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This should serve as a reminder to everyone that thinks Apple cares about any pro-consumer issues like privacy. No company anywhere close to this size cares ab

• bluish29 3y ago
  > No company anywhere close to this size cares about anything other than money Doesn't this describe every company, is there any company in a capitalist market would care about anything other than money? I might be wrong or shortsighted but happy to be proved wrong.
  • lijok 3y ago
    Every public company, yes. Private companies can afford not to subscribe to the single core tenet of capitalism which is to "maximize shareholder value".
  • normaler 3y ago
    In any company of this size there is no owner that can decide he cares about anything but money. There is no actual vision other then short and longterm shareholder value. "Founders" like Musk and Jobs have a short window where they can move their companies in directions which matches their vision, but that closes quickly after the company goes public and their stock gets diluted enough so that they be ousted.
  • riidom 3y ago
    I think, It's not meant to be a big discovery, but just to contrast the fact what Apple wants you to believe what they care about.
  • gchamonlive 3y ago
    Some smaller companies, particular those without investors and open capital, can have the luxury of caring about the product solely, maybe. But invariably, as it keeps growing, the concern shifts towards pleasing inverstors. They have fiduciary responsibility to them. Constant profit and growth is the premise of capitalism, it isn't sustainable and will invariably result in anti-consumer practices like programmed obselcence and market monopoly.
  • xvinci 3y ago
    I knew founders who cared about making a positive impact to our planet in some way. Or to simply give as much people as possible a good workplace and development opportunities. So from my point of view you are incorrect. They mostly all care about making ENOUGH money to not act in a negligent way and having to close at first signs of trouble, but thats not what you wrote.
    • advael 3y ago
      I, like you, am in the tech world and know plenty of founders who are great people who have visions and want various things. Once they are running a company, it doesn't take long for this to matter less and less. Even in the early stages of a startup, the priority will shift quickly to whatever gets the next round of funding. In the case of a company that has become large, there is virtually zero chance that the wheel can be steered away from whatever the aggregate algorithm used to weigh the priorities of the shareholders and make a decision thinks will be profitable. This isn't in practice always what ends up the most profitable, but it's what will happen because that's how the structure of the organization works
      • hot_gril 3y ago
        2008-ish was an annoying time of "this isn't just a startup, it's a movement" (to make me rich). Apple says privacy is a human right. I wouldn't say that companies only care about money, but ones who advertise their own altruism are probably not telling the truth.
        • advael 3y ago
          People - including some people who hold positions like CEO or sit on a board for a company - can care about things other than money. Companies can't, essentially by definition. This is intrinsic to how they are legally constructed
          • hot_gril 3y ago
            They can't legally claim to care about something besides money (even this I'm unsure about), but if the leadership cares, they can steer the company a certain way.
  • danans 3y ago
    > Doesn't this describe every company, is there any company in a capitalist market would care about anything other than money? Sure. There are plenty of smaller companies whose goal is financial sustainability while also pursuing some other objective. It's just much harder to maintain that position when you have millions of investors expecting growth or increasing returns.
  • nonrandomstring 3y ago
    This whole discussion about what a company cares about is meaningless. Companies don't _care_. Not about anything. Anthropomorphising them like we do for ships, cars, or other machines that we grow attachments to is just delusional. It's a giant, blind, abstraction without thought, feeling or intent. When real human beings - who can care about things - stand up and speak on behalf of a company, we're falling for a hell of a deception if we think their words represent anything solid.
    • tim333 3y ago
      Companies are groups of people who do have cares and it can make a difference, especially what the ceo cares about.
  • karaterobot 3y ago
    This is sort of like saying every human cares about nothing than food and air. All companies require money to operate, as humans require food and air, but they can have other goals besides the acquisition of as much money as possible, in the shortest time horizon possible, damn the consequences. I would say that most do. And just as with most people, philosophy and literature and charity and invention go out the door when a human is starving to death or being waterboarded, most companies will put aside all their other goals when they have no money. But, to say that means humans don't do anything other than get food and breathe, or that companies don't do anything but get more money, is such a limited model as not to be of practical use. That doesn't mean it's an uncommon one though!
