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Comment by _nalply | Hacker News Reader

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_nalply

Good. And bad.

I am not sure that Apple deserves this power. What if Apple is the next evil megacorp?

For me this sounds like science fiction. Megacorps waging subtle war against each other. What's next?

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> I am not sure that Apple deserves this power. What if Apple is the next evil megacorp?

Power to... present user with dialog asking whether they consent to be tracked? The horror!

Uh. Imagine presenting user with dialog asking if they want to pay 30% apple tax or they want an option to use 3rd-party app stores.

Oops, users are too dumb for that, but Apple will protect them!

They are presented with that. Just in real life. When they choose to buy the iPhone or something else.

Russia asked to block Putin's rivals apps. Google and Apple complied. The only people who could side-load it were Android users. I guess that's good for Democracy, right? because Apple said so…

It totally wouldn't happen to us…

How is that relevant to the post I replied to?

But they aren't because users aren't aware of this.

If users aren't aware that for-profit companies make money and one of the ways they do that is by adding margins to the prices of items sold, I don't think Apple, Microsoft or Google are your real problems.

Wait till they learn about how shops operate!

Users aren't aware that the only way to install apps on an iPhone officially is through the App Store?

All this "wAlLeD gArDeN!!!11" cries are so trite. People who want 3rd-party app stores are long gone to other platforms (me included).

I’m a new Apple user because I was so fed up with the atrocious UX on other platforms. Yet I still expect normal freedoms.

My decisions to pick one platform over the other have nothing to do with something so subtle.

I kept both platforms for _years_...then in a time where I was actively looking for work, discovered that my Nexus phone and GoogleFi was sending folks to voicemail without actually ringing me through. When my phone can't phone, that's a pretty good reason to jump ship.

The processors are similar, the form-factors are similar, the OS's are at near feature parity...it's the glue that binds it all together that seems to time the scales slightly to Apple.

(Where did that SMS go? I swear, I can choose from 3 or 4 different places for it to do, and now I can't tell if it's in the SMS app, Messenger, GoogleChat...or?)

Surreptitious tracking and breakout of proceed distributions are not really comparable. Does Best Buy tell you “we take a 20% cut out of every purchase you make here.” If they did, would you care? I’m not sure I would, especially if the in store experience is excellent.

Framing matters. What if instead the message was “You’re paying 30% more than the developer wants for EVERY digital good you buy on iPhone. Forever. “ and “We are the wealthiest company in the world and this portion of our business operates at a 75% profit margin but cannot protect you from fraud.”

“Opt out? Yes/No.”

you bet your ass consumers would care. ignorance is bliss.

Ok, let's not dismiss the one dialog they show as harmful just because they choose to harm their users by not showing those other two.

Why should a user care what percentage of a transaction a platform takes?

Do you ask every grocery store or 7/11 what their processing fees for the transaction are?

When Facebook does it, "consent to be tracked online". When Apple does it, "customized user experience".

I am not a fan of either company, but one sells thousand dollar phones to the global 1%, an the other provides services to 2B people, supporting infrastructure through ads.

The fact that one of these companies is considered evil and other other "the good guys who care about your data" blows my mind.

Facebook is free to continue showing ads. Apparently, it is just their tracking that is not particularly popular with the users. Maybe it is time for them to introduce paid no-tracking subscription?

As long as they are not acting illegally, I am fine with them stomping on Facebook. Our interests align here.

As far as I can tell, what Apple is doing with their privacy settings is merely what is required of data controllers (e.g. Facebook) by GDPR anyway, and as an EU resident by choice, I don’t personally see it as a huge issue for them to say “all apps must be compliant with EU law” (but then, if I did have a problem, I would not have migrated to here).

I'm sure corporations have been waging war against each other for as long as corporations have existed.

> What if Apple is the next evil megacorp?

Apple is one of the evil megacorps, this is not in question.

> What's next?

Given that apparently the thing that is in vogue now is making the universe of snow crash more real, probably a long slide into (more) corporatism.

Apple is a company that plans the obsolence of billions of expensive devices per year, wasting more CO2 and energy than almost any other company on the planet.

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