6 ms·

Apple just wants to be exclusive gateway to Apple customers. We are a product to both companies, even if Apple appears the lesser evil.

dimitrios1 6y ago
Except Apple doesn't track you all across the internet at every possible opportunity without you knowing about it.
- lisper 6y ago
  Not yet. But they could start any time they wanted to. Who would save you then?
  - S_A_P 6y ago
    Facebook is a problem now. Apple is not that we know of. Why deflect with hypothetical scenarios?
  - GeekyBear 6y ago
    Just as Facebook and Google could openly start selling all the information they have collected at any time? I mean, it goes against the business model they operate under, but they could, right?
  - robflynn 6y ago
    Okay, but so could anyone. I'm not sure your point here? They're clearly at least trying to move in the opposite direction and have been making those moves for some time now. Maybe they won't always go that way. Maybe they will. No one is saying they're our savior, though. No one is begging Apple to please save us.
  - user-the-name 6y ago
    See, it's a bit more persuasive if you criticise companies for things they are actually doing, rather than for things you imagine they could do.
  - tw04 6y ago
    >Who would save you then? Why would I need to be saved? I'll just buy a device from a different manufacturer. If there are literally no privacy-respecting options, and a majority of people think there should be one, either a company will form on its own, or constituents will make enough noise that the government will step in. If not in the US, the EU still seems to have some basic respect for the rights of their citizens.
  - sonotathrowaway 6y ago
    This is the literal definition of a strawman argument, isn’t it?
    - lisper 6y ago
      No. A straw-man is arguing against a position other than the one that your interlocutor is actually taking. This is a hypothetical, not a straw man.
  - hobs 6y ago
    Not Facebook so what's your point? The enemy of my enemy isnt my friend, but I might smile as they land a good punch.
- williesleg 6y ago
  That's funny I just shot coffee out my nose!
shawnz 6y ago
In this case the incentives led to an action with a positive impact for the user, so we should keep up those incentives regardless of which corporation ends up capitalizing on them.
Nextgrid 6y ago
Apple's incentives appear aligned with their customers. Facebook's are completely opposed.
- jpmattia 6y ago
  > Apple's incentives appear aligned with their customers. ... which is really no mystery, because Apple users are customers, and Facebook users are product.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- drewvolpe 6y ago
  "You're Apple's customer and Facebook's product" is often repeated but completely true in this case. It's all about incentives. Apple makes money by selling more products which means they innovate by making Watches, Earpods, M1, etc. Facebook makes money by selling your attention and data, which meants they innovate by extracting data from every experience they can (Oculus, Whatsapp, ...), using more complex technologies (Facebook AI), and encouraging whatever behaviors create more ad spend (hint: outrage). Add in the fact that Apple has made privacy a core part of their brand promise and it means that Apple has strong incentives to protect their customers in a way that most companies, especially Facebook, do not.
  - paulgb 6y ago
    Also, you literally are Apple’s product to their iOS developer ecosystem, in the sense that developers fork over 30% of their revenue to Apple for access to you.
    - Spivak 6y ago
      This is absolutely true. Both companies play the game of selling customer acquisition. But we seem to be generally more okay with middlemen squeezing a two sided market. Sometimes. If it’s DoorDash or Amazon then public opinion seems to go the other way. But regardless it’s not Facebook’s value prop to business that people have an issue with but ya know, how they actually deliver it.
mhoad 6y ago
You know it really isn’t that obvious to me at all and I think Facebook is a genuine cancer on society. But everyone seems to conveniently forget about the absolute moral nightmare that is Apple’s supply chain. Remember when they had to put up nets to stop people from killing themselves? [1] What about when they were accused of using literal slave labour? [2] Or the time they actively lobbied Congress when a vote came up to restrict American companies using slave labour [3] I don’t say this as a shit post, I mean it, it’s really not at all clear to me that Apple are somehow morally less reprehensible. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-human-cost-of-an-iphone/2018/03/02/5d76555e-0b7e-11e8-8890-372e2047c935_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-human-cost-of-an-... [2] https://www.aspi.org.au/report/uyghurs-sale https://www.aspi.org.au/report/uyghurs-sale [3] https://www.axios.com/apple-lobbied-congress-uyghur-slave-labor-china-daf5a4b1-55ed-493c-a243-85f64db2adf9.html https://www.axios.com/apple-lobbied-congress-uyghur-slave-la... For the record... this posted from an iPhone. I got rid of the MacBook already but it’s a process.
- simonh 6y ago
  If you cared about ethical treatment of labour in China, presumably you’d prefer to buy products from a company that rigorously audited its supply chain, excluded suppliers they caught violating it, ensured workers were paid above average industry wages and had below average suicide rates in their suppliers, right? Presumably if you were going to criticise companies using Chinese suppliers, a company like that wouldn’t be top of your list. Or is there something else going on here?
  - mhoad 6y ago
    I don't know why people are like this. You can be pro human rights and also not dedicate your entire life to supply chain audits. I'm making a point that the largest company in the world not only does so but actively took steps to ensure they wouldn't be legally prevented from doing so in the future.
    - simonh 6y ago
      This is not correct, I've seen it said here several times so I looked into it. Apple lobbied for some amendments to the act on the grounds of practicality but did not oppose it and said they thought it should become law.
simonh 6y ago
If Apple genuinely though that, you’d expect them to be selling access to their customer data to the highest bidder, but they aren’t. In fact they were offered billions of dollars in revenue by Google for customer location data in Google Maps. Apple turned it down and instead spent billions of dollars and several years building Apple Maps instead.
- executive 6y ago
  But they'll gladly take ~$12 Bn/year to have Google as Safari default search provider.
  - simonh 6y ago
    Well, they still need a search provider, a lot of people would change it to Google anyway. Arguably locking down the browser to limit tracking as much as possible is reasonable even though it potentially makes that Google deal less lucrative. If they were intent on monetising users data, you’d expect them to make a deal with Google to allow tracking in Safari in exchange for a higher fee for default search. In other words they don’t seem to be doing any of the things We would expect to see if this theory was correct.
    - mgreg 6y ago
      But apple (and Android) allowing search providers to bid/buy that default spot is a barrier to entry for new search providers and only makes the dominant search provider stronger. How could a new Google emerge today when people lazily accept the default? When Google started there was not built in browser default - users had to manually type in altavista.com or google.com.
      - simonh 6y ago
        A big company like Coca Cola being able to buy huge advertising campaigns is a barrier to entry for new Cola makers. I suppose there are cases where buying or selling placement might be unethical, but I don't see it here. For example for a long time Google funded Firefox by buying a place as the search default. Was that unethical by Mozilla?

