Comment by cocktailpeanuts | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cocktailpeanuts | Hacker News Reader

cocktailpeanuts

I was rooting for him really, because I myself am also at times very frustrated with how Apple treats developers.

But I've lost trust in this guy after reading his blog posts and especially the phone call he published.

The only reason I can think of why the phone call took over 7 minutes is because he wanted to record it and publish it. Really. If you summarize the phone call. It's basically Apple asking him to publish that his account was indeed linked with the fraud account (not even that he's the one who committed the fraud) and he's working with Apple to resolve it, and rest is this dash guy complaining on and on which is completely unnecessary since Apple already knows that and is saying they understand and want to work with him to "make this right" (The Apple guy literally said "make this right").

Also it is very hard to believe at this point that a "relative" did all this. If I--or any normal person--was in the same situation (I am paying for a relative's developer account with my own credit card with my device and turns out that the relative is committing a fraud), my first reaction would NOT be telling Apple "This has nothing to do with me", but "I had no idea, I am still pissed that you guys didn't notify me, but I also understand your position and will talk to my relative to make sure this doesn't happen. After all, I am the one funding this fraud regardless of whether I was aware or not aware.")

If I--or any normal person--was in the same situation

If you define "normal" as "milquetoast and with an Americentric perspective," then maybe.

Americans are much more submissive when bureaucratic process presents a roadblock. Especially a roadblock that seems on the face more reasonable with an American view of sharing bank accounts and old hardware.

Americans' desire for justice and fairness are paraded around. But their sense of justice is beaten out of them until they have Dwight Schrute-esque compliance "That is the law, according to the rules."

Saying "I understand why you linked these accounts and that my relative committed fraud" is not the same thing as being submissive and rolling over, and your portrayal of Americans is rather offensive.

It's an unreasonable level of deference to a business process that we now understand can err. And that even if it didn't err in this case, we now know it to be designed to err. It unconditionally resolves an ambiguity into the direction that makes their other work easier, regardless of if the data is less correct. And that even if their contracts of adhesion makes the err legally (or at least bureaucratically) robust, doesn't make it just.

your portrayal of Americans is rather offensive.

You have a good point. Voicing my disappointment in my fellow countrymen might go over better at HN I were doing something minor, like accusing ~40% of them of racism for not sharing the opinion that the Democrats' policy positions are the lesser of two evils.

> It unconditionally resolves an ambiguity into the direction that makes their other work easier, regardless of if the data is less correct.

What the hell are you talking about?

Apple spent at least two years investigating this issue, and was in repeated contact with the developer committing fraud. It's clear that this process is designed to be as conservative as possible, because if it wasn't, it wouldn't take two years to finally hit the point of closing the account.

Unless you've lived for meaningful amount of time in various cultures throughout your life, this type of stereotype ("Americans are such and such") tells more about yourself than what really is true.

I say this because I have lived in multiple countries/cultures and have seen many people who say the same thing. Regardless of which country you live in, there are people who talk about how some bad human trait is specific to only their culture. If people from all other countries say the same thing, it probably means it's not unique to only your people.

Also, this is not an American thing. This is called "courtesy".

He said "3-4 years ago" he used his credit card to start the account for a relative. Do we know if he continued to pay for the account? For me it all hinges on this. If it's the same credit card, even if what he says is true, he should own it and admit he f'ed up. If it changed to a different cc, then it's Apple that f'ed up.

And either way, Apple is lame if it takes getting @pschiller involved to try to resolve this. I dig Apple, but they are broken in so many ways.

Edit: typo

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