Should this fact be reassuring or even more frightening ?

Because it’s something to push back against governments by saying « I can’t ». But it’s a societal issue if a corporation can say « I don’t want » to a government.

It’s really not the same thing and Apple just burned their « I can’t » card and are implying they can just say « no » to governments. Which is quite an even more dystopian thing.

They can say "no" but they have to cope with the fallout from that.

The statement from Apple is that they will say no. Whether that actually ever happens is something we will see, one way or another.

Apple won't say no to a court order.

Of course they won't. The idea of a company refusing to comply with the laws of the countries they operate in purely out of some grand sense of principle just seems naive. Especially if it's the country where HQ is.

China just hung it's biggest tech companies out to dry.

Do you really think they would care in the slightest about banning iPhone?

Or that Putin cares more about people not being able to buy what amounts to a luxury item, than being able to hunt down opposition supporters?

Yeah I'm pretty sure that this wasn't an easy decision for the Chinese government. Even in dictatorships you can't afford to piss off the population too much.

I'm not sure a move to soak rich guys getting a little too big for their britches is that unpopular with the general population.

Google is pretty big too but they implemented the filtering in China as requested. Then when they decided they didn't want to do that anymore there went their site.

Is there a guarantee that Apple will retain their monetary status, or even, money will be a leverage over governments in future?