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Comment by beefsack | Hacker News Reader

HN generally really supports Apple products and the company, but cynical old me can't possibly believe some monstrously powerful for-profit corporation could ever make customer freedoms a primary goal. My gut tells me Apple are taking this stance because they feel it affects their bottom line somehow (perhaps they want to project an image of being customer friendly?)

I don't want to be unfair towards Apple, I think large corporations inherently lack empathy for customers and primarily focus on their bottom lines as a consequence of their ownership and structure. It's just very concerning to see people become emotionally attached to corporations or products partly because of stances like these, when I'm fairly certain those stances aren't completely sincere.

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Ultimately I believe Tim Cook is a good human who really does want what he says and leave the world in a better place than what they found it. He routinely does things he thinks is the right thing to do, which is often contra to what Wall Street wants and that of a purely for-profit enterprise, e.g:

> He said that there are many things Apple does because they are right and just, and that a return on investment (ROI) was not the primary consideration on such issues.

> "When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind," he said, "I don't consider the bloody ROI." He said that the same thing about environmental issues, worker safety, and other areas where Apple is a leader.

> "If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock."

- https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/03/at-apple-shareholder...

Under Cook Apple's approach to privacy has never wavered, they've always been staunchly pro-privacy even when it was unpopular to do so during the FBI terrorist attack. So I don't think their stance on privacy is a marketing strategy, IMO he really believes we all have a fundamental right to privacy and that they're doing everything in their powers to ensure their customers get it.

> I believe Tim Cook is a good human who really does want what he says and leave the world in a better place than what they found it.

I believe that all those CEOs want to leave the world in a better place than what they found it. Even Larry Ellison, although his metric for "a better place" might look a bit weird for anybody not Larry Ellison.

>> "When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind," he said, "I don't consider the bloody ROI."

Accessibility is a matter of being able to sell devices into the public sector, something that Apple is quite interested in (eg public schools).

That's directly ROI driven, and the quality of new apps working with VoiceOver makes their engagement with accessibility sometimes feel like a checkbox item: it takes a while of updating until new first-party apps are usable, and sometimes they degrade in favor of the latest fluffy UI redesign.

> they've always been staunchly pro-privacy even when it was unpopular to do so during the FBI terrorist attack

They did what ever other company does: Give them the data they had (the most recent, yet still too old, iCloud backup) and push back on any extra work, both because it's work and because it creates precedent. The main thing unusual in that case was that FBI and Apple discussed these matters through the media.

> Ultimately I believe Tim Cook is a good human who really does want what he says and leave the world in a better place than what they found it.

What does a 'good human' mean in your context?

I'm not sure if the people that make Apple products would be convinced (suicide nets, plant explosions, high cancer and infertility rates) or the people mining minerals for chips. The conditions of all of these people are directly within Mr. Cook's influence.

Of course, it's possible to argue over a La Croix that the real social good is making lots of new iPhones every year, which give more important people more important power.

And you can make similar arguments about his vast international tax avoidance, keeping money from healthcare, education, housing, etc.

Does "good person" simply mean "their self-interest appears to be aligned with my own, and I assume yours"?

> IMO he really believes we all have a fundamental right to privacy and that they're doing everything in their powers to ensure their customers get it.

Everything in his powers? Then why a 50% margin? Why is his only lobbying interest in Washington lowering his tax bill?

I agree with the majority of posters on this thread, that privacy is a highly marketable feature, especially to older wealthy Americans. Cook is in the business of collecting the premium placed on privacy.

He is doing everything in his power to collect that premium.

If he was doing everything in his powers to further privacy, he could use Apple's considerable cash and lobbying muscle to push for legislation.

But, products wouldn't be aspirational if people in general could have them!

> I'm not sure if the people that make Apple products would be convinced (suicide nets, plant explosions, high cancer and infertility rates) or the people mining minerals for chips.

Foxconn and its competitors manufacture for many companies, not just Apple. Why doesn't anyone raise these concerns when we discuss the Xbox and PS4? Or any of the countless other tier-one products manufactured by Foxconn?

Have you ever raised these concerns about Samsung products and their responsibility towards the miners of rare earth minerals?

(And let's not forget that a Foxconn worker has always been statistically less likely to commit suicide than an American citizen.)

> What does a 'good human' mean in your context?

He routinely stands up for human rights, equality, accessibility, pro-privacy, pro-environment, etc.

> I'm not sure if the people that make Apple products would be convinced

You mean employees working for Chinese suppliers? You can read what steps Apple's doing to ensure Supplier responsibility at: https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/

> Or the people mining minerals for chips.

So you believe people would be better off not working at all and the world would be a better place if it didn't have enough minerals to make chips so the price for owning a computing device is only accessible to the super wealthy?

