This is true for any non E2E encrypted solution. Even using something like NextCloud, without E2E encryption enabled, on a small VPS provider would meet the sam

This is true for any non E2E encrypted solution. Even using something like NextCloud, without E2E encryption enabled, on a small VPS provider would meet the same fate, except that Apple can afford resisting unreasonable requests and is far less likely to be cracked, the small VPS provider would likely have to shut down if they didn't comply and you would probably be completely unaware of them being cracked until the effects of the attack are evident. Plus the fact that these things happen with such popular products increases the problem's visibility (look at the score of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25074959 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25074959, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25073010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25073010 and this) and is the most likely way to drive some change in the long run. I find the idea of telling people, even technically capable ones, to "just start using Linux" laughable. First of all because to reach the same level of popularity, usability and availability of "good" 3rd party apps would require a company to start selling "good" prebuilt hardware with a "good", polished distribution preinstalled. Once such company becomes big enough it would still have to give in to requests from authorities such as the FBI. And if this company happened to be non American there would probably be a ban on importing these devices. So unless you want people to seriously purchase "libre" laptops and install a "libre" distro without ever coming into contact with any popular cloud service providers, you're out of luck. Second because I was an Ubuntu and Debian user and advocate for years during and a bit after college. Then I had the chance to work with a MacBook and there is absolutely no freaking way I'm going back to that mess. Just recently I had a colleague upgrade Debian and have an unusable paperweight because something broke with the bootloader or whatever. Had to flash a brand new image on a USB stick for him, on my Macbook...I buy my devices because I want to work with them, not on them. There might be some hope with companies such as Purism (https://puri.sm https://puri.sm) but there is really no reason to think they wouldn't end up just like Apple (or worse) should they ever start offering cloud storage services. Because the problem here is not technical, it's social and political. Even here in the EU we now have folks pushing for ending E2E encryption or placing backdoors. If that becomes reality any privacy friendly software will be outlawed. In short: this isn't a problem that individual for profit companies can or should solve. But it helps when a behemoth like Apple is involved. EDIT: looks like the EU is simply setting up a sort of "task force" to discuss options when it comes to lawful access of supposedly encrypted data. The outcome might very well be that they conclude there is no way to support both strong encryption (which is one of the pillars of the document btw) and backdoors. Probably just to show they are doing "something".