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Apple might be less bad than, say Oracle, but it's still an evil mega corp. Their privacy angle is little more than mere marketing. Authoritarianism is in thei

Apple might be less bad than, say Oracle, but it's still an evil mega corp. Their privacy angle is little more than mere marketing. Authoritarianism is in their DNA. By no stretch of the imagination is it an ethical company, and people really need to stop treating it as such.

voisin 3y ago
> Their privacy angle is little more than mere marketing. Authoritarianism is in their DNA. Do you have any evidence to support your statements? Any arguments or just conclusions?
- depressedpanda 3y ago
  They cracked down on ads talking about privacy, to the applause of everyone. Then they launched their own ad tech service. It's obvious privacy was used as an excuse to make more money. I hope you're not asking for any evidence of their authoritarianism, it should be apparent to anyone who knows anything about the company. They readily cooperate with authoritarian regimes; look at their behavior in China, or how they assisted the totalitarian regime in Belarus to the detriment of pro democracy protesters. "Obeying local laws" is not a valid excuse for unethical behavior, but is very convenient if all you care about is profit maximization.
  - voisin 3y ago
    > Then they launched their own ad tech service. It's obvious privacy was used as an excuse to make more money. Is their ad technology invading user privacy like Meta or Google? I have come across nothing discussing this.
    - int_19h 3y ago
      You'll find plenty of links here, for example: https://proton.me/blog/apple-ad-company https://proton.me/blog/apple-ad-company
tensility 3y ago
I would agree with you on most points; however, having worked within the fruit company directly on its chain of trust, I will tell you that the privacy angle runs extremely deep and is genuine. Regardless, that angle is obviously different and independent about being authoritarian within its privately-owned monopolistic marketplace.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  I think the issue, though, is that people should realize that a company's "values" only go so far as to support the profit motive - thus, they're not really values at all, as the second they become an obstacle to profit, they will be jettisoned. For Apple, who sells their own hardware and OS and has always desired tight ecosystem control, privacy usually helps their profit motive, but not always - look at their approach to iMessage. I mean, iMessage already, and always, has degraded to SMS when sending to non-iOS users. But SMS has zero encryption features and is pretty horrible for privacy. And the presence of a single Android user in an iMessage group chat means nobody gets encrypted messages. If Apple truly cared about user privacy, they could easily provide an Android iMessage client, or publish a spec. Not only don't they do that, they specifically broke the one client that worked around their intransigeance, which, despite Apple's spin, was way worse for privacy, even for users that only use iOS (assuming they ever talk to an Android user). The whole point of having values is they provide guidelines of how to behave even when behaving that way is hard. Corporations are simply unable to commit to anything that could threaten profit growth, so we should stop pretending they're capable of having durable values.

voisin 3y ago

> Their privacy angle is little more than mere marketing. Authoritarianism is in their DNA. Do you have any evidence to support your statements? Any arguments or just conclusions?

depressedpanda 3y ago
They cracked down on ads talking about privacy, to the applause of everyone. Then they launched their own ad tech service. It's obvious privacy was used as an excuse to make more money. I hope you're not asking for any evidence of their authoritarianism, it should be apparent to anyone who knows anything about the company. They readily cooperate with authoritarian regimes; look at their behavior in China, or how they assisted the totalitarian regime in Belarus to the detriment of pro democracy protesters. "Obeying local laws" is not a valid excuse for unethical behavior, but is very convenient if all you care about is profit maximization.
- voisin 3y ago
  > Then they launched their own ad tech service. It's obvious privacy was used as an excuse to make more money. Is their ad technology invading user privacy like Meta or Google? I have come across nothing discussing this.
  - int_19h 3y ago
    You'll find plenty of links here, for example: https://proton.me/blog/apple-ad-company https://proton.me/blog/apple-ad-company

tensility 3y ago

I would agree with you on most points; however, having worked within the fruit company directly on its chain of trust, I will tell you that the privacy angle runs extremely deep and is genuine. Regardless, that angle is obviously different and independent about being authoritarian within its privately-owned monopolistic marketplace.

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
I think the issue, though, is that people should realize that a company's "values" only go so far as to support the profit motive - thus, they're not really values at all, as the second they become an obstacle to profit, they will be jettisoned. For Apple, who sells their own hardware and OS and has always desired tight ecosystem control, privacy usually helps their profit motive, but not always - look at their approach to iMessage. I mean, iMessage already, and always, has degraded to SMS when sending to non-iOS users. But SMS has zero encryption features and is pretty horrible for privacy. And the presence of a single Android user in an iMessage group chat means nobody gets encrypted messages. If Apple truly cared about user privacy, they could easily provide an Android iMessage client, or publish a spec. Not only don't they do that, they specifically broke the one client that worked around their intransigeance, which, despite Apple's spin, was way worse for privacy, even for users that only use iOS (assuming they ever talk to an Android user). The whole point of having values is they provide guidelines of how to behave even when behaving that way is hard. Corporations are simply unable to commit to anything that could threaten profit growth, so we should stop pretending they're capable of having durable values.