7 ms·

As a lifelong public servant, welcome to the ungrateful side of life. If you're providing a service to the public with the hopes of their gratitude, you will be

As a lifelong public servant, welcome to the ungrateful side of life. If you're providing a service to the public with the hopes of their gratitude, you will be sad. Do it for the same reason you change your baby's diaper: you love them and it needs doing. They might take pleasure in pissing on you while you're doing it, but this thing you love will be better off afterward.

the_gipsy 6y ago
Let's not compare apple to a public institution. What apple does is in the interest of the shareholders and nothing else.
- spdustin 6y ago
  Perhaps the institutional shareholders have Apple holdings precisely because their privacy-centric practices increase their stability, independence, and profit—without having to sell out their customers.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - sumedh 6y ago
    No, they hold it just to get a return on their investment.
- mrlala 6y ago
  >What apple does is in the interest of the shareholders and nothing else Honestly what is with this attitude? Yeah, I get it.. you took a business class and learned that everything a company does should be to maximize shareholder value. But welcome to the real world. Sure the company wants to make money, but they also want to provide a valuable service. Yeah sometimes making money gets in the way with the best product they could offer. But it's people making the decisions of what to make. It's people who use the software (let's say osx/ios) that want to make it better. It's developers who sit there are think how can they improve this feature so it's great for people.
- etherealG 6y ago
  Actually I think the comparison is a good one, but mostly due to governments acting in their own interest rather than the interest of the people :)
weq 6y ago
Apple isnt a public company. Apply lives for profit. Apple is positioning themselves stratergically. Contact tracing is a vector for profit. If the government doesnt misuse your data, Apple will, by proxy, buy training there AIs on your datas. Sure the AIs will start out "for the purpose of good" but at some point they will be leveraged for the "purpose of profit".
randomchars 6y ago
It's nice to have some people like you, but a significant amount of public servants I encountered visibly took pressure in making the life of other's miserable, and the processes as convoluted as possible.
- Larrikin 6y ago
  Some people in government want the government to succeed and make people's lives better. Some people in government want the government to fail in all ways besides keeping them and the people they like safe so they can personally benefit and pocket the tax savings on top.
  - andrekandre 6y ago
    > Some people in government want the government to fail in all ways besides keeping them and the people they like safe so they can personally benefit and pocket the tax savings on top. and its much easier to make something fail than it is to succeed, which is why voting for (and keeping) the right people is so importamt
- 72deluxe 6y ago
  Were they aware that the process was convoluted, or did they simply not realise how obtuse they were making it? I have worked with people who "designed" terrible systems or couldn't see that a system would never work, yet still attempted to operate it. It was like they were unaware of the dysfunctional state of it, yet it had to exist because their job was to "design".
choward 6y ago
Haha. Are you serious? Equating Apple with "public servants"? Probably the most naive thing I've ever seen.
- kristiandupont 6y ago
  This kind of dismissal of an analogy bothers me. It's quite common, most often just using the word comparing: "Are you seriously comparing this to ...???" Analogies are a great tool for clarifying similarities and no, that doesn't mean that situation A shares every virtue or vice with situation B. If so, it wouldn't be an analogy, it would be the same.
  - choward 6y ago
    Apple is a for profit corporation. They are literally the exact opposite of public servants.

the_gipsy 6y ago

Let's not compare apple to a public institution. What apple does is in the interest of the shareholders and nothing else.

spdustin 6y ago
Perhaps the institutional shareholders have Apple holdings precisely because their privacy-centric practices increase their stability, independence, and profit—without having to sell out their customers.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- sumedh 6y ago
  No, they hold it just to get a return on their investment.
mrlala 6y ago
>What apple does is in the interest of the shareholders and nothing else Honestly what is with this attitude? Yeah, I get it.. you took a business class and learned that everything a company does should be to maximize shareholder value. But welcome to the real world. Sure the company wants to make money, but they also want to provide a valuable service. Yeah sometimes making money gets in the way with the best product they could offer. But it's people making the decisions of what to make. It's people who use the software (let's say osx/ios) that want to make it better. It's developers who sit there are think how can they improve this feature so it's great for people.
etherealG 6y ago
Actually I think the comparison is a good one, but mostly due to governments acting in their own interest rather than the interest of the people :)

weq 6y ago

Apple isnt a public company. Apply lives for profit. Apple is positioning themselves stratergically. Contact tracing is a vector for profit. If the government doesnt misuse your data, Apple will, by proxy, buy training there AIs on your datas. Sure the AIs will start out "for the purpose of good" but at some point they will be leveraged for the "purpose of profit".

randomchars 6y ago

It's nice to have some people like you, but a significant amount of public servants I encountered visibly took pressure in making the life of other's miserable, and the processes as convoluted as possible.

Larrikin 6y ago
Some people in government want the government to succeed and make people's lives better. Some people in government want the government to fail in all ways besides keeping them and the people they like safe so they can personally benefit and pocket the tax savings on top.
- andrekandre 6y ago
  > Some people in government want the government to fail in all ways besides keeping them and the people they like safe so they can personally benefit and pocket the tax savings on top. and its much easier to make something fail than it is to succeed, which is why voting for (and keeping) the right people is so importamt
72deluxe 6y ago
Were they aware that the process was convoluted, or did they simply not realise how obtuse they were making it? I have worked with people who "designed" terrible systems or couldn't see that a system would never work, yet still attempted to operate it. It was like they were unaware of the dysfunctional state of it, yet it had to exist because their job was to "design".

choward 6y ago

Haha. Are you serious? Equating Apple with "public servants"? Probably the most naive thing I've ever seen.

kristiandupont 6y ago
This kind of dismissal of an analogy bothers me. It's quite common, most often just using the word comparing: "Are you seriously comparing this to ...???" Analogies are a great tool for clarifying similarities and no, that doesn't mean that situation A shares every virtue or vice with situation B. If so, it wouldn't be an analogy, it would be the same.
- choward 6y ago
  Apple is a for profit corporation. They are literally the exact opposite of public servants.