Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference between the State and the Private Company is that citizens vote for the State, and Legislators (the "paternalizers") are directly installed by the voters. The iPhone buyer does not get a say in the development staff or direction at Apple. My government intends to be "Of the people, for the people, by the people". Imagine if Apple every single year had elections at every level of their company! Vote for…
Elections != democracy. Or even representation. Apple has a certain awareness of public opinion and user mood. It isn't obliged to pay attention to either, and of course it also tries to control both through PR efforts. But if it ignores or irritates its users too much there are financial consequences. Meanwhile you can be sure forums like HN are monitored for sentiment.
I believe they very much know what their users want and are giving it to them
That's why they are so successful.
And what their users want is a device to support their paternalism.
I've never witnessed so many judgments against elderly or people that are a bit of techno illiterate (a bit is enough) as I have in discussions about Apple.
The baseline is always of two types:
- they are easy to operate, so even my [insert moms, dads, granpas etc here] can use them
- I would never let my [insert moms, dads, granpas etc here] use an open device where they can get viruses that then I have to fix (like fixing something for your family is some kind of punishment, they did it for me repeateadly when I was younger!)
And i think it's a bit naive to think that people supporting the idea that Apple knows better are in good faith and are not doing it because they like the control too and to be "influencers" (with many quotes) in their inner circles.
I would never think that my parents who raised me and made me what I am are incapable of understanding basic safety rules on the Internet once explained to them (safety rules that anyway protect them from something that don't kill people, it simply kills the battery of the device)
> Meanwhile you can be sure forums like HN are monitored for sentiment.
I'm sure they do.
One interesting other thing that we can be sure and I didn't think possible is that there are people monitoring this forums as well with enough karma to downvote, that not only downvote your posts in a discussion, but go back to yout history and downvote older posts as well.
It just happened to me, I had posts from yesterday and two days ago downvoted right now by the same people that downvoted me in this thread.
I don't know if HN can do something about it or not, but for starter disallowing voting on older submissions that users have not shown interest on could help (it should be easy to check which submissions users have opened, when, how many times and for how long to establish if they are genuinely interested in the topic)