The same company that has been punishing self-repairs. A closed-ecosystem in the name of security was not enough to keep off the "bad guys".
this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2021
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Privacy
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Governments should see NSO as a national security thread and act on them but they are their clients :D
I was gonna say, gov't is what uses them!
Smaller governments use them. The big boys have their own department that far outstrip what the NSO is doing.
No doubt.
Despite NSO claims to only allow the Pegasus spyware to be used on criminals and terrorists, this was shown to not be the case. Activists, journalists, and politicians have all been targeted. Now Apple is bringing the fight to the aggressor in the place where it really hurts - their pocketbooks.
And Apple have a lot more money so will be funny
I know people give Apple a lot of shit (and they deserve it, all big companies should be public property). But as far as capitalists go, they're the only megacorp that isn't entirely evil from the ground up. They could choose to do none of these stunts, and they'd still make billions, yet here we are.
They've made privacy part of their brand, so they do a lot of stunts like this to get some cred. If they didn't do these stunts, they'd risk having as bad a reputation on privacy as facebook or microsoft, which they're actively trying to avoid.
In reality tho they were one of the first to sign up to the NSA's prism program, and every one of their privacy claims is completely unverifiable; all their services are centralized and closed source.
honestly, it doesn't matter if we can't verify their privacy claims (unless you use their services). what matters is they're screwing with the big guys money. facebook. spotify. NSO. these are good things to mess with. the fact that they made it their brand, just means there is more to come. that benefits us.
Apple is one the big guys. They are I think the highest market cap company in the US. I don't know why many people fall for their "underdog" propo.
I've never heard of anyone thinking of them as an underdog post-iPhone days. Certainly during the Microsoft era, but not now. Regardless,
they’re the only megacorp that isn’t entirely evil from the ground up.
I dunno. It's a publicity stunt. I don't think they care about privacy as much as they pretend to. Their brand is wrapping up free code in a shiny package and over charging cool kids - I'm sorry if this law suit doesn't make me think of them as less evil. But, that's my two cents.
does it matter if it's a publicity stunt if it helps all of us?
no...if it helps, I just don't think much better of apple is all.
that's fair, and in a perfect world, we'd be living under communism. but alas, gotta take the bones we get under capitalism.
i have to strongly disagree. they do a lot of stuff that would be regarded as evil: making their devices as hard to repair as possible, fucking over independent developers, pushing their subscriptions inside of iOS ("get Apple Arcade/Music/TV Free for 3 Months!" with hopes that you forget about them charging your card). the bottom line is that privacy (or rather the perception of privacy) is their brand so they have to do things that reinforce it in minds of their users.
the main reasons for the move to subscription (by everyone) are as following:
- consumer protection laws - laws haven't caught up, there are none for subscriptions that benefit consumers (can't get refunded if a company choose not to refund - apple does, though).
- finite wallet - every company's goal is to take a share out of your salary each month, subscriptions guarantee it, and in apples case, that's a 30% cut. There is more money to be made if you tie your finite wallet up into their ecosystem rather than you splurging on apps when you have extra cash.
- skeleton crew - if you tie people up with subscriptions, you don't have to work on active development and can hire a cheap skeleton crew to maintain the software.
but yes, i'm well aware that they operate on walled garden principle. who isn't? but that's literally capitalism, exercised by a capitalist company. right to repair is the exact same principle. while i disagree with both practices, they aren't unethical, they are required by the concept of capitalism. it's literally playing by the rules of capitalism. beyond these two political moves, which aren't unethical, just capitalism at work (which could be argued to be unethical - but that's a different discussion altogether); they do a lot of work on privacy for their platform, work that doesn't matter, they'd still make billions with or without the gesture. they actively CHOOSE to protect user privacy, for no benefit to themselves and their platform other than looking pretty to consumers, consumers who would buy their stuff regardless of their effort. and hey, are you really going to say it's a bad thing they're fucking with both spotify and facebook?
when did they fuck over independent developers?