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Why would you ever think Apple's tools should be doing anything other than serving the interests of their owners? The whole system has worked so well for us by

Why would you ever think Apple's tools should be doing anything other than serving the interests of their owners? The whole system has worked so well for us by driving massive innovation through the credible promise of being able to use what you created for your own benefit. The thing that stops companies from abusing their users like this is not any should statement attached to their product, it's the fear of losing all their customers to a competitor, which is not a credible threat to a company as large, entrenched and good at using the walled garden strategy as apple. The correct thought here is not a should statement that will never happen (and shouldn't happen because if we make it true it will fundamentally break the innovation machine). The correct thought here is "Apple is way too big and has way too much market power. We need to use the existing antitrust system and break this company up." This correct thought is not unique to apple either, it's equally applicable to many tech companies, apple just happens to be in the small cadre of the worst of the worst.

snapplebobapple 4y ago
wow, there are at least five people on here with more than 500 points that don't live in the real world and instead choose to believe this is a utopia where people don't work in their own interest and will instead sacrifice for everyone else to benefit over themselves. Please open your eyes and realize this is not the case and that pretty much any time it has been held up as the case it has turned out to be a cover for self interested (most recent example on here is the Patagonia founder hiding the true purpose of avoiding billions in taxes with the unicorn farts of a charitable donation to a charity controlled by his family) and sometimes illegal (most recent example on here is the SBF FTX debacle. Effective altruism apparently really means fraudulent client fund comingling and theft) behavior. The first step to a better world is acknowledging the prime driver of self interest in human action and designing systems that support that while protecting from too much power. This historically meant strong property rights, strong speech rights and strong antitrust regulation. Wishing that someone would exercise their property and speech rights differently isn't an effective system and regulating them into right think and right action robs us of innovation because there's no reason for anyone to put in the extra effort to make something better beyond trivial improvements since they won't get to keep that benefit while they pay the cost of development, it is far easier to just stay mediocre and not stick your head out.

snapplebobapple 4y ago

wow, there are at least five people on here with more than 500 points that don't live in the real world and instead choose to believe this is a utopia where people don't work in their own interest and will instead sacrifice for everyone else to benefit over themselves. Please open your eyes and realize this is not the case and that pretty much any time it has been held up as the case it has turned out to be a cover for self interested (most recent example on here is the Patagonia founder hiding the true purpose of avoiding billions in taxes with the unicorn farts of a charitable donation to a charity controlled by his family) and sometimes illegal (most recent example on here is the SBF FTX debacle. Effective altruism apparently really means fraudulent client fund comingling and theft) behavior. The first step to a better world is acknowledging the prime driver of self interest in human action and designing systems that support that while protecting from too much power. This historically meant strong property rights, strong speech rights and strong antitrust regulation. Wishing that someone would exercise their property and speech rights differently isn't an effective system and regulating them into right think and right action robs us of innovation because there's no reason for anyone to put in the extra effort to make something better beyond trivial improvements since they won't get to keep that benefit while they pay the cost of development, it is far easier to just stay mediocre and not stick your head out.