I suspect your estimate of the commonality of such behavior reflects more on you and your social group’s predilections than anything

> I suspect your estimate of the commonality of such behavior reflects more on you and your social group’s predilections than anything

I said nothing of the commonality, only the relative proportions. You're the one assuming things in absolute terms.

Do you disagree that there's probably more people out there wishing to cause someone to lose sleep vs. steal cars and abduct people? If so, see above quoted text.

>Wanna take a guess as to how many assholes out there just want to make a mouthy cunt from the bar lose sleep

Hey it might be easy to forget we're talking about a real person here, and I'm sure you mean this is how a hypothetical person could be perceived by another hypothetical person, but this kind of language directed at a victim of a stalking attempt feels really icky.

Just emphasizing the reality of how assholes in bars can view and treat people, which is part of the point being made; it's icky, and there's plenty of that to go around. Now there's AirTags at their disposal, for better or worse.

For the record I'm a mouthy cunt in a bar after a few drinks.

Why exactly is it lower effort than a cellular GPS tracker from Amazon? They're around the same size, and roughly the same cost.

> Why exactly is it lower effort than a cellular GPS tracker from Amazon? They're around the same size, and roughly the same cost.

Apple is going out of its way to assist in making AirTags discoverable while physically hidden and anonymous.

Some random cellular GPS tracker from Amazon gives the tracking capability, but how does one make it seem threatening while highly discoverable? You'd have to leave it out where physically visible, making the whole charade substantially less convincing.

When you open a GPS tracker you find a SIM and that's enough to identify the owner in any country that requires an ID to get a SIM. AirTags are anonymous by design AFAIK. Furthermore the owner is spared with the burden of getting a SIM (time and cost), ID or not.

AirTag also has an account linked to it. It’s required to function. In fact, if you find an air tag, you can scan it and it shows the serial and the last four digits of the owners phone number. I’m sure Apple will give the full details to the authorities, if requested.

While I'm sure there are countries that require that, you don't have to provide an ID to get a SIM in the United States. You can go buy one off the shelf (with service included) at Walmart for around $10, in cash.

> that's enough to identify the owner in any country that requires an ID to get a SIM

The process that it takes to identify the owner of a SIM card is no different, and likely more difficult, than the process to identify the owner of an AirTag.

How is a common consumer-grade device not less effort than intentionally purchasing, setting up, and deploying a custom spy gadget? They're totally different levels of effort and investment (dollar-'cost' being a small part of it). With an airtag you can even get plausible deniability in a lot of cases.