The weighing of leverage is more or less how the market has and still works to this day. Thus if you send me or my family out there to negotiate with Popeye's (which really wants you to create an account), or Walmart, Facebook [1], or even a small company making todo apps, I will simply not win, and neither will my family members.
I love that cross-app tracking is now opt-in, because that's not something I'd ever imagine negotiating with any company, ever. I love the fact that all subscription-based services purchased through the iOS platform can be managed in a centralized place. I love that companies that provide services on iOS must provide a way to register with Apple's anonymous account service. I love that companies seeking payment on the iOS platform must support Apple Pay, which protects my payment information.
Without Apple I'm not sure how you'd ever negotiate these things to happen.
The parent comment raises a point which I frequently see in HN threads: Apple, despite deficiencies, solves concrete privacy problems for regular, non-tech users, often in ways the users haven’t thought of ahead of time. I often see comments such as these upvoted; yet they have no responses, neither in the form of rebuttals nor supporting confirmations. What gives here? Is there some silent majority which prefers not to weigh in on these matters, or is this merely observation bias oh my part?
Edit: syntax
This is not a value judgement on the ethical nature of said state actors. But that’s the difference — one is legal and desirable for all consumers, so they can pursue it. One is illegal and would put them in violation of federal law, so of course a public company cannot.
What’s next? You going to use that same article to argue that the USA is equivalent to North Korea?