this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
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I didn’t claim that Apple is doing anything to be “generous”. That seems like it’s moving the goal posts. Say, are other PC manufacturers doing things out of generosity? Which ones?
Even the M2 and M3 Macs are a good value if you want the things they’re good at. For just a few hundred more, no other machine has the thermal management or battery life. Very few have the same build quality or displays. If you’re using it for real professional work, even just hours of typing and reading, paying a few extra hundred over the course of years for these features is hardly a “scam”.
You didn’t elaborate on your “spyware” claim. Was that a lie? And now you claim it’s “known” that Apple limits hardware and software. Can you elaborate?
MacBooks do have excellent screens, software integration and everything else, that's a fact and I don't take that away from Apple. But the problem is that it's not worth paying for this in exchange for a system that is completely linked to your Apple ID, tracking all your behavior for advertising purposes and whatever else Apple decides. Privacy and freedom are worth more. If you can't check the source code you can't trust what Apple says, they can lie for their own interests. Have you ever read Apple's privacy policy regarding Apple ID, for example? If not, I recommend it.
I think that decision makes sense.
What you said got me worried, so I looked into the claim that it is "tracking all your behavior for advertising purposes and whatever else Apple decides". That's a convincing concern, and you've changed my mind on this. I don't see any evidence that they're doing anything close to this level of tracking — the main thing they seem to track is your Mac App Store usage — but they may have the potential to do so in the enshittified future. That gives me pause.
Apple has repeatedly stressed that they're privacy focused in the past, while a major departure from that could happen absolutely it feels a bit like borrowing trouble to assume it will happen soon. Google is an advertising company first, microsoft is just a mess, but Apple is a luxury hardware producer, they have minimal reason to damange their reputation in a way that would make those sorts of consumers upset.
Please note that I'm not saying it's impossible just unlikely in the near future
That assessment sounds right. I think we just need to stay vigilant as consumers. We have defeasible reason to trust Apple right now. But we’ve seen, especially recently, what happens when we let corporations take advantage of that hard earned trust for short term gain.