What are you talking about? This is literally them doing the opposite, and there are multiple other public instances of them making a stand, not to mention in the design of their systems.
Truly curious how you see this that way.
Removing encryption for everyone is literally doing the opposite of making a stand
It's not as much "making a stand" as telling a major government that you have substantial seizable assets under their jurisdiction who is a major market you want to be in, that you're not going to do the thing that their laws say you are required to do, but it's hardly simple compliance either, instead of doing what the government wants them to do, they are making sure there is blowback.
Whether to try to fight it in court likely depends on details of case law and the wording of the laws they'd be contesting, I imagine much of the delay in their response to the demand was asking their lawyers how well they think they would fare in court.
This doesn't affect only people in the UK. It allows access to all Apple users' data globally:
> No Heathrow connection necessary. “The law has extraterritorial powers, meaning UK law enforcement would have been able to access the encrypted iCloud data of Apple customers anywhere in the world, including in the US” [1].
> https://www.ft.com/content/bc20274f-f352-457c-8f86-32c6d4df8...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43132160
So they can spy on you regardless of where you live even in violation of your own country's privacy laws.
They didn't say anything loudly, or said it was illegal in the UK.
All they had was a single comment to a single (or perhaps a handful at most) comment to a media outlet that they disabled it.
They didn't even bother with a press release, or notify their users.
It's not even half a stand. It's a rollover
For example if I encrypt a file locally, a zip file containing images, am I not permitted to upload that zip file to a cloud service in the UK?
Even if the UK's demands were "access to encrypted cloud services", does that also mean encrypted files within encrypted storage? It all seems so messy. Anyone who really wants to hide their files, can do so regardless of demands for backdoors.
The question isn't about "anyone who wants". It's about "anyone, regardless of their technical skill"
They are not making a stand. They roll over without a peep. And this is concerning users' privacy which they say is the core of the company.
Compare it to fighting every government tooth and nail over every single little thing concerning the "we don't know if it's profitable and we don't keep meeting records" AppStore