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That's exactly my own thought process. I don't pretend that Apple is saintly, but their profit model is currently to make money through premium prices on premiu

That's exactly my own thought process. I don't pretend that Apple is saintly, but their profit model is currently to make money through premium prices on premium products. They have a lot to lose, like several trillion dollars, in betraying that trust.

DetectDefect 10mo ago
> I don't pretend that Apple is saintly, but their profit model is currently to make money through premium prices on premium products Is this statement based on anything other than Apple marketing materials, perhaps a meaningful qualification from an independent third party? I worry this falsehood is being repeated so much it has become "truth".
- daveguy 10mo ago
  Repeating "this falsehood" doesn't make it a falsehood either.
  - DetectDefect 10mo ago
    Nothing is false about asking to prove a unicorn exists.
    - deleted 10mo ago
      [deleted]
- kstrauser 10mo ago
  Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, but it certainly rhymes. Is there proof that Apple is monetizing our data with third parties? It's very clear how almost every other major company is, but Apple's been reasonably respectful about it.
  - saagarjha 10mo ago
    They’re certainly monetizing your data with first parties
  - AlotOfReading 10mo ago
    Google is also vehemently opposed to selling your data to third parties. That's how they keep themselves as the middleman between advertisers and users. What they do is allow detailed behavioral targeting. Apple prefers to expose contextual targeting data to advertising instead. Apple is also better about not letting advertisers run random scripts. But frankly the difference between the two companies seems more a matter of degree than kind. It's not like Apple has a strong, principled stance against collecting data. They have a strong principled stance against other ad networks collecting user data, which looks a lot like anticompetitiveness. Their first party software collects identifiable data on you regardless of whether you opt out. They just avoid using that to target you if you opt out. The reason Apple says their advertising doesn't track you is because they define "tracking" as purchasing third party data, not first party data collection.
  - DetectDefect 10mo ago
    > Is there proof that Apple is monetizing our data with third parties? Other than a history replete of cooperation with domestic and foreign state surveillance, which in exchange allow its market position, you mean?
- drnick1 10mo ago
  For some reason, some people have this inexplicable rose-tinted vision of Apple. Until they release the source code of their products, the only rational stance is to treat their software as malware. If further evidence is necessary, any Apple device that I have owned pings multiple Apple domains several times per minute, despite disabling every cloud dependency that can be disabled. The roles of the domains are partially documented, but traffic is encrypted and it is impossible to know for sure what information Apple is exfiltrating. It is certainly a lot more than a periodic software update check. It certainly seems that Apple is documenting how people interact with the devices they own very closely. That's an insane amount of oversight over people's lives considering that some (most?) people use their phones as their primary computer.
  - DetectDefect 10mo ago
    I just opened Activity Monitor - a process called "dasd" is the 5th largest consumer of CPU time. What does it do? Apple does not want you to know. Apple also will not let you disable it. Apple will not even tell you if this process is legitimate (it is signed by "Software Signing" lmao). $ man dasd No manual entry for dasd There are like two dozen processes like this, half of which open network connections despite me never invoking any Apple services or even built-in apps. macOS has basically become malware.
    - habinero 10mo ago
      It schedules low-priority background processes. https://eclecticlight.co/2023/01/23/scheduled-activities-1-scheduling-by-das/ https://eclecticlight.co/2023/01/23/scheduled-activities-1-s...
      - DetectDefect 10mo ago
        Until we see the source code (or at least a man page) that is an unverified claim and the process should be treated like malware: while : ; do pkill -9 dasd ; sleep 10 ; done The tasks it "schedules" must be very low-priority, because nothing breaks when dasd doesn't run.
- tracerbulletx 10mo ago
  What falsehood? That apple's profit mix is much less advertising than its competitors is just a fact about their incentives in the moment. He didn't really go all that far in claiming anything beyond that being better than the alternative of being mostly an advertising company.
- akimbostrawman 10mo ago
  its a proprietary black box with a billion dollar marketing budget like all apple devices
- coldtea 10mo ago
  It's based on their balance of ad vs produce revenue thus far.
rafaelmn 10mo ago
A large % of their revenue comes from app store/services and they have incentives to lock you into the ecosystem, sell you digital shit and take a cut off of everything. I saw an ad for apple gaming service in my iphone system settings recently ! That's not to say that Google isn't worse but let's not pretend Apple is some saint here or that their incentives are perfectly aligned with the users. Hardware growth has peaked, they will be forced to milk you on services to keep growing revenue. Personally I'm looking forward to Steam Deck, if that gets annoying with SteamOS - it's a PC built for Linux, there's going to be something available.
- tomnipotent 10mo ago
  Ads are only 2-3% of Apple's revenue, while Google is ~75%.
  - Brian_K_White 10mo ago
    The comment about the ad wasn't about the ad istelf. It was an apple ad for an apple service, so they didn't make any money at all on the ad. The remark was about the service Apple was pushing, and just how intrusively.
    - b112 10mo ago
      Oh but they did achieve a financial good. They saved having to pay another company to place that ad. Therefore, they made more money, eg more profit.
      - therealpygon 10mo ago
        Correct, and didn’t sell your data to do it. I’m okay with that. If I trust Apple with basically my life stored on their phone and in their cloud, and processing payments for me, and filtering my email, and spoofing my mac address on networks (and,and,and), it seems foolish to be worried about them knowing what tv shows I like to watch at night too. At least to me. It’s gonna be a sad day when Tim leaves and user privacy isn’t a company focus anymore.

