Regardless of whether Apple bows down to pressure on this, it shows you how they think. It’s their phone, not yours. Tim Apple is your daddy and as long as you live under his roof, you live under his rules. And he’s just made it clear he can enter your room whenever he likes and search your drawers. Might be time to think about moving out.
Problem is, where do you go? Do you move in with creepy uncle Google next door? No, he’s even worse.
And your banking app only works on iOS and Android…
…I’m seeing people say “just don’t use an iPhone.” It’s not that simple when everyday things like financial apps with two-factor authentication are locked into the two main platforms.
We need legislation to ensure critical services use open standards so you can use your Pinephone to buy lunch in the future.
It’s shocking how easily some folks jump to “just go live in a cave.” No, that’s not an acceptable alternative. We deserve to partake in modern life without sacrificing our human rights…
…It’s also victim blaming to tell everyday people they’re at fault for using one of the two main tech platforms instead of an (as of yet inaccessible) alternative. (I have two Pinephones and my room overflows open hardware. No, I don’t blame you for using an iPhone or an Android device. You’re the victim here.)
Blame the actual culprits: clueless legislators/policymakers who allow these monopolies to continue and fail to protect our human rights. Blame Big Tech and those who enable it…
@aral
How did we get those legislators and policy makers? Blaming someone else than us is also an easy escape route. We have to take responsibility to build alternatives and also change our legislators if required. Just putting blame on someone else is not sufficient. I know it is an easy thing to do. When you want to just look at your own job, we can't fix it. Yes, just doing your job is fine if we have a functioning system, but that is not sufficient when the system itself is broken.
@aral
I'm just saying politics should also be considered our responsibility, whether we succeed in that or not, if we consider politics is broken. If we consider the real solution is political, then we can't just say we are not politicians and it is someone else's responsibility. We need to build, educate _and_ participate in politics.