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Comment by WaitWhatHuh | Hacker News Reader

>I want privacy hostile companies like Facebook to have to comply with the app store rules and respect system settings relating to privacy.

How about you spend 10 minutes looking at what Apple is actually doing and realize they are just as if not more "privacy hostile" as Facebook/Google/etc. They've been on a hiring spree since they announced their "privacy" update in 2020 to build out their own Ad Tech/DSP/Self Service Ad Platform.

Yeah - Apple was pulling a monopolistic move and kneecapping their competition for profits sake. They realized "Hey, we can kneecap these guys and in the near future profit billions like they did with our own ad network".

How is this good for privacy?

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> they are just as if not more "privacy hostile" as Facebook/Google/etc

You're going to have to back that up. Apple is degrading their privacy value prop for sure, but show me their Cambridge Analytica or their "Incognito mode" that still ties web activity back to user identity.

> How is this good for privacy?

That's a straw man. It is possible to believe that 1) Apple is curbing the worst excesses of abusers like Facebook, AND ALSO 2) Apple is making some mistakes that weaken their own privacy story.

> Apple was pulling a monopolistic move and kneecapping their competition for profits sake.

This is a recurring theme on HN and I find it so strange. Are we really supposed to form opinions on what we imagine faceless committees motives are, rather than the actual corporate actions?

I honestly don't care why Facebook does the things they do. My opinion would not change if it turned out it was from the most noble and altruistic motives. Just like I'll judge Apple for what they do. I don't think it's fruitful to argue about whether individual people are a "good person" or "bad person", and it's even less meaningful for giant multinationals.

> This is a recurring theme on HN and I find it so strange. Are we really supposed to form opinions on what we imagine faceless committees motives are, rather than the actual corporate actions?

I’m unsure which side I fall on in this argument, since Apple has had an incredible run of customer-friendly decisions IMO (at least when compared to their competitors, and other near-monopolies). However, it’s important to learn from history too. Amazon was once one of the most revered brands in the world. They successfully priced out local shops and online retailers by stocking everything, having reliable and fast shipping, and good customer service.

But now look at them. Fake products and reviews everywhere, 2 day shipping is no longer a thing, they’re purposefully making returns more of a hassle, and people outside of major metropolitan areas no longer have other options for many things.

Companies with serious lock-in are bound to screw you eventually. Strong culture and product decisions can only last for so long until some minmaxer with no product vision or care for brand reputation starts calling the shots.

I agree with everything you've said. I guess I'm just not invested in guessing whether Apple will make better or worse decisions in the future, or at least I don't have enough confidence in my ability to guess correctly to make any kind of purchasing decisions.

I'll buy Apple until there's something better for my utility function. And then I'll switch and I won't look back. I might read a book about how culture, durable advantages, and customer-first policies are intertwined, I suppose.

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