Arm-twisting? You are conflating two issues here. Every company wants to retain users and their business. That is how every company operates. You should judge a company on what they offer as an incentive to keep them. Privacy as a service on their platform is a great thing. Compare that to what other companies offer as incentives.
> Every company wants to retain users and their business.
I think GP's point is that Apple is doing this using lock-in, rather than having the best possible products.
If there were multiple app stores for iOS users, you could argue that Apple is behaving just like every other business. But they're not. They're stifling competition to lock their customers in.
Indeed, but which of the big tech companies does not use lock-in as a tool? Android Play Services, Google Photos, Amazon Prime, Facebook platform, any streaming service (library is „lost“ if you stop paying)..
I think you misunderstand what I meant by lock-in. Everything you just mentioned is not a lock-in for users. You can use your Android phone with non-Google operating systems without hacking your phone. The same is not true of iOS.
If you buy an iPhone, which is a big investment for most people, then you must either use Apple's App Store or jailbreak.
One person's incentives are another's abusive vendor lock-in.
Each time you use the sign in with Apple button, it becomes ever so harder to switch away from Apple products.
Each time your friends add you to an iMessage group chat (instead of, say, a WhatsApp one) it becomes ever so harder to switch away from Apple products.
Each time you buy an Apple home speaker or Apple TV or whatever else it becomes harder to switch away from Apple products.
Google's stuff works better if you're all in but works fine piecemeal. Apple's stuff works fine all in but doesn't work at all piecemeal.
Tech folks should be up in arms about all this, but all you see on this wretched forum are rationalizations involving "business models" and "paying customers".
You want to see a software maker actually care about people's privacy? See Mozilla. Oh but you can't set Firefox as your default browser on your $1200 iPhone, sorry.
At their size & scale, these tech behemoths want to be your platform and be in between everything. So the question becomes, everything else being equal among them which would you choose and why? Privacy is a good enough reason for me and I'm sure others as well.
Since the beginning, Apple wants to justify its premium by it just works which has allowed novice users to use their Macs and then iPhones and other products. With privacy, it's another one of those "it just works" plus "you don't have to worry about it".
If Apple can tie security to its already high brand equity, it will be and continue to be in a good place in today's fear mongering world. It's always better to sell a pain killer than a vitamin and security is top of mind for consumers now more than ever. If nothing else their advertising campaigns are pushing that education onto consumers.
Each time you use the sign in with Google button, it becomes ever so harder to switch away from Google services.
Each time your friends add you to a Facebook Messenger group chat (instead of, say, an iMessage one) it becomes ever so harder to switch away from Facebook.
Each time you buy an Amazon Echo or Google Home or Chromecast or whatever else it becomes harder to switch away from Amazon/Google products.
At least iMessage is based primarily on phone number, so you can turn off iMessage and keep your contacts. Deleting your Facebook account or trying to change Gmail addresses means losing it all. Lock-in is only lock-in if you let it be. Personally, I worry more about Google than Apple, but your mileage may vary.
