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I don't understand how you draw a connection between this and Stockholm syndrome. "The products are great when they work, but Apple is horrible to deal with whe

by mort96 3y ago

I don't understand how you draw a connection between this and Stockholm syndrome. "The products are great when they work, but Apple is horrible to deal with when something goes wrong" is a completely sensible opinion. And after all, the 99% case is that things work well. Choosing products which are worse 99% of the time but where the company is more pleasant to work with in the 1% case where something goes wrong is a tough sell. (Omitted from this discussion is whether Apple products are truly better when they work or not. That's a wholly unproductive discussion which comes down to opinion and mattcantstop clearly thinks that they are.)

bryanrasmussen 3y ago
there are various programmer types who find the Apple way really onerous and problematic, because they want to control everything, these can be either Windows or Linux since both give you the ability to control and mod your system at very high level. Every example of bad behavior by Apple in relation to their products, customer service etc. connects in the mind with this underlying philosophical difference between how computers should be used, and so the indignant feeling wells up in their brain that Apple users are misled and abused, and if you are misled and abused you must have Stockholm syndrome. This however is just my reading of the phenomenon I have observed quite a lot. Before anyone tells me I'm an Apple lover, I would say until the M1 I considered all OS'es equivalent with some various benefits to each, but as long as I have M series Macs I do believe they are very superior (but haven't tried recent - this year - non M machine)
- 7thaccount 3y ago
  The problem with the "walled garden" is that it is insidious. At some point they control everything and at that point, it's too late to create an alternative product as it would be like 20 generations behind in performance. You don't have to go so far back as to build your own NAND gates or a computer out of falling marbles, but giving the user almost zero ability to customize is just crazy.
  - CPLX 3y ago
    > The problem with the "walled garden" is that it is insidious. The problem with all the other options I’ve seen is that they are worse.
- throwawee 3y ago
  >there are various programmer types who find the Apple way really onerous and problematic, because they want to control everything Treating customers like renters after they buy your products at a premium is a pretty onerous practice and it's pretty surreal to see the pushback characterized as megalomania.
  - johnklos 3y ago
    Funny, because I get the impression that users of Windows and Android systems are treated as renters. They're certainly not treated as owners, because the devices and OS continuously give the OS and software more control over the device than they give the end user. Sure, Android has improved lots, mostly because of comparisons with iOS, but who can forget that it used to be the case that you literally couldn't install and run certain apps without agreeing to ALL of the apps' demands? What if someone doesn't want to give Facebook access to your microphone and location? The fact that you can't uninstall Edge or even have links reliably open in your browser of choice just shows how Microsoft thinks of you, and it's only getting worse, with the extra steps you have to take to even just have a local account. They'll phase that out eventually. Sorry, but most people, myself included, want and are happy to use a "walled garden" device, particularly if it means I don't have to deal with spyware and apps trying to steal all the data they can.
    - Hizonner 3y ago
      It's kind of sad that you seem to think that Windows and Android-as-supplied-by-the-phone-maker are the only alternatives to Apple. Your example about Edge shows that Windows is also a walled garden. They just haven't finished all the wall building quite yet. Apple is, at least often, better than those. It's just that none of them are good enough.
      - johnklos 3y ago
        > It's kind of sad that you seem to think that Windows and Android-as-supplied-by-the-phone-maker are the only alternatives to Apple. Oh, I don't think that Windows and Android are the only alternatives. Android is pretty much the only smartphone alternative, though. My primary machines run NetBSD :)
HelloNurse 3y ago
It's a completely sensible reason to avoid products that are undependable by design. Many Apple "engineering" decisions favor the walled garden over robustness; for example, I am unable to update many important applications on my old work Macintosh because they were installed from the app store using an "Apple account", or whatever it's called, that cannot be used anymore because the colleague who knew the password has left the company; having a privileged account on the computer isn't good enough.
- mort96 3y ago
  It is definitely reasonable to avoid Apple products! For both these sorts of reasons and others. I'm not trying to argue otherwise. However, the claim "it's reasonable to not use Apple products" is very different from "using/liking Apple products is a sign of Stockholm syndrome".
  - HelloNurse 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - stringsandchars 3y ago
      > Apple products attract weak, vulnerable people It may contravene some sort of HN guidelines to point this out, but the fact that this comment has not been downvoted by a large number of people is quite an indictment of the mindset here. In my opinion, of course.
      - Tagbert 3y ago
        That comment is buried pretty deeply in the thread and it can take time for people to notice and react. It is grayed out now.
    - rsynnott 3y ago
      You seem to be reading a lot into the fact that your company's IT is poorly run.