> And you can make similar arguments about the billions he's avoiding paying to democratic governments in taxes, to pay for education, healthcare etc., for the poors.

I agree the tax laws should be changed so multi nationals pay their fare share of taxes at the same time Corporations have a duty to their shareholders to maximize their returns. It would be uncompetitive and fiscally irresponsible for corporations not to minimize their taxes to the extent that's legally allowed whilst their competitors don't. Ideally all companies would voluntarily pay the appropriate company tax in each country they operate in and if their major competitors weren't also minimizing their taxes than Apple should absolutely follow in kind, but that's realistically not going to happen until laws are changed and tax loop-holes are closed, until that happens I don't fault them for minimizing their tax liability.

> But does "good person"/"good human" ever mean anything more than "their self-interest appears to be aligned with my own, and I assume yours"?

No I think it's pretty clear what's right and just which is also where I find most of Cook's public political stance lies. These views aren't universally shared and are often contra to the political views of other powerful and elected figures we have at the moment, who I don't think is a good person.

> Cook is in the business of collecting the premium placed on privacy.

A cynical view, but for the sake of argument let's assume that's correct. Okay, so where are all the marketplace competitors vying for that premium? Has Apple got a monopoly on privacy?

"He routinely does things he thinks is the right thing to do, which is often contra to what Wall Street wants and that of a purely for-profit enterprise"

And yet Apple is asking for more Tax breaks in India. http://fortune.com/2017/08/01/apple-tax-break-india/

It seems more marketing rather then good will.

Yeah… seems like we've gone from bunker mode to full court press in 2 years… lol

I don't think this will be enough to drum up demand… just ask apple's suppliers…

"Apple had asked the F.B.I. to issue its application for the tool under seal. But the government made it public, prompting Mr. Cook to go into bunker mode to draft a response, according to people privy to the discussions, who spoke on condition of anonymity."[0][1]

Besides, why pay so much for the latest and greatest surveillance tech when its so cheap now for threat actors to exploit what's already out there?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11133909

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/19/technology/how-tim-cook-be...

So the FBI waited for the perfect case to make a public spectacle in order to manipulate public opinion and set a precedent in order to increase their powers and I'm supposed to believe an anonymous source "privy to the discussions" who can read Cook's mind doing backflips on his stance to privacy?

Where has Cook's stance ever been anything but pro-privacy?

Was it not a major case to set precedent? It would need to be public.

FBI has Apple on record asking to offer privacy subversive tool of their own hardware under seal, regardless of any signaling pro/against privacy…

Corps like Apple submit to governmental whims all around the world to make a buck, irrespective of any of our moral stances on such countries policies, to the dismay of the idealist (I suppose those of which that aren't in awe of the Kabuki performance).

If a puff piece is enough for you and others to buy phone for ~$1k, so be it… not like I think i will have any weight to changing whats forming[0]… who knows, maybe they can land a huge DOD contract?

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-25/iphone-di...

> who knows, maybe they can land a huge DOD contract?

If you think Apple is willing to screw over Consumers to chase large Enterprise or DoD contracts you have absolutely no idea about Apple.

> If you think Apple is willing to screw over Consumers to chase large Enterprise or DoD contracts you have absolutely no idea about Apple.

Are we assuming most customers are even aware/care of this stuff? Yeah… I think it might be more fitting to appropriate Stallman's "useds"…

>My gut tells me Apple are taking this stance because they feel it affects their bottom line

You are absolutely correct, but maybe not in a way you think you are.

I currently whole heartedly believe that while Apple is obviously trying to maximize their profits, they are also in for the long game. They want the company to keep making money for decades to come. This means listening to concerns of your consumers is key.

Some times I get this feeling that Samsung and other smart phone vendors are always trying to one-up their competition. While Apple is trying to just improve on their own shit. Which sometimes means that their product is strictly worse in some aspects, compared to their competition.

Taking security seriously, which Apple has done in past years and now taking privacy seriously puts them in a very good position for the long term. They could have easily started to track their users and sell the data to get some instant boost in profits, but that would not have been good for business in long term.

It's probably not correct to say the stance is insincere. If it is purely profit motivated, then it would be quite sincere of Apple to say they care about privacy, in the same way it's sincere of them to say they care about quality. They may or may not care about the quality intrinsically, but they certainly care that it allows them to charge more for their product.

So long as there's a disincentive to lie about privacy, caring about it for profit reasons is still caring about it. Since privacy is trust based, destroying that trust would destroy a large chunk of the perceived value of the products.

I completely agree, and given their competitors' stances on privacy, it most certainly gives them a way to differentiate themselves and provide an advantage in ways that others can't (or don't/won't).

