If you have to rely on people like Tim Cook ( who is anything but a regular person and could literally afford to have a hand crafted phone and OS build for himself) to convince your government of something for your benefit, something is wrong.

And btw, a huge amount of Apple's "privacy" schtick is pure marketing combined with gatekeeping. Oh no, we couldn't allow users to have the choice where to install an app from, or how to pay for it, because privacy and not because we like our tax.

I don't have time to try to convince Congress about privacy. But Tim does - in fact he recently wrote a letter in hopes that it'll add some weight to the cause. Whats wrong with relying on people who have the means to get shit done if they're clearly capable and willing?

The first issue is Apple's vision of privacy requires absolute trust in them and providing them with access to all your data so they can leverage whatever parts they decide is useful for their software.

The second issue is Apple facilitated the modern form of having no privacy - apps with discrete access to all our private data, tracking us in real time, using APIs Apple designed, using an approval process Apple cheaped out on, and they have profited immensely from this state of affairs.

The third issue is Apple is often at odds with consumers, there is an entire Wikipedia article about their litigation from when they fucked people who buy ebooks, tech workers they employed, parents who let their kids play iOS games, people who bought laptops with butterfly keyboards, developers they chose to compete with, they often do things contrary to our interests and rights.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc._litigation

Privacy is marketing strategy they chose to differentiate themselves from their competitors who have business models that heavily rely on advertising and surveillance. It's a good thing for consumers that they are interested in it, but cynically, I don't think that interest is because they think its "important" on an ethical level.

Great! Their interests and mine align. That is why I'm a customer.

The iOS App Store doesn't list permissions requested by each app either.

Yet most likely, privacy¹ will succeed in convincing our governments² that Tim Musk³ is iMportant™. ;-)

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¹ The topic, not the actual thing.

² Present & future.

³ Not a typo; an allegory.