by mort96 3y ago

bryanrasmussen 3y ago

there are various programmer types who find the Apple way really onerous and problematic, because they want to control everything, these can be either Windows or Linux since both give you the ability to control and mod your system at very high level. Every example of bad behavior by Apple in relation to their products, customer service etc. connects in the mind with this underlying philosophical difference between how computers should be used, and so the indignant feeling wells up in their brain that Apple users are misled and abused, and if you are misled and abused you must have Stockholm syndrome. This however is just my reading of the phenomenon I have observed quite a lot. Before anyone tells me I'm an Apple lover, I would say until the M1 I considered all OS'es equivalent with some various benefits to each, but as long as I have M series Macs I do believe they are very superior (but haven't tried recent - this year - non M machine)

7thaccount 3y ago
The problem with the "walled garden" is that it is insidious. At some point they control everything and at that point, it's too late to create an alternative product as it would be like 20 generations behind in performance. You don't have to go so far back as to build your own NAND gates or a computer out of falling marbles, but giving the user almost zero ability to customize is just crazy.
- CPLX 3y ago
  > The problem with the "walled garden" is that it is insidious. The problem with all the other options I’ve seen is that they are worse.
throwawee 3y ago
>there are various programmer types who find the Apple way really onerous and problematic, because they want to control everything Treating customers like renters after they buy your products at a premium is a pretty onerous practice and it's pretty surreal to see the pushback characterized as megalomania.
- johnklos 3y ago
  Funny, because I get the impression that users of Windows and Android systems are treated as renters. They're certainly not treated as owners, because the devices and OS continuously give the OS and software more control over the device than they give the end user. Sure, Android has improved lots, mostly because of comparisons with iOS, but who can forget that it used to be the case that you literally couldn't install and run certain apps without agreeing to ALL of the apps' demands? What if someone doesn't want to give Facebook access to your microphone and location? The fact that you can't uninstall Edge or even have links reliably open in your browser of choice just shows how Microsoft thinks of you, and it's only getting worse, with the extra steps you have to take to even just have a local account. They'll phase that out eventually. Sorry, but most people, myself included, want and are happy to use a "walled garden" device, particularly if it means I don't have to deal with spyware and apps trying to steal all the data they can.
  - Hizonner 3y ago
    It's kind of sad that you seem to think that Windows and Android-as-supplied-by-the-phone-maker are the only alternatives to Apple. Your example about Edge shows that Windows is also a walled garden. They just haven't finished all the wall building quite yet. Apple is, at least often, better than those. It's just that none of them are good enough.
    - johnklos 3y ago
      > It's kind of sad that you seem to think that Windows and Android-as-supplied-by-the-phone-maker are the only alternatives to Apple. Oh, I don't think that Windows and Android are the only alternatives. Android is pretty much the only smartphone alternative, though. My primary machines run NetBSD :)

HelloNurse 3y ago

It's a completely sensible reason to avoid products that are undependable by design. Many Apple "engineering" decisions favor the walled garden over robustness; for example, I am unable to update many important applications on my old work Macintosh because they were installed from the app store using an "Apple account", or whatever it's called, that cannot be used anymore because the colleague who knew the password has left the company; having a privileged account on the computer isn't good enough.

mort96 3y ago
It is definitely reasonable to avoid Apple products! For both these sorts of reasons and others. I'm not trying to argue otherwise. However, the claim "it's reasonable to not use Apple products" is very different from "using/liking Apple products is a sign of Stockholm syndrome".
- HelloNurse 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - stringsandchars 3y ago
    > Apple products attract weak, vulnerable people It may contravene some sort of HN guidelines to point this out, but the fact that this comment has not been downvoted by a large number of people is quite an indictment of the mindset here. In my opinion, of course.
    - Tagbert 3y ago
      That comment is buried pretty deeply in the thread and it can take time for people to notice and react. It is grayed out now.
  - rsynnott 3y ago
    You seem to be reading a lot into the fact that your company's IT is poorly run.