I wrote this yesterday (and slightly edited/updated it today):
I can’t help but think about the long game here. Are there complex PR strategies that could potentially be employed here by Apple and Facebook together?
I wonder if this ‘fight’ represents some sort of controlled opposition by a few Silicon Valley tech giants to win favorable regulation for the tech industry as a whole: by showing a fake rivalry Apple and Facebook (and others) can carefully control the overall narrative, and although this story focuses on a negative issue (which, let's be real, is not much worse than the average person having already soured on Facebook anyway), it could lead to incomplete, premature, pro-corporate laws, rapidly lobbied for, and passed, by mostly tech illiterate lawmakers (just look at all the senate hearings the past few years [1]).
To the average citizen, these new laws will seem like a transparent and proper attempt to address the major problems in the tech/adtech space, but in reality they are psuedo-solutions, as they do not tackle the underlying root causes. In the end it allows the tech corps to slightly adjust their products (small concessions in the short term), after which they will slowly repurpose the old mechanisms into new shells, and continue with business as usual.
I think a Prop22-inspired PR playbook/campaign is also in full motion here.
This seems like corporate-capitalist gaslighting of the working class in one of it’s most advanced forms.
While anything is possible, I think when Apple found out Facebook was abusing the enterprise app distribution program to track teenagers, that was the end of any amicable relationship. Apple doesn't need Facebook, and they benefit from government regulation around privacy. If world governments start demanding basic privacy, it'll destroy the profit model of their main competitor.
Until a time that Apple's main source of income is selling your private data, I guess I'm hard pressed to believe they're trying to enable their competitors who do.
I don't know that "[Apple] benefit from government regulation around privacy." Considering they are leading the charge on commercial devices and privacy, at least among the big tech companies. It benefits them more to be the only one demonstrating this focus, some proof to support this claim, and no financial benefit to collecting/leaking customer privacy data. None of the other tech companies can claim any 2 of those 3 points.
I consider Facebook, Google, Cloudflare, Amazon, Tencent, Tesla and Apple to be collaborators. Remember the anti-poaching agreement.
Especially Tencent, Google and Cloudflare, they do work together, and they hide it bad.
Several of Google and Tencent's moves have been anti-competitive, and they had a wink nudge.
And Google/Cloudflare, don't get me started lol. If investigators are serious, it is going to be fun.
But in seriousness, Google/Cloudflare is similar to Google/Facebook "collab", and it'll be bad when it comes out. But Cloudflare will be a trillion dollar company by then.
I can’t help but think about the long game here. Are there complex PR strategies that could potentially be employed here by Apple and Facebook together?
I wonder if this ‘fight’ represents some sort of controlled opposition by a few Silicon Valley tech giants to win favorable regulation for the tech industry as a whole: by showing a fake rivalry Apple and Facebook (and others) can carefully control the overall narrative, and although this story focuses on a negative issue (which, let's be real, is not much worse than the average person having already soured on Facebook anyway), it could lead to incomplete, premature, pro-corporate laws, rapidly lobbied for, and passed, by mostly tech illiterate lawmakers (just look at all the senate hearings the past few years [1]).
To the average citizen, these new laws will seem like a transparent and proper attempt to address the major problems in the tech/adtech space, but in reality they are psuedo-solutions, as they do not tackle the underlying root causes. In the end it allows the tech corps to slightly adjust their products (small concessions in the short term), after which they will slowly repurpose the old mechanisms into new shells, and continue with business as usual.
I think a Prop22-inspired PR playbook/campaign is also in full motion here.
This seems like corporate-capitalist gaslighting of the working class in one of it’s most advanced forms.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stXgn2iZAAY