I did a spell working on homicide investigations in the US, and I was consistently amazed by the gulf of difficulty between obtaining legally solicited data from Apple vs. any other company. Most companies drag their feet with subpoenas and search warrants to some degree, but most will just accept it and eventually send what you’ve requested. Apple wouldn’t give you shit unless you had it signed by a judge in your state, a judge in Cupertino, and the prosecutors office in Cupertino. You then had to serve the subpoena/SW in-person at their Cupertino HQ. Say what you want about Apple, but there’s no question that they go above and beyond their competitors when it comes to their users’ privacy.
The spat playing out in the news between Cook and Zuck might seem like posturing on both sides, but I think Apple’s argument is genuine. They believe that people should be able to pay more for more control over their data. Facebook believe that the harvesting data is necessary to keep the internet cheap or free to maintain low access barriers. Both are valid points. But it seems to me that the more aware you are of what Google and FB do with your data, the more willing you will be to shell out for devices and services which not only promise not to give your info to every Tom, Dick, and Harry but also have NO INCENTIVE to do so. The median consumer isn’t dumb: they know there’s no such thing as a free lunch. The bulk of the price difference between Android and Apple phones isn’t down to operational efficiencies or technology, it’s down to the vastly different business models.
With Apple devices, you know how the sausage is made (i.e. your hard earned cash). With Android, you don’t—-but most people figure it out sooner or later. The more tech savvy the consumer becomes, the more they’ll realise what the real “price” of an Android phone is, and the more attractive Apple devices (or any product which doesn’t make consumers pay for stuff in ways they don’t fully control, consent to, or understand) become.
Of course, one could argue that emphasis on privacy differs from culture to culture, but the data privacy piece also bears on rapidly changing understandings of healthy tech use. In lots of places, people just don’t care as much about privacy as the average American does. London is one of the most heavily surveilled cities in the world, and the vast majority of Londoners couldn’t care less. But consumers are increasingly learning how technology can not only add but detract from their lives. There was that Netflix doc (which I didn’t see) about why social media is addictive and makes a bunch of people unhappy etc., then there’s this latest report about how FB is bad for lots of people, but there’s a larger trend there and it is catching up with those areas within the tech industry.
To varying degrees of obviousness, Apple exudes alignment with what its customers actually want for themselves. Apple compiles data on your phone usage; if you want to use your phone less, Apple helps you do that by letting you put time limits on your usage of whatever apps you want to use less. The power of these subtle features at ensconcing product loyalty is often overlooked. Your average punter’s market macro analysis tends to view consumers as crude neoclassical utility functions, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that consumers notice thiede little tells on some level or another. We’ve evolved to be able to judge whether someone can be trusted based on their actions. Phones aren’t people, but they are a proxy for a corporate entity which everyone understands is a consortium of people who want to make money. These are devices we have increasingly intimate relationships with. These devices are demonstrating increasing levels of sentience and intersubjectivity. I know this sounds far-fetched at first, but it makes sense when we consider that the shift to AI is not a 0-to-perfect AGI but rather a gradual shift in which machines will steadily accumulate feature of sentience. The main change, though, is consumer knowledge. When we learn about how our digital overlords make their trillion dollar sausages, we can say: ok, Apply IS charging me an arm and a leg for this stuff, but at least everything is above the table, and at least they’re looking after me once I buy into their ecosystem. A new android customer now is more likely to know that Android is owned by Google; they are more likely to know how Google makes money, and they may be more aware of the deleterious daily grind of being bombarded with highly targeted marketing designed to make you pay the difference (as the person I’m replying to mentioned). If you can afford it, if you value your time and attention, and if your recognise how the forces on online marketing can influence your behaviour in ways you don’t want it to, you may well decide that you’d rather pay an extra few hundred bucks for the Apple product.
Indeed, the Americans here need no reminder of how much economic self-interest people may be willing to sacrifice for a greater measure of perceived transparency and probity.