As someone who prefers Apple products these days, I don't run into many people who blindly think that privacy is some kind of immutable characteristic of the corporation. We absolutely understand that it is a position they put themselves into because it attracts customers. It's important to their bottom line.
> Apple would abandon prioritizing privacy the moment market conditions stop that from being a profitable position to have
True, but I think the leaders at Apple are well aware of how risky abandoning such a core selling point would be for future sales. They have to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, much less actual privacy violations, or it'll tank their reputation. I think it unlikely they will conclude that selling the data is more valuable anytime soon.
Luckily there are so many anti-Apple people constantly scrutinizing their every action for possible malfeasance, I expect we'll hear about it very quickly and loudly if/when it happens. A problem to worry about then. Right now, their competition is largely unconcerned with privacy already.
many cases of very common damage to such devices is very much fixable, at least theoretically for a small fraction of the price
they mainly care about you not repairing them
any supposed "compromised security" could be handled with free user choice in form of a hardware lock-down mode (with appropriate warnings) but the huge majority of their users don't need nor care for that
they provide no proper repair, only replacement of whole sometimes multiple components which given their design often means the whole motherboard, even if needed repairs can often be done with much much less cost
their repair is also believed to systematically misclassify damage and needed repairs (i.e. it looks like it's structured with a focus on avoiding actual repairs). E.g. not just are there many cases of them stating that there was water damage without there being any sign of that they also use overly sensitive water intrusion sensors which frequently go off without any intrusion. Stories of them claiming other damage when the repair was e.g. just a faulty cable.
they have done many steps to either make repair outright impossible or so cumbersome that they monetary make no sense (e.g. their "repair program")
As far as I remember multiple PR campaigns which focused around fearmongering about "evil independent repair shops" have indirect ties with Apple. Indirect enough so that Apple can claim that had nothing to do with them.
I.e. they in my opinion really don't want you to repair your devices, or worse upgrade them.
Security in many (maybe not all) cases seems to play no role outside of being a good excuse.
Beyond repair shops, there is a healthy cottage industry with thousands of participants - maybe tens of thousands - who do repairs in their homes as a hobby, extra income or for friends and family. Buying and fixing broken second-hand doodads for resale can be a profitable hobby, and saves items from being consigned to trash early. Apple gets $0 from this aftermarket, and ends up competing with its own products from 2018. I don't think they are pleased about Oregon's bill, especially as we've hit the limits of Gordon's Laws.
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1ZK1CO/
Privacy is just a marketing bullet point for them and a brand differentiator. There’s no substance there. Everyone is pro-privacy when compared to Google.
It's more than a little depressing that marketing can be so effective even when it's a bald-faced lie
You should read the terms of service.
Doesn't this describe every company, is there any company in a capitalist market would care about anything other than money? I might be wrong or shortsighted but happy to be proved wrong.
Private companies can afford not to subscribe to the single core tenet of capitalism which is to "maximize shareholder value".
"Founders" like Musk and Jobs have a short window where they can move their companies in directions which matches their vision, but that closes quickly after the company goes public and their stock gets diluted enough so that they be ousted.
https://legislate.ai/blog/does-the-law-require-public-compan...
"In Shlensky v Wrigley, a famous American case, the firm that owned the Chicago Cubs baseball team refused to hold games at night, even though this would have increased profits and value. The director, Mr Wrigley, argued that installing lights for the games would disturb the peace of the surrounding environment." Good example of it not being 100% about money.
Sure. There are plenty of smaller companies whose goal is financial sustainability while also pursuing some other objective. It's just much harder to maintain that position when you have millions of investors expecting growth or increasing returns.
When real human beings - who can care about things - stand up and speak on behalf of a company, we're falling for a hell of a deception if we think their words represent anything solid.