dimitrios1 6y ago

Except Apple doesn't track you all across the internet at every possible opportunity without you knowing about it.

lisper 6y ago
Not yet. But they could start any time they wanted to. Who would save you then?
- S_A_P 6y ago
  Facebook is a problem now. Apple is not that we know of. Why deflect with hypothetical scenarios?
- GeekyBear 6y ago
  Just as Facebook and Google could openly start selling all the information they have collected at any time? I mean, it goes against the business model they operate under, but they could, right?
- robflynn 6y ago
  Okay, but so could anyone. I'm not sure your point here? They're clearly at least trying to move in the opposite direction and have been making those moves for some time now. Maybe they won't always go that way. Maybe they will. No one is saying they're our savior, though. No one is begging Apple to please save us.
- user-the-name 6y ago
  See, it's a bit more persuasive if you criticise companies for things they are actually doing, rather than for things you imagine they could do.
- tw04 6y ago
  >Who would save you then? Why would I need to be saved? I'll just buy a device from a different manufacturer. If there are literally no privacy-respecting options, and a majority of people think there should be one, either a company will form on its own, or constituents will make enough noise that the government will step in. If not in the US, the EU still seems to have some basic respect for the rights of their citizens.
- sonotathrowaway 6y ago
  This is the literal definition of a strawman argument, isn’t it?
  - lisper 6y ago
    No. A straw-man is arguing against a position other than the one that your interlocutor is actually taking. This is a hypothetical, not a straw man.
- hobs 6y ago
  Not Facebook so what's your point? The enemy of my enemy isnt my friend, but I might smile as they land a good punch.
williesleg 6y ago
That's funny I just shot coffee out my nose!

shawnz 6y ago

In this case the incentives led to an action with a positive impact for the user, so we should keep up those incentives regardless of which corporation ends up capitalizing on them.

