Mark Zuckerberg Rebuts Tim Cook: Companies That Charge You More Don't Necessarily Care About You More

[TheTruth101]

The funny thing is...

These two need more of you than you need from them. Without you, without you visiting or buying they are nothing.

 

[Papanate]

Let me tell you... Tim Cook.... the most hypocritical character out there.

I have a good friend working at Apple at C level. To paraphrase him: we are here for the money, those days with cool inventions are gone. We have a load of things not being developed because we are making money with what we have out there, like Hollywood remakes.

While I'm no fan of Tim Cook - I seriously doubt the Board of Directors would be okay
with that kind of thinking. AFAIK the BOD wants to get rid of Cook - and he appears to
be hanging on by a Jobs Thread.

 

[v3rlon]

Not everyone can afford a good education at a high priced university like Stanford, so the OBVIOUS solution is to sell them into a lifetime of slavery with crippling student loan debts. We should certainly not offer education at a more affordable price at a nearby state run college that doesn't spend all its money on a perennially mediocre football program.

Why didn't I think of that?

 

[forerunnerg34]

We all know what kind of campanies are Facebook and Apple. Still, we consume their services. We all know what many companies do and we still consume.

 

[alex2792]

Companies don’t care about you period, they exist for only 1 purpose, to make money for shareholders.

 

[deanthedev]

Apple - the company that changes their algorithms do either show you have a great signal or not; who was keeping location data for year, and so on.

No company is infallible when it comes to data. My point stands. It is not in Google best interest to sell/give away/ give access to your personal data.

Deflection? Let me know when Apple creates a form of malware to take advantage of another company’s users. Which is what Google basically did.

Google makes pretty much all their money off ads/user data. When an opportunity presents itself to use that data in a new way to monetize it do you really think they’ll ignore it for the sake of privacy?

 

[ipponrg]

The funny thing is...

These two need more of you than you need from them. Without you, without you visiting or buying they are nothing.

On the contrary, I think they are both drugs, and most people need them more than they need you.

 

[tdar]

Nor do they have a reason to be performing illegal psychological and emotion human experiments.

To be fair,all of Facebook is a gigantic psychological experiment. But it's one that you gave permission to be involved in. I guess that the allure of finding your high school girlfriend(or boyfriend), that you've been fantasizing about all these years now is rather strong.

One fact of this experiment that receives little coverage,comes from marriage counselors. Facebook (and all of social media) is destroying marriages (and all life partner relationships) at a unprecedented rate.

 

[dogslobber]

Dear Mr Zuck,

I believe Trump more than I'd ever believe you.

Regards,
Mac User.

 

[Preclaro_tipo]

One of the reasons they charge more because they don't sell your data to make up the difference. Take Amazon, they often sell hardware at cost or at a lost because they know they can make it up selling you other stuff by using the data they collect.

Apple sells to Google the default search engine for their OS. Apple is absolutely monetizing ads, they are just out-sourcing it to Google, for a (substantial) fee.

Apple has also owned its own ad agency too, creating ads to run on apps on their platform. (i'm not sure the status of this group at this time)

 

[deanthedev]

Lets see...

Working with personal data mined from 50 million Facebook users, Cambridge Analytica used modeling techniques to micro-target specific voters and manipulate a United States presidential election.

That pretty much says it all for me.

So we're comparing the above with Tim Cook's Apple? With some here feeling both companies and CEOs behave similarly?

I’d say a repost of a post I made the other day is in order:


This is so typical when people look for reasons to bash Apple. A few more examples would be:

• Apple collects user data. Google collects user data. Therefore they are both equal in how much data they collect and what they use it for.
• iOS gets malware. Android gets malware. Therefore they are both equal in terms of your chances to get malware.
• iOS issues regular security updates. Google issues regular security updates. Therefore they are both equal in terms of how quickly consumers get security updates.

Rinse and repeat.

 

[budselectjr]

Don’t tell him the advertising supported model is dying in basically all forms of media.