If they can provide value to customers through privacy and security in their products, that adds customer value to their products, which ultimately improves their bottom line.

Privacy is privacy no matter what the motivation.

Edit: We can ponder whether or not their motivations are sincere or not, but it may be a good business move in the long term as well as a genuine value for a person's privacy.

I generally agree with your statement, but Apple goes a step further to say they believe it is a human right. That feels a little forced from a massive corporation.

I get where you're coming from; I too feel a great cynicism when it comes to corporate proclamations of values. However, I also think that balancing out ever-present greed and short-term thinking are people who sincerely believe in the values presented; people working at Apple who believe that those values will lead to greater value over the long term; people working at Apple who believe intrinsically in those values being greater than the profit motive.

I think that though it's useful to a first approximation to think that a corporation always values profit uber alles, it's also helpful sometimes to step back and realize that a corporation is also in sum the actions of people who work for it. For example David Atkins has made a career of holding corporations to their own statements of values and pointing out to PR executives when 1. their actions are in conflict with their stated values and 2. when that conflict is/can lead to worse profit outcomes. After all, a corporation is not a perfect profit-maximizing entity, and can often benefit from external signals.

In short, I think that though it is easy to cynically dismiss Apple's statement of values of privacy as a human right, that statement itself can have real world effects and consequences if we choose to hold them to it.

> My gut tells me Apple are taking this stance because they feel it directly affects their bottom line.

That's a feature not a bug! This means that Apple thinks a core of well-paying customers view privacy as very important and are willing to pay for it.

It has the side effect of making privacy something that's just for rich people of course.

You could argue that if Apple really cared about privacy, they'd use their consider lobbying clout to propose some legislation to protect all Americans. Or even open source / publish more of their work to make it more available.

If they cared about privacy they would not attempt to protect all Americans but everybody period. (Most Apple clients are not Americans). IMHO had apple cared for privacy and/or wanted things to change they would move their business in a different country where law protects privacy. Way more efficient than lobbying.

The thing is, Apple as a corporation is an outlier in a lot of ways and we saw that a big part of the Jobs philosophy when he returned to the company was to change it from the inside out. It's important to remember that this message Apple is putting out, they're telling all their employees the same story. That doesn't mean it's true or anything less than a position of convenience, but it does mean they are encouraging their staff to think it's true and make decisions based on that.

If consumers vote with their wallets for privacy, it's in Apple's best interest to continue on this path, to express it to the employees of the company, and we all win. Of course, emotions attached to a corporation are a branding strategy, but if it causes things to happen like Apple putting out the first line of phones not bogged down with carrier bloatware, then I'll take it.

Apple definitely takes privacy seriously. This is the company that practically invented creating buzz around a product through secrecy. They’ve gone to great lengths to keep their on goings secret aka private.

Apple definitely did not take user privacy seriously until recently and even then it only seem to be a PR/marketing move to sell a good image of the company and of course sell more device.

Whatever they say, they're still under patriot act.

The reason I support Apple, and can be fan boyish about them, is because they very intentional make sure their customers are not their products. The make money selling devices & subscriptions, not data. Ergo, making devices more secure makes their product more attractive to consumers if anyone of them value privacy. That seems like a good setup to me.

Would get jailed in solitary in a federal prison because you get better privacy there, only the guards are warden spy on you? Let's not forget that apple devices are akin to a prison due to the their strict vendor lock-in. Apple not directly selling your data to advertisers does not mean that they do not collect it or use it in other ways (including indirect selling).

The explicitly use differential privacy to allow collecting of anonymized large samples of data[1]. They're pretty serious about privacy.

Also for having a walled garden of an app store and locked down devices, yep, that's a polarizing aspect to them, no doubt.

[1] https://www.wired.com/2016/06/apples-differential-privacy-co...

I mean to be fair what Apple is doing is a great marketing move. What they are doing is not all that complicated they saw a market where no one else was (others have tried, but didn't do it right or or make it user friendly enough). They saw that they could fill a the big void where privacy was too difficult for the average consumer to achieve and provide that. Whether or not you think that a big company could ever care about privacy doesn't really matter, because their actions can easily be attributed to what monstrously powerful for-profit corporations do. They saw an area of the market where they could go either way (sell consumers data or protect it) and saw that no one was protecting users data (easily) and everyone was selling it. And they capitalized on it, and turned it into something they could market. Yes it is hard to trust apple but its like trusting google to keep on selling your data. They are going to keep doing it because they have a market for it and they make a lot of money. Apple is marketing it as a feature and are selling it, and I doubt they will try to take it away.

The profit-seeking motive is honest business. What's suspect is a rent-seeking motive. Rent-seeking results in a race to the bottom, while profit-seeking can sometimes result in a race to the top.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

I don't think cynicism is necessary. Apple is in a better position than Google to do this because of their business model.

