4 ms·

Why do you keep writing "EFF / govt" as if they are somehow equivalent or related? The EFF are a non-profit that has nothing to do with the US or any other gov

Why do you keep writing "EFF / govt" as if they are somehow equivalent or related? The EFF are a non-profit that has nothing to do with the US or any other government. They have no power to do a "fairer job", they're an advocacy group, not a regulator. That's like complaining that Greenpeace haven't set decent climate change policy.

onphonenow 4y ago
Because the EFF reliably argues that what apple is doing is "bad" and we should open things up so default (govt) laws apply instead of the apple walled garden rules. What has happened is apple has taken on things that EFF / govt have failed to succeed at in the broader internet / app / tech space. They are leveraging their market power to demand concessions that users would NEVER get negotiating individually, and that govt has completely ignored in the online marketplace world. These are things as simple as crystal clear trial terms where ongoing monthly cost is in EXACT same font as promo rates and much more. Why isn't that the rule everywhere? Even if it was the rule, where is the enforcement? We see overseas call center scammers ripping off folks blatantly day and night - crickets. So the moralizing from these folks who seem to do nothing to solve real programs is tiresome. The market is speaking, and it's away from trust in govt and eff and into trust in Apple with correspondingly insane profit margins to apple as trust is substituted. I'm not saying this is a good thing, but I'd like to see a LOT more done by govt against MANY MANY pure online scams and bad behavior. Instead, EFF and the govt are fixated on folks like apple that frankly are showing the EFF up horribly by creating spaces online that users like. And yes, that includes the CSAM content stuff that EFF freaked out about. Average users will WANT these controls for their kids etc.
- simondotau 4y ago
  My trust of Apple is derived from observing how they make money. Applying the same analysis, I can't say the same for the US Government or my own country's government. Or even the EFF, which (and I realise this is a controversial thing to say) does NOT have any economic incentive to protect my privacy.
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  > The market is speaking, and it's away from trust in govt and eff and into trust in Apple with correspondingly insane profit margins to apple as trust is substituted. That's not how the market works. Consumers don't like, choose to funnel donations away from the EFF/taxes away from the government to Apple on the basis of "trust" in terms of all of this specific debate on privacy and the walled garden.
  - onphonenow 4y ago
    But that is what they are doing. They don't feel safe in the EFF / govt controlled internet at large. They are constantly ripped off, scam called, misled and hassled elsewhere. Everything from lying promo offers that jump hugely after X days, hard to cancel subscriptions and endless bad behavior such as spam calls / texts and emails and mail with misleading headlines (urgent: last chance). Our representatives are no better. I donated to the "defenders of rights" the democrats last cycle. You are SCREWED if you do this, you CANNOT get off their mailing list, because they resell your name 100x - your rights, in practice, are FAR secondary to their need for power and your money. They epitomize horrible behavior as they preach about tech CEO's, it's totally pathetic. More on the dems good behavior here: https://medium.com/@jjdanek/ngp-van-and-the-endless-deluge-of-political-spam-email-a10f05255531 https://medium.com/@jjdanek/ngp-van-and-the-endless-deluge-o... I'm sure republicans are no better, but I don't donate to them so have no clue. So yes, when it comes to user trust, folks are picking a corporation (Apple) vs their govt reps (dems and republicans). What you learn in business is TRUST is literally the highest margin product you can have. You can sell the EXACT same product, but if you are trusted, you can charge more, the value of a trusted brand is huge. And apple has a trusted brand on metrics that matter to most users (and hated by scammers trying to exploit them). Folks like match.com are exploiters with a TON of scam / dark behavior in their playbook, even as they fight apple for "users". And apple knows this. Here is something interesting - when Apple sponsors something, because their brand is so strong, they often don't have a nonprofit announce their sponsorship AT ALL. They don't need the brand buff. So you won't (normally) see titles like "The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, powered by ExxonMobil" with Apple as a sponsor.
    - hyperdimension 4y ago
simondotau 4y ago
As an "advocacy group" Greenpeace actively and aggressively campaign against nuclear power with a fervour that they don't even apply to campaigns against fossil fuel power, despite it (coal in particular) being many orders of magnitude worse than nuclear on every environmental metric. I'm not usually prone to conspiracy theorising, but if I were Russia in the 2000s and 2010s, I'd be throwing lots of money at Greenpeace to get France, Germany etc to shut down their nuclear energy programs.
- cgrealy 4y ago
  Which has absolutely nothing to do with the point at hand. Whether you agree or disagree with this stance is completely irrelevant. My point was that Greenpeace don't make environmental policy, the same way the EFF does not write privacy legislation.
  - simondotau 4y ago
    I think the line between making and influencing policy is blurrier than you are inferring. Furthermore, it's important to appreciate that reality on the ground isn't just defined by legislation, it's also defined by a desire by private entities to avoid visible, distracting clashes with entities like Greenpeace.
    - cgrealy 4y ago
      That argument could be made in the case of massive monied lobbying, like the NRA, the fossil fuel industry, medical insurance, etc, but neither Greenpeace nor the EFF have anything like that kind of clout. The government (especially in the US) are perfectly happy to go against Greenpeace or the EFF. In fact, it’s a badge of honour for a subset of idiot on the right (“drill baby drill”, etc)
- onphonenow 4y ago
  Actually, they also go against apple pretty hard, but if you look at Apple phones for example relative to the markeplace at large, the mfg's from other companies have much worse records on almost every measure (social, child labor, privacy, enviro) and greenpeace doesn't say a peep. So it's clearly at times a weird attention / marketing thing more than any real analysis of the relative strength of phone brands in various dimensions. The irony of the Greenpeace anti-apple stuff is in terms of secondary markets and device support, apple historically has crushed competitors. This has pretty significant impacts on things like waste - the folks Greenpeace say nothing on basically drop support when device ships, and sometimes ships with outdated software to start. Apple is on the relative other end of spectrum there. So it's seriously kind of weird.