• hot_gril 3y ago
  I agree that Apple only cares about money. So do they dislike this law because it means people can repair and hold onto Apple hardware longer, because it compromises Apple's hardware security somehow, or because it adds some other cost to Apple? I don't imagine many are self-repairing, but there are independent repair shops too.
  • advael 3y ago
    By preventing independent repair, Apple can indeed prevent you from holding on to your device longer by just deciding it's totaled with no one keeping them honest about it. It can also gouge you on parts and service even if it doesn't do that, as is true for any monopoly on any service. It also makes it harder for honest researchers to audit Apple's security claims, harder for independent hackers to modify devices they own, such as if they want to route around the incredibly high tax Apple imposes on developers for its hardware platforms, etc. The kind of control Apple wants to have comes with lots of profitable ways to exploit it.
  • dathinab 3y ago
    they sell 1000+€ phones, tablets and computers many cases of very common damage to such devices is very much fixable, at least theoretically for a small fraction of the price they mainly care about you not repairing them any supposed "compromised security" could be handled with free user choice in form of a hardware lock-down mode (with appropriate warnings) but the huge majority of their users don't need nor care for that they provide no proper repair, only replacement of whole sometimes multiple components which given their design often means the whole motherboard, even if needed repairs can often be done with much much less cost their repair is also believed to systematically misclassify damage and needed repairs (i.e. it looks like it's structured with a focus on avoiding actual repairs). E.g. not just are there many cases of them stating that there was water damage without there being any sign of that they also use overly sensitive water intrusion sensors which frequently go off without any intrusion. Stories of them claiming other damage when the repair was e.g. just a faulty cable. they have done many steps to either make repair outright impossible or so cumbersome that they monetary make no sense (e.g. their "repair program") As far as I remember multiple PR campaigns which focused around fearmongering about "evil independent repair shops" have indirect ties with Apple. Indirect enough so that Apple can claim that had nothing to do with them. I.e. they in my opinion really don't want you to repair your devices, or worse upgrade them. Security in many (maybe not all) cases seems to play no role outside of being a good excuse.
• advael 3y ago
  I mean they do already sell much of the same telemetry data to their own data broker customers. They just prevent their competition from doing the same on their hardware. It's not just gonna be a lie someday when it's convenient, it's already a lie now It's more than a little depressing that marketing can be so effective even when it's a bald-faced lie
• sneak 3y ago
  Apple doesn’t care about privacy or they wouldn’t have maintained the back door in the e2ee in iMessage. iMessage is not end to end encrypted because the endpoints escrow their keys in non-e2ee fashion to Apple. https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1ZK1CO/ https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1ZK1CO/ Privacy is just a marketing bullet point for them and a brand differentiator. There’s no substance there. Everyone is pro-privacy when compared to Google.
• organsnyder 3y ago
  At an IAPP conference two years ago, Tim Cook tried to make the case that third-party app stores were incompatible with protecting users' privacy. It felt like he was treating all the privacy professionals in the room as useful idiots in their fight to hold onto their app store revenue.
• rootusrootus 3y ago
  > Apple cares about privacy because it is a differentiator in the market As someone who prefers Apple products these days, I don't run into many people who blindly think that privacy is some kind of immutable characteristic of the corporation. We absolutely understand that it is a position they put themselves into because it attracts customers. It's important to their bottom line. > Apple would abandon prioritizing privacy the moment market conditions stop that from being a profitable position to have True, but I think the leaders at Apple are well aware of how risky abandoning such a core selling point would be for future sales. They have to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, much less actual privacy violations, or it'll tank their reputation. I think it unlikely they will conclude that selling the data is more valuable anytime soon. Luckily there are so many anti-Apple people constantly scrutinizing their every action for possible malfeasance, I expect we'll hear about it very quickly and loudly if/when it happens. A problem to worry about then. Right now, their competition is largely unconcerned with privacy already.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• tim333 3y ago
  They appear to care about privacy.
• hulitu 3y ago
  > Apple cares about privacy You should read the terms of service.