Many people take the following maximalist stance: "Apple can't save users' privacy in China, nor can it push back against laws, so therefore it's unreasonable to ask them to hold the privacy line." But for every China there is a Brazil, Hungary, or India.

For every "completely authoritarian" regime, you have handfuls of (historically democratic) governments on their way toward authoritarianism. In these countries, it's often not the laws calling the shots but the politicians that happen to be in charge at that moment.

Even in democracies with laws as guardrails, presidents will push for data on political opposition - at times threatening techies along the way (see: Brazil jailing WhatsApp execs for access to data [0], Twitter/India raids, or, in the USA: Trump DOJ asking Apple to turn over info on House Dems [1])

Simply "doing what you're told" around the world (no-questions-asked, aka "being in the arena" as Tim Cook says) will turn you into an enabler of authoritarianism, and not just in totally FUBAR countries like China but in many nations with a lot of freedom at stake.

0 - https://washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/senior-fa...

1 - https://www.techmeme.com/210610/p51#a210610p51

From: https://twitter.com/SpencerDailey/status/1426008754143776771