I believe GP is referring to things like privacy-centric de-Googled Android phones, which definitely are an option. I would not classify those as "least bad" or even bad.
GP is correct about Apple products; even among the HN crowd they are likely the most popular devices. I think this is because most readers aren't trying to die on the hill of openness. They're more concerned with software and ubiquity, two areas where Apple is doing very well.
You do get many here enthusiastic about open access to your own hardware, but I think we're talking about a Venn diagram; we're not all the same. (I'm an Android user.)
Actually, I was disagreeing with the GP specifically about Apple products. I'm an Apple user, but very much because they're the "least bad" option. De-Googled Android phones still have awful audio latency (I'm a musician who makes a music app on the side), very limited messaging and notification features, and integrate poorly with desktop OSes. For how I use my devices, open or no, Android simply isn't a viable option.
The thing about all this is, Apple's products being well-integrated and well-designed doesn't require them to be locked down the way they are. The EU move to force them to use USB-C/Thunderbolt over Lightning is a perfect example of this. It unilaterally improved things for users, and iPhone 14 vs. 15 sales reflected that pretty clearly.
So I'd especially describe Apple as the "least bad" rather than "completely acceptable." They're specifically what I had in mind saying that.
> Apple's products being well-integrated and well-designed doesn't require them to be locked down the way they are.
That's definitely true, and it's what has made me favor Google over Apple for decades now. Google's deal has been free software for the price of your user data, but I've accepted that deal because Google has never practiced predatory lock-in. Apple makes claims to value your privacy (I wouldn't know) while making predatory lock-in fundamental to everything they do. Denying access to your own device is part of this.
The irony is that I loathe the data economy. I think it has gone far beyond what Google ever envisioned (for years it seemed they had yet to discover a way to make money at all). The privacy aspect matters, but I also hate the way it makes companies and their products behave; the way it feels like every click results in an attempt to directly advertise to you. And it's all clumsy and broken. How often are ads even correctly targeted? I feel about conglomerated user data the way I feel about meme coins: it's all built on speculation, hopes, and dreams, and has less to do with people actually buying your product. I can't wait for the bubble to burst and/or for a global ban on the sale and purchase of user data.
I think we're very much in agreement on most of these things, and our "platform loyalty" led us to perceive different options as the "least bad" - that's totally okay, though! I was an Android user from 2009-2020 because I agreed with you, up until I started working on my own music software, which pushed things the other way for me.
For your last sentence, though... user data and its utilities are arguably not a "bubble." And as we've seen with AI training, use of data being illegal doesn't really stop companies from doing it. I think we'll have better actual results from governments forcing Apple to let us run our own software on the hardware we buy, as opposed to governments trying to prevent Google, Meta, et. al. from abusing customer data.
A lot of this has to do with the fact that the former is about regulating our rights with hardware, while the latter is about software. Hardware is just easier for governments to regulate. When you try to regulate software, companies will do things like the deliberately-annoying cookie popups we got after GDPR/CCPA, because it's cheap to produce lots of bullshit to experiment with ways around those regulations.
GP is correct about Apple products; even among the HN crowd they are likely the most popular devices. I think this is because most readers aren't trying to die on the hill of openness. They're more concerned with software and ubiquity, two areas where Apple is doing very well.
You do get many here enthusiastic about open access to your own hardware, but I think we're talking about a Venn diagram; we're not all the same. (I'm an Android user.)