Nextgrid 6y ago

Apple's incentives appear aligned with their customers. Facebook's are completely opposed.

jpmattia 6y ago
> Apple's incentives appear aligned with their customers. ... which is really no mystery, because Apple users are customers, and Facebook users are product.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
drewvolpe 6y ago
"You're Apple's customer and Facebook's product" is often repeated but completely true in this case. It's all about incentives. Apple makes money by selling more products which means they innovate by making Watches, Earpods, M1, etc. Facebook makes money by selling your attention and data, which meants they innovate by extracting data from every experience they can (Oculus, Whatsapp, ...), using more complex technologies (Facebook AI), and encouraging whatever behaviors create more ad spend (hint: outrage). Add in the fact that Apple has made privacy a core part of their brand promise and it means that Apple has strong incentives to protect their customers in a way that most companies, especially Facebook, do not.
- paulgb 6y ago
  Also, you literally are Apple’s product to their iOS developer ecosystem, in the sense that developers fork over 30% of their revenue to Apple for access to you.
  - Spivak 6y ago
    This is absolutely true. Both companies play the game of selling customer acquisition. But we seem to be generally more okay with middlemen squeezing a two sided market. Sometimes. If it’s DoorDash or Amazon then public opinion seems to go the other way. But regardless it’s not Facebook’s value prop to business that people have an issue with but ya know, how they actually deliver it.

mhoad 6y ago

You know it really isn’t that obvious to me at all and I think Facebook is a genuine cancer on society. But everyone seems to conveniently forget about the absolute moral nightmare that is Apple’s supply chain. Remember when they had to put up nets to stop people from killing themselves? [1] What about when they were accused of using literal slave labour? [2] Or the time they actively lobbied Congress when a vote came up to restrict American companies using slave labour [3] I don’t say this as a shit post, I mean it, it’s really not at all clear to me that Apple are somehow morally less reprehensible. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-human-cost-of-an-iphone/2018/03/02/5d76555e-0b7e-11e8-8890-372e2047c935_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-human-cost-of-an-... [2] https://www.aspi.org.au/report/uyghurs-sale https://www.aspi.org.au/report/uyghurs-sale [3] https://www.axios.com/apple-lobbied-congress-uyghur-slave-labor-china-daf5a4b1-55ed-493c-a243-85f64db2adf9.html https://www.axios.com/apple-lobbied-congress-uyghur-slave-la... For the record... this posted from an iPhone. I got rid of the MacBook already but it’s a process.

simonh 6y ago
If you cared about ethical treatment of labour in China, presumably you’d prefer to buy products from a company that rigorously audited its supply chain, excluded suppliers they caught violating it, ensured workers were paid above average industry wages and had below average suicide rates in their suppliers, right? Presumably if you were going to criticise companies using Chinese suppliers, a company like that wouldn’t be top of your list. Or is there something else going on here?
- mhoad 6y ago
  I don't know why people are like this. You can be pro human rights and also not dedicate your entire life to supply chain audits. I'm making a point that the largest company in the world not only does so but actively took steps to ensure they wouldn't be legally prevented from doing so in the future.
  - simonh 6y ago
    This is not correct, I've seen it said here several times so I looked into it. Apple lobbied for some amendments to the act on the grounds of practicality but did not oppose it and said they thought it should become law.

simonh 6y ago

If Apple genuinely though that, you’d expect them to be selling access to their customer data to the highest bidder, but they aren’t. In fact they were offered billions of dollars in revenue by Google for customer location data in Google Maps. Apple turned it down and instead spent billions of dollars and several years building Apple Maps instead.

executive 6y ago
But they'll gladly take ~$12 Bn/year to have Google as Safari default search provider.
- simonh 6y ago
  Well, they still need a search provider, a lot of people would change it to Google anyway. Arguably locking down the browser to limit tracking as much as possible is reasonable even though it potentially makes that Google deal less lucrative. If they were intent on monetising users data, you’d expect them to make a deal with Google to allow tracking in Safari in exchange for a higher fee for default search. In other words they don’t seem to be doing any of the things We would expect to see if this theory was correct.
  - mgreg 6y ago
    But apple (and Android) allowing search providers to bid/buy that default spot is a barrier to entry for new search providers and only makes the dominant search provider stronger. How could a new Google emerge today when people lazily accept the default? When Google started there was not built in browser default - users had to manually type in altavista.com or google.com.
    - simonh 6y ago
      A big company like Coca Cola being able to buy huge advertising campaigns is a barrier to entry for new Cola makers. I suppose there are cases where buying or selling placement might be unethical, but I don't see it here. For example for a long time Google funded Firefox by buying a place as the search default. Was that unethical by Mozilla?