 

[tdar]

So, I think we need to think of this as levels, not companies:

Level 1: A company does not use your data, and instead you pay for a product or service and get what you pay for. Apple is roughly here, though it gets a little murky with iAds and how it sells its stuff on the app stores and Apple music. This is ok from a privacy standpoint, and whether the company "cares" about you or is "fair" to the customer in other ways is irrelevant.

Level 2: Ad-based good guy- I think this is what Google does in theory if not in practice. In this case, the company acts as a go-between. The customer uses the company's free products, and as a part of that gives info for the company. Advertisers could then go to the company, who in theory brokers between its customers and advertisers. As long as the original company is the only one I see and I get ads when I use the free services, then I'm generally ok with this.

Level 3: Advertiser free for all- everyone else who uses all methods possible to get private user data and sell it to advertisers. I think we could all agree that this isn't cool.

Two points from here:

• Being a good or caring company isn't solely based on providing privacy and informed consent to end users, but that it is a part of it. Just because your business model doesn't deal in this, does not solely define a company as good or bad.
• Level 3 style companies aren't necessarily bad (though they often are), but informed consent is crucial to either a level 2 or 3 company. Its not acceptable to just assume the customer knows what they are signing up for. Frankly, many, many companies purposely try to obfuscate this (burying it in pages long Terms & Conditions in confusing language) to make more money. That's not cool. And its also not cool when a company like Facebook has a monopoly on their own type of service, and many users feel they have no choice but to accept bad privacy policies.

So sure- I'm really happy that Apple is so dedicated to privacy, but that isn't the only thing that defines them as a company (I'll give Mark this point but...). Facebook, however, I feel is guilty of things like being lax on privacy, not being clear to their customers about privacy, and bullying their customers into accepting bad privacy because of their dominant market position. (I ultimately think Tim's statements, while self-serving and self-advertising, are more on the point here.)

All fine except where you assume that Google is a level 2. In no way is Google a level 2. There should be no doubt that Google was the first level 3.

 

[samcraig]

I’d say a repost of a post I made the other day is in order:


This is so typical when people look for reasons to bash Apple. A few more examples would be:

• Apple collects user data. Google collects user data. Therefore they are both equal in how much data they collect and what they use it for.
• iOS gets malware. Android gets malware. Therefore they are both equal in terms of your chances to get malware.
• iOS issues regular security updates. Google issues regular security updates. Therefore they are both equal in terms of how quickly consumers get security updates.

Rinse and repeat.

A bunch of strawman arguments if you ask me. Those three bullets - who has made those arguments as you've stated them. I'm guessing little to no one.

 

[69Mustang]

It has been known for some time that Google and Amazon look much closer at voice data that is collected, so they are much faster at adding responses to their AI.

This dog won't hunt. Google and Amazon being faster has nothing to do with Siri not knowing something. I was going to ask for a source on that "look much closer at voice data" but realized it doesn't make sense to ask for a source. It's simply something you made up. How would one look at it much closer? Apple also uses Siri's voice data to improve the service. Are they not looking at the data closely enough?

You can use google Ad data anytime you want, it is summary data, but user data no less.

I asked really nicely for you not to do this. It was pretty obvious it was the only way to make your argument have even a partial leg to stand on. This is not a good try at honest discourse.

 

[BornAgainApple]

Apple still has iAds? I thought they got out of that business?

They did, back in 2016 I believe.

 

[shahr04360]

Trust no one.

 

[prasand]

So basically, Facebook pimps their users vs. Apple milks their customers.

To me, Apple's approach is basic merchant business. It is the goal of a person or company that makes goods, to sell as many as possible. That existed long before modern technology. Even if the merchant kept a history of their customer's purchases, and sold that to another merchant ... I think that would be understandable, and I can see that occurring even without technology. I can imagine a person who sold a goat, chatting with another person while they pass each other at the market, "I finally sold that goat I've been trying to get rid of." "Oh, you did, who did you sell it to?" "They're willing to buy more, so if I tell you I want a small kickback." "That's worth it to me, I have ten goats I want to get rid of."