onphonenow 4y ago

Because the EFF reliably argues that what apple is doing is "bad" and we should open things up so default (govt) laws apply instead of the apple walled garden rules. What has happened is apple has taken on things that EFF / govt have failed to succeed at in the broader internet / app / tech space. They are leveraging their market power to demand concessions that users would NEVER get negotiating individually, and that govt has completely ignored in the online marketplace world. These are things as simple as crystal clear trial terms where ongoing monthly cost is in EXACT same font as promo rates and much more. Why isn't that the rule everywhere? Even if it was the rule, where is the enforcement? We see overseas call center scammers ripping off folks blatantly day and night - crickets. So the moralizing from these folks who seem to do nothing to solve real programs is tiresome. The market is speaking, and it's away from trust in govt and eff and into trust in Apple with correspondingly insane profit margins to apple as trust is substituted. I'm not saying this is a good thing, but I'd like to see a LOT more done by govt against MANY MANY pure online scams and bad behavior. Instead, EFF and the govt are fixated on folks like apple that frankly are showing the EFF up horribly by creating spaces online that users like. And yes, that includes the CSAM content stuff that EFF freaked out about. Average users will WANT these controls for their kids etc.

simondotau 4y ago
My trust of Apple is derived from observing how they make money. Applying the same analysis, I can't say the same for the US Government or my own country's government. Or even the EFF, which (and I realise this is a controversial thing to say) does NOT have any economic incentive to protect my privacy.
Apocryphon 4y ago
> The market is speaking, and it's away from trust in govt and eff and into trust in Apple with correspondingly insane profit margins to apple as trust is substituted. That's not how the market works. Consumers don't like, choose to funnel donations away from the EFF/taxes away from the government to Apple on the basis of "trust" in terms of all of this specific debate on privacy and the walled garden.
- onphonenow 4y ago
  But that is what they are doing. They don't feel safe in the EFF / govt controlled internet at large. They are constantly ripped off, scam called, misled and hassled elsewhere. Everything from lying promo offers that jump hugely after X days, hard to cancel subscriptions and endless bad behavior such as spam calls / texts and emails and mail with misleading headlines (urgent: last chance). Our representatives are no better. I donated to the "defenders of rights" the democrats last cycle. You are SCREWED if you do this, you CANNOT get off their mailing list, because they resell your name 100x - your rights, in practice, are FAR secondary to their need for power and your money. They epitomize horrible behavior as they preach about tech CEO's, it's totally pathetic. More on the dems good behavior here: https://medium.com/@jjdanek/ngp-van-and-the-endless-deluge-of-political-spam-email-a10f05255531 https://medium.com/@jjdanek/ngp-van-and-the-endless-deluge-o... I'm sure republicans are no better, but I don't donate to them so have no clue. So yes, when it comes to user trust, folks are picking a corporation (Apple) vs their govt reps (dems and republicans). What you learn in business is TRUST is literally the highest margin product you can have. You can sell the EXACT same product, but if you are trusted, you can charge more, the value of a trusted brand is huge. And apple has a trusted brand on metrics that matter to most users (and hated by scammers trying to exploit them). Folks like match.com are exploiters with a TON of scam / dark behavior in their playbook, even as they fight apple for "users". And apple knows this. Here is something interesting - when Apple sponsors something, because their brand is so strong, they often don't have a nonprofit announce their sponsorship AT ALL. They don't need the brand buff. So you won't (normally) see titles like "The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, powered by ExxonMobil" with Apple as a sponsor.
  - hyperdimension 4y ago

simondotau 4y ago

As an "advocacy group" Greenpeace actively and aggressively campaign against nuclear power with a fervour that they don't even apply to campaigns against fossil fuel power, despite it (coal in particular) being many orders of magnitude worse than nuclear on every environmental metric. I'm not usually prone to conspiracy theorising, but if I were Russia in the 2000s and 2010s, I'd be throwing lots of money at Greenpeace to get France, Germany etc to shut down their nuclear energy programs.

cgrealy 4y ago
Which has absolutely nothing to do with the point at hand. Whether you agree or disagree with this stance is completely irrelevant. My point was that Greenpeace don't make environmental policy, the same way the EFF does not write privacy legislation.
- simondotau 4y ago
  I think the line between making and influencing policy is blurrier than you are inferring. Furthermore, it's important to appreciate that reality on the ground isn't just defined by legislation, it's also defined by a desire by private entities to avoid visible, distracting clashes with entities like Greenpeace.
  - cgrealy 4y ago
    That argument could be made in the case of massive monied lobbying, like the NRA, the fossil fuel industry, medical insurance, etc, but neither Greenpeace nor the EFF have anything like that kind of clout. The government (especially in the US) are perfectly happy to go against Greenpeace or the EFF. In fact, it’s a badge of honour for a subset of idiot on the right (“drill baby drill”, etc)
onphonenow 4y ago
Actually, they also go against apple pretty hard, but if you look at Apple phones for example relative to the markeplace at large, the mfg's from other companies have much worse records on almost every measure (social, child labor, privacy, enviro) and greenpeace doesn't say a peep. So it's clearly at times a weird attention / marketing thing more than any real analysis of the relative strength of phone brands in various dimensions. The irony of the Greenpeace anti-apple stuff is in terms of secondary markets and device support, apple historically has crushed competitors. This has pretty significant impacts on things like waste - the folks Greenpeace say nothing on basically drop support when device ships, and sometimes ships with outdated software to start. Apple is on the relative other end of spectrum there. So it's seriously kind of weird.