kempathonnodge

CheeseFreeze said:

It’s a tough balance. Apple here is doing this for consumer privacy reasons, however on a corporate level it’s also a strategy to weaken competition or at least influence them heavily out of self-interest. It’s a slippery slope.
 
And it’s also one more example of how they are using their market dominance to decide what is acceptable and not (hence anti-trust cases).
Lastly, Apple has proven to be hypocrites themselves when dealing with China and Russia where they gladly bend their own rules and values to sell more products and services. They want to have it both ways.

So although I like what they do out of personal interest (consumer privacy), on a corporate level I am concerned about this behavior, because there is more to it than we consumers realize.

I'm wary of this ideas that 'there is more to it than we consumers realise'. Apple have a proven track record of making decisions that benefit users, sometimes these don't benefit them (Siri being not so great), and sometimes the benefit isn't clear to the lay user - giving up floppy disks, CD, firewire, moving to usb-c, keeping Lighting connectors... . I hear a lot the argument that there must be something going on, but in 45 years this just hasn't been shown to be true. This simply isn't the case for other big tech firms.

The China/Russia argument is not as simple as that. You can't make change unless you are in the game, to simply not work with the Chinese or Russians would not benefit anyone. Apple also has to abide by US law, which not everyone agrees with either!

It shouldn't be their place to push the privacy drive, but in the absence of governments that understand the issue, let alone that are willing to challenge 'big tech', this is really the only option. Watch how many states will be lobbied to fight on the behalf of other big tech companies to challenge these 'pro-consumer laws', instead of embracing and regulating effectively in line with what we know is a better way.