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Comment by FireBeyond | Hacker News Reader

> I actually quite like that this particular feature is opt out because the goal is to make the mesh network actually useful and not just a white paper theoretical application with zero adoption. Requiring labor of any kind will exclude much of the population from the start, which, for this particular utility, is not tenable.

And people nearby you? Apple is draining your battery for their benefit, using your cellular data for their benefit.

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Yes, everyone who has the feature turned on is pooling their resources together to create a common utility that everyone with the feature benefits from. I fail to see how this is an issue. This is not like Apple exfiltrating data from your phone back to them that can incriminate you like the CSAM debacle that's still unresolved, this is a tool that has a quite easy to understand benefit for those that are using it. I pool the resources of using some of my battery and data and in return I get access to a giant mesh network that helps in locating my devices. If I don't want to participate in this network, I can turn it off.

I get that a lot of people seem to have the issue with it being opt-out rather than opt-in. I think that this sort of feature needs to be opt-out because it better aligns with human behavior.

Except they're not aware of the cost to them so it's not actually consent, and I can't stop them from sending apple or google a message to help track me if i turn one of my bluetooth devices on.

What is the threshold for how informed someone must be in order to be allowed to give consent or make their own decisions here? What responsibility would you place on Apple here versus on the consumers of its devices, specifically?

More than likely if you ask for more than what exists what will actually happen is that another blurb will show up in the long terms of service that most people don't read and people aren't any more enlightened about what exactly their device does.

It would be nice if Apple recorded some visible metric on how much this is “costing” the user.

Eg how much energy or how much bandwidth.

Then we could make an informed decision.

For me personally the usage of my resources was apparently so low as to go unnoticed.

I had to be told by the Internet that it was even happening to an extent that could be noticed.

It would be interesting to have stats though.

Don't operate something you've sold to someone remotely for your own benefit with explicit opt in that is difficult to do without understanding. Full stop. Don't mine their device for data. Don't harvest anything at all from it without an explicit interaction or intentional manually configured automation.

So far, far, far away from where google/apple/ms have drawn it.

This feels like a really loose interpretation of operating something remotely. If they have a backdoor to your phone that lets them flip a switch, that's one thing... I think in this case it's turned on through a software update, which is in the control of the people using the device. That's another feature that is opt-out, by the way. Why? Because requiring input from users to update their phones results in most people not updating their phone, which is a security risk.

It's not so cut and dry and being that dogmatic about it in one direction when there's clear and significant downsides to doing that way is shortsighted. Even if you prompt the user asking for permission for every single thing going on on their device, what do you think the outcome of that will be? Most people I know have tons of notifications from every app they install on their phone because they don't even look at the popup after the first couple times it appears.

I hear what you're saying: Apple's Monopoly on airtags is good for you.

Are there other monopolies you think are good for you? For others? For the world?

It's more like... Apple doesn't really have much reason to open up their technology here to third parties and it doesn't make sense to, either. It's not whether or not other people can design applications for something like a gigantic mesh network other than Apple, just that in order for such a thing to be useful it has to be opt out, which means that the application would have to be developed in conjunction with Apple or by Apple.

If you allow third party applications utilize the tech but require an opt-in, it's effectively useless. If you allow third party applications to do so without an opt-in, it's dangerous.

I think this particular usage of monopoly is suspect/leading.

Tile has a monopoly on Tile devices. Ford has a monopoly on F-150s.

Yes a company has a monopoly on its products in many/most cases. That doesn’t mean they have a monopoly on the market though.

To be charitable, it's possible they meant "AirTags" in the way that you or I would say "Hoover" or "Marmite" or "Polaroid" - not to refer to Apple's specific product, but to internet-connected tags in general.

Because people can't comprehend the difference between 'doing it better than everyone else' and 'being a monopoly'

How on earth is that a monopoly? It's their product. That's like saying MS have a monopoly on Windows. Or VW have a monopoly on the Golf.

There's literally nothing stopping anyone else from developing an AirTag competitor.

Especially since an AirTag competitor existed prior to AirTags. Turns out if you have an existing network of billions of devices, you can offer a better working product.

> Yes, everyone who has the feature turned on is pooling their resources together to create a common utility that everyone with the feature benefits from. I fail to see how this is an issue.

They didn't opt in to it. That's the issue.

It's myopic to focus on which way the toggle on the phone is actually set.

People who live in the Apple ecosystem don't do so in a vacuum. Apple announced AirTags to enormous fanfare, and clearly explains how they work.

They immediately sold out and are no doubt continuing to sell quite vigorously.

Does the median customer want AirTags and Find My Device to work well? We could do some polling to be absolutely sure, but I'm going to just skip that and say yes, they do.

Meanwhile, if it bothers you, you can turn it off.

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