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Comment by floydnoel | Hacker News Reader

until there's another pandemic, and your local government decides everyone has to install their tracking app. or any number of situations where users will be pressured by institutions they don’t have any control over.

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You're not supposed to say the quiet part out loud. Suggesting that we should rely on a for-profit corporation to "save us" from democratically-elected officials is such an extreme idea I'm surprised it's being voiced so openly.

I say this as someone who strongly opposed any kind of mandatory apps.

Android proves the contrary here. How many government apps are even available outside the Play Store?

Your local government is staffed by people accountable to you, and it is easy enough to call them, and to get everyone you know to call them, and tell them if they do this they will be out of a job next election.

So instead you want your government to pay money to a (possibly foreign) company just to be able to publish an app?

Historically, Apple has demonstrated more trustworthiness and greater morality than the United States Government, when direct comparison has been available.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%E2%80%93FBI_encryption_d...

Even recently, the EU has been pushing for less safety for users.

https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/09/eu_casm_expert_identi...

More generally, your argument doesn't really hold up. Apple's never owned slaves. Apple's never killed coal miners. Apple's never put humans into concentration camps. The United States Government has done all of these things. Why should anyone trust it?

I trust a company that stands to only gain a profit from me using their products just as little as the state I reside in, if not less.

Except we know about PRISM and how Apple is collaborating to the surveillance system.

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