Political problems tend to be much harder to fix than technical problems especially if you're Tim Cook.

(Also, political solutions are more likely to incur severe unwanted side-effects, such as, for example, making it almost impossible for any new operating system to enter the smartphone market ever again).

Also, the options Tim Cook has at his disposal go beyond technical solutions: in particular, it would be straightforward for Apple to switch to a pricing strategy that gets iOS devices into the hands of 100s of millions or billions of people who will stick with or choose Android if Apple keeps its current pricing model.

Here is a writer who estimates that Apple could sell the iPhone X at at 40% discount from its current (at the time the web page was written) price without losing money on the sale:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2017/11/08/apple-iph...

Rather than switching pricing strategies, Mr Cook apparently prefers to lobby the government to help him maintain the iPhone's status as a premium or luxury brand, which in turn preserves the iPhone's very high profit margins.

Dubious proposition. Many programmers work to solve political problems through technological means. TOR is an example of this.

You can’t solve a political problem through technological means, you can only provide workarounds. Geeky, awkward workarounds. TOR is an example of this.

Problem: Buying something with a credit card exposes the customer to unauthorized charges.

Weak political solution: Thou shalt not make unauthorized charges to other people's credit cards.

Technical solution: Replace the whole concept of credit card numbers with a secure payment authorization flow.

Credit cards: Meh. That sounds hard.

[20 years later...]

Credit cards: Check this out! We offer a secure payment authorization flow! And your credit card numbers still work like they always did!

[Someday...]

Stronger (but late) political solution: Thou shalt provide a secure payment authorization flow instead of credit card numbers.

You absolutely can. Politics follows technology, not the other way around. At minimum, technology gives politicians new options.

That's patently false. If tech was the panacea you're suggesting, free speech would be the norm and there would be zero concerns regarding privacy.

I'm not saying it is the panacea, or that it only has consequences. Just that technology drives social and political developments, not the other way around. Our current technology does promote free speech[0], and does promote lack of privacy. That's why you see politicians fighting with the Internet on curtailing free speech, and promoting privacy.

Politics and social customs are all about taking particular spots on a landscape of choices. Technology shapes that very landscape.

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- [0] - note how difficult it is to really censor anything these days, or curtail someone's audience; hell, if anything, technology is showing that ubiquitous free speech has some negative consequences too.

Have people forgotten arab spring already?

Bitcoin shook the world.

Many engineers worked to create a free and open Internet, but political power has been very effective in regulating and limiting the Internet.

Sneakernet is alive and well in NK.

> Many programmers work to solve political problems through technological means.

The real-world effectiveness of any technical solution depends on the political will to enforce it. Without no political will, technical solutions are not effective or enforceable, or even deployable. A political solution on the other hands eliminates the need to even consider a tech solution.

And is Tor an example of a solution to the problem that has become widely adopted in society causing the problem to go away? Because if not then maybe a political solution to the problem is in order.

Another example is encryption in general. Once export restricted in the U.S. as munitions, the rest of the internet simply routed around that censorship.