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Comment by Dibes | Hacker News Reader

To play devil's advocate, I can see a world in which Apple as a publicly traded company is hard pressed into returning stronger results for its investors and turns to data as a way to expand. Not saying it will happen as there is no indicator that they need or want to. However, it is important to note that it isn't outside the realm of possibility at all.

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It's happened before, with Microsoft, too. They've transitioned from an OS where you pay with cash (win7), to a spyware OS where you pay with cash and your data (win10).

Keep in mind, Apple is the company that told a few angry shareholders that they should “get out of this stock” if they were upset about Apple’s environmental initiatives.

Granted, that’s only a CEO change or two away, but the culture very much appears to be one where short term profit isn’t the be all end all.

Apple are pushing privacy as a key differentiator and also to justify their premium price tag. Selling out on privacy would torpedo that USP. Trust is gained in drops and lost in buckets.

Yes in a world of infinite possibilities anything can happen, but realistically Apple is incentivized to maintain their privacy position.

(the following is pure speculation as usual)

This is what the current leadership believes. Tim Cook is a clearly brilliant manager. I have no hesitation in endorsing his record on privacy (and genuineness and truthfulness). However, he is mortal. The next CEO might see things differently. The unique selling point you mentioned will be on the table. There will be analysts who will crunch the numbers on what portion of prospective Apple customers will refrain from buying Apple for some particular transgression and how much such transgression will bring in additional revenue.

Apple can fend off these questions today because it has a huge chunk of the high end phone market. It would be stupid to ask Apple to do this not because it is immoral but rather because it will distract Apple from doing what it does very well: selling $1k iPhones.

Pushing is different than reality though.

"Campaign targets Apple over privacy betrayal for Chinese iCloud users"

Apple sold all their users data in China. Should that not count?

Is Apple not handing over all their user data in China not an example of Apple already doing this?

I meant if they did not they have to leave China like Google chose to do. It was for a buck versus Google thought the bucks to give up their users data not worth it.

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