To me, that's reasonable exchange.

However, if said merchant, started tapping the phone, to record keywords and interests, to project or anticipate potential new avenues of sale ... I can see why some would take issue with that (personally I wouldn't and don't care). This isn't to say that Facebook taps phones, but they are in essence recording the details of exchanges both public and private. That's akin to selling someone's life / identity (without the specifics), which could be easily compared to slave trade. Minus the lack of will, because a person chooses to be on Facebook.

However, I'm not sure how valid the argument of people choosing to be on Facebook is. I mean, that's like saying, "the rules of this park is, if you step on our lawn, we're allowed to sell you." I can understand if they set that rule, it must be abided by, and if a person chooses to accept the conditions, then that's their decision which they forfeit their right to complain. But, I'm pretty sure that if a park set such a rule, legal entities wouldn't allow that. But Facebook is allowed because it's not physical? Or maybe it's just a matter of time before socially, the selling of personal details (or exploitation) is made to be as much of a violation as slavery.

 

[aevan]

The situation basically is they both enjoy exploiting some of the dumbest consumer base in the face of earth. The rest is sterile chat about who's morale strategy is less incorrect.

So, basically, you just called half of this forum “dumb”.

 

[iansilv]

I'll take Tim Cook's opinion over that of a narcissistic sociopath any day...

 

[jonnyb098]

Poor Mark....buckling a bit under the heat it seems. Things like this are the true test of a company and its leadership. Apple has core values that they try to uphold even if they aren't perfect. All the proof of Facebooks core values seem to be connect as many people as possible using whatever means necessary. And make money off the product (YOU) using whatever means necessary.

And to those who thinks he has a political future??? Please....he has the charisma of a pet rock. Politics is a messy messy arena I think Mark would get chewed up and spit out into a thousand pieces.

 

[Gutwrench]

Zuckerberg looks like he’d take the ‘condom snorting challenge’.

As far as I’m concerned they can both shut up.

 

[neutralguy]

I am not supporting Facebook. I am not supporting Zuck. I don't even know why this is a fiasco. Everybody knows facebook's revenie model. And I will give some leeway to Zuck on this. He runs a huge infrastructure to run Facebook and what's app and everything is free.
But what Tim does is completely unacceptable. Tim charges you 800$ for phone that shuts down after 3 years, forcing you to upgrade. Ios11 has more bugs than Facebook. Tim's constant mention of magical pipeline is never to be seen anywhere. He has pushed apple from being a leader to a follower in technology company. A company that's very soon going to be 'me too' company!
We know at least what Zuck's vision is and that is to connect everybody in the world. What's Tim's mission or vision?
[doublepost=1522684543][/doublepost]

Apple seems to get a "free" pass because they haven't been as successful. The irony.

Sour grapes for Apple

 

[Chupa Chupa]

The bottom line reality here is that all companies have 1) a product or service that they need to sell to a 2) client or customer to become and remain profitable. Facebook, Google, et al.’s product is user’s data. The companies that buy this data are its customers. So in this regard Zuckerberg is dead wrong. But, of course, FB, et al must also make efforts not to alienate users or it will have no product.

That’s not to say companies like Apple or other higher-end brands that have higher than avg pricing “love” their customers. They just don’t need to sell their data for profit. Different business model, that’s all. Apple doesn’t do any of us favors any more than FB or Google.

 

[Stella]

It was necessary to make the phones run correctly. Anyone that doesn't see that is blind.

Apple should have been upfront about it.

More, Apple 'geniuses' refused to replace the batteries, and even advised people they should replace their phone. Lastly, these slowdowns even occurred in the battery was still in good condition.

Apple repeatedly denied people's phones were being throttled, until overwhelming evidence was found to the contrary.

And you still defend Apple?