DetectDefect 10mo ago

> I don't pretend that Apple is saintly, but their profit model is currently to make money through premium prices on premium products Is this statement based on anything other than Apple marketing materials, perhaps a meaningful qualification from an independent third party? I worry this falsehood is being repeated so much it has become "truth".

daveguy 10mo ago
Repeating "this falsehood" doesn't make it a falsehood either.
- DetectDefect 10mo ago
  Nothing is false about asking to prove a unicorn exists.
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
kstrauser 10mo ago
Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, but it certainly rhymes. Is there proof that Apple is monetizing our data with third parties? It's very clear how almost every other major company is, but Apple's been reasonably respectful about it.
- saagarjha 10mo ago
  They’re certainly monetizing your data with first parties
- AlotOfReading 10mo ago
  Google is also vehemently opposed to selling your data to third parties. That's how they keep themselves as the middleman between advertisers and users. What they do is allow detailed behavioral targeting. Apple prefers to expose contextual targeting data to advertising instead. Apple is also better about not letting advertisers run random scripts. But frankly the difference between the two companies seems more a matter of degree than kind. It's not like Apple has a strong, principled stance against collecting data. They have a strong principled stance against other ad networks collecting user data, which looks a lot like anticompetitiveness. Their first party software collects identifiable data on you regardless of whether you opt out. They just avoid using that to target you if you opt out. The reason Apple says their advertising doesn't track you is because they define "tracking" as purchasing third party data, not first party data collection.
- DetectDefect 10mo ago
  > Is there proof that Apple is monetizing our data with third parties? Other than a history replete of cooperation with domestic and foreign state surveillance, which in exchange allow its market position, you mean?
drnick1 10mo ago
For some reason, some people have this inexplicable rose-tinted vision of Apple. Until they release the source code of their products, the only rational stance is to treat their software as malware. If further evidence is necessary, any Apple device that I have owned pings multiple Apple domains several times per minute, despite disabling every cloud dependency that can be disabled. The roles of the domains are partially documented, but traffic is encrypted and it is impossible to know for sure what information Apple is exfiltrating. It is certainly a lot more than a periodic software update check. It certainly seems that Apple is documenting how people interact with the devices they own very closely. That's an insane amount of oversight over people's lives considering that some (most?) people use their phones as their primary computer.
- DetectDefect 10mo ago
  I just opened Activity Monitor - a process called "dasd" is the 5th largest consumer of CPU time. What does it do? Apple does not want you to know. Apple also will not let you disable it. Apple will not even tell you if this process is legitimate (it is signed by "Software Signing" lmao). $ man dasd No manual entry for dasd There are like two dozen processes like this, half of which open network connections despite me never invoking any Apple services or even built-in apps. macOS has basically become malware.
  - habinero 10mo ago
    It schedules low-priority background processes. https://eclecticlight.co/2023/01/23/scheduled-activities-1-scheduling-by-das/ https://eclecticlight.co/2023/01/23/scheduled-activities-1-s...
    - DetectDefect 10mo ago
      Until we see the source code (or at least a man page) that is an unverified claim and the process should be treated like malware: while : ; do pkill -9 dasd ; sleep 10 ; done The tasks it "schedules" must be very low-priority, because nothing breaks when dasd doesn't run.
tracerbulletx 10mo ago
What falsehood? That apple's profit mix is much less advertising than its competitors is just a fact about their incentives in the moment. He didn't really go all that far in claiming anything beyond that being better than the alternative of being mostly an advertising company.
akimbostrawman 10mo ago
its a proprietary black box with a billion dollar marketing budget like all apple devices
coldtea 10mo ago
It's based on their balance of ad vs produce revenue thus far.

rafaelmn 10mo ago

A large % of their revenue comes from app store/services and they have incentives to lock you into the ecosystem, sell you digital shit and take a cut off of everything. I saw an ad for apple gaming service in my iphone system settings recently ! That's not to say that Google isn't worse but let's not pretend Apple is some saint here or that their incentives are perfectly aligned with the users. Hardware growth has peaked, they will be forced to milk you on services to keep growing revenue. Personally I'm looking forward to Steam Deck, if that gets annoying with SteamOS - it's a PC built for Linux, there's going to be something available.

tomnipotent 10mo ago
Ads are only 2-3% of Apple's revenue, while Google is ~75%.
- Brian_K_White 10mo ago
  The comment about the ad wasn't about the ad istelf. It was an apple ad for an apple service, so they didn't make any money at all on the ad. The remark was about the service Apple was pushing, and just how intrusively.
  - b112 10mo ago
    Oh but they did achieve a financial good. They saved having to pay another company to place that ad. Therefore, they made more money, eg more profit.
    - therealpygon 10mo ago
      Correct, and didn’t sell your data to do it. I’m okay with that. If I trust Apple with basically my life stored on their phone and in their cloud, and processing payments for me, and filtering my email, and spoofing my mac address on networks (and,and,and), it seems foolish to be worried about them knowing what tv shows I like to watch at night too. At least to me. It’s gonna be a sad day when Tim leaves and user privacy isn’t a company focus anymore.