Many of Google's services, for example, are free to use - that comes at a cost to the consumer because they have to make money off those products somehow; enter advertising and selling your data to 3rd parties. The same applies to Facebook and other social media companies.

Apple sells premium hardware devices for a premium price - that is their bread and butter and where they make most of their money. What do they really have to lose (financially) by protecting your privacy? They don't have a search engine or advertising driven business model that requires sharing your data with other companies. Even if Apple didn't really give a shit they earn free goodwill.

I also agree with others that Tim Cook and other Apple execs seem to genuinely care about this issue as well.

I imagine it's to target the corporate market. My company's mail app doesn't support Android devices at all because of IT Security's concerns, and we've recently begun switching user's firm-provided Samsungs and Blackberrys over to iPhones.

I think that, here at least, it is well understood that there is a financial motive, and not altruism, that motivates Apple to take this stance.

Given the current state of affairs, I'll take it. We can argue the philosophy aspect with them after the war, for now they are an ally.

I don't use an iPhone, but I could use a new iPad. I'll throw a few bucks at them and I think my daughter would like one of the new laptops. I'll find out what she wants and have one shipped to her.

It's working as intended for Apple, but I'm willing to financially support behavior I agree with. If asked why I made the purchases, at any official site during the order process, I'll be sure to let them know my reasoning.

Tough crowd here. I do believe the people at Apple feel strongly it is their mission to do things in ways that are great for users, and not because it makes money, but because they want to make insanely great things that are wonderful to use.

I understand the world has cynical people in it. But that doesn’t mean every person is just as cynical as you seem to think. Same with companies: I understand there are big evil companies in the world. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible that a company could be run with the principle of putting users first, and with sincere intent.

I think their primary motive is income. The way they do that is by being good for their users, or appearing to be good for their users.

If morality were their primary goal, I strongly suspect they'd be financially structured in a more honest way. From the way they've gone after unintended leakers to how they've dealt with vulnerability reports, I'm not able to believe their motives are altrustic.

I'm not displeased with them, and even will buy a couple of their products to show my support. I'm just unwilling to believe, without further evidence, that their reasoning is anything more than a concern with their bottom line.

They are, first and foremost, a business and their main goal is profitability. While not laudable, it is understandable. Because I agree with their stance, I'll do a little to show that I support their actions. I already own shares, so I will just buy a couple of devices.

But other companies pay higher. So if their primary motive is income, why do they work there?

Googlers are generally very idealistic and decent people - yet they still created an enormous surveillance machine instead of doing what's best for their users.

Why is Apple different? I think market forces are definitely a big factor. It's easy to work backwards from the what to the why, and applaud yourself for doing something good that just happens to be in your best interest anyway.

That doesn't make Apple any less of a force for good - but I think that's more of an accident than inevitable (Apple happens not to be invested in advertising, unlike the other big 4).

The simple reason Apple is somewhat different is because unlike the other they sell hardware. That's about it.

Other than that they have the same tax evasion scheme (didn't they actually ben innovators here), they have the same exploiting manufacturing process at the other side of the world. Yup Apple is really not that different.

The product is different. It’s been said before but with Google, you are the product. Not so with Apple. The difference is huge and significant.

OK, so please explain how the tax evasion scheme apple has in place to make record profit and please the shareholders make things great for people ?

This tax evasion is money taken out of infrastructure (schools, hospitals, ...) healthcare, housing for the poor, and so on. Actually tax evasion is among the main culplrit for third world countries remaining poor and economical crisis around the world. Tax evasion money alone in Europe is enough to fill the whole European debt at once.

Also explain the work condition of manufacturing of apple devices at the other side of the world ? Why not provide decent work conditions and pay to their workers ?

Of course Apple knows this, they designed it to work that way and increase inequalities because they're on the good side of the divide.

1) Tax "evasion" is not evasion if they are following the law. Whatever wild claims you may hear and repeat, I doubt they are going to try to seek out trouble by breaking the law.

2) Obviously they do look to keep costs low so that prices can be kept in check. That being said, they have been proactive about finding and fixing problems with work conditions with their manufacturing partners.

Apple is trying to get tax breaks to operate in India. Link http://www.livemint.com/Industry/0AsioYCvuLwpwqx3Y2k7jJ/Appl...

The second phase of Apple Inc.’s plan to make the iPhone in India is hanging in the balance as the firm awaits government approvals and tax breaks that it says are key to making a profit, a person aware of Apple’s plans for the market said.

iPhone price is exorbitant in India. There is nothing much to separate between brand, hence Apple is using privacy as a spec feature. But at the end of it its just for Profit.

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