Thanks for taking the time to look into this. I am afraid it does not address the wider concern I have of which criticquing Apple is a specific example.

On topics where there is a deep skew in the opinion held by the HN readerbase, it is probabilistically likely that going against the widely held view will receive more downvotes. This has a chilling effect on expressing dissent. Of course there will be people who will be able to mitigate this with their gravitas and eloquence. But it would be better if we can come up with a scheme where we lower the burden on people holding a dissenting opinion.