

I think you're missing the important part where you are still the legal owner of the property. The judge will order them to return the property and the local prosecutor will charge them with possession of stolen goods.

> The primary remedy provided by the court system is monetary not equitable

Specific performance is a common form of remedy when damages would be hard to calculate (such as in this situation).

Moreover the monetary damages are not calculated based on the initial cost of the services (which may have been sold at a discount), but the damages at the current time (which may be substantially higher, or lower).

> Moreover, under centuries of US and British law, any contract that has an "indefinite" length is merely deemed to have a "reasonable" length. Courts have invalidated contracts that attempted to bind one or both parties for infinite terms.

You're not wrong, but "months or a few years" would not be past the "reasonable" limit in this case.

You're right: monetary damages are measured in replacement cost...based on the depreciated value of the item to be replaced. Meaning, less than the value you originally paid.

Jail time wouldn't apply in this case, and I don't know why you think it would unless you can cite a violation of criminal law.

The judge will order them to return the property and the local prosecutor will charge them with possession of stolen goods.

??? You still possess the glasses. Nothing was stolen from you. The company is merely turning off their servers on their property.

Specific performance is a common form of remedy when damages would be hard to calculate (such as in this situation).

Specific performance is a rare remedy, and would never be imposed when monetary damages are easy to calculate, as they are in this situation: you paid X for glasses, so X are your damages.

Moreover the monetary damages are not calculated based on the initial cost of the services (which may have been sold at a discount), but the damages at the current time (which may be substantially higher, or lower).

??? Monetary damages are based on reasonable damages for relying on a service, and moreover require damaged party to attempt to minimize damages by finding alternative services. I'm not aware of any unique service provided by the North glasses that could not be replicated through other devices and services.

> ??? You still possess the glasses. Nothing was stolen from you. The company is merely turning off their servers on their property.

Which hypothetical are we talking about, in every hypothetical involving replacement cost the device was either

- Stolen, this would fall under your local theft statute.

- Destroyed via an over the air update, this would fall under your local destruction of property statute, and would arguably fall under the CFAA federally in the US (I assume there is a similar Canadian law).

Notably neither of these hypotheticals are the other hypothetical (and as I said previously likely what actually happened) of them turning off online services.

> Specific performance is a rare remedy, and would never be imposed when monetary damages are easy to calculate, as they are in this situation: you paid X for glasses, so X are your damages.

This is not the case. Specific performance is a common remedy for unique devices/services that cannot be repurchased. Moreover "you paid X so your damages are X" is simply incorrect. It is "you cannot repurchase the services at this time so your damages are entirely unclear". If the company sold the services at less than the cost of the services (which is the logical implication of them deciding it is cheaper to attempt to refund you instead of continuing to run the servers), that is their problem not yours (under the assumption that you have a contract requiring them to continue to provide it).