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It seems like privacy isn't popular enough to enable a third player in the market. I wonder if "cheap" would be popular enough to make a dent. Like someone churning out de-googled AOSP phones cheap enough to attract market share.
The "cheaper" customers you get, the less they demand. That includes privacy, unfortunately.
One thing you have to consider when debating i0S versus Android in the context of privacy is: you can have the best of both worlds and own an Android phone and an i0S device (if you can afford that, and I'm aware many citizens in third world countries don't have the luxury of owning two phones). It's like the old Chrome versus Firefox debates that happen every other month now on Hackernews & Reddit. I own a Chromeboo…
One thing you have to consider when debating i0S versus Android in the context of privacy is: you can have the best of both worlds and own an Android phone and an i0S device (if you can afford that, and I'm aware many citizens in third world countries don't have the luxury of owning two phones). It's like the old Chrome versus Firefox debates that happen every other month now on Hackernews & Reddit. I own a Chromeboo…
If you truly need privacy and control then the right approach is to have neither of them and consider a GNU/Linux phone (Librem 5 or Pinephone).
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Are we allowed to have an opinion about which company is better for our privacy?
If both are bad, does it matter which is less bad?
I'm willing to limit what apps I use and carefully consider what I install. I'm not yet willing to abandon my smartphone.
Choosing the lesser of N evils is a pretty common and often rational choice, in life and in engineering. May be not in this case, and it's good to be unsatisfied, but disregarding the debate just because neither option is great makes no sense.
I hope fanboys don't start defending Apple / Google for their privacy measures etc. (esp. Apple) Both platforms are notorious (Apple more so due to its closed nature imo) and defending any is just weird.
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You're welcome to say whatever you want, but if you genuinely believe that the NSA gives preferential treatment to anyone from FAANG you're living a fever dream.
On the other hand, who else besides FAANG has the resources to resist the NSA, at least in small ways?
One thing you have to consider when debating i0S versus Android in the context of privacy is: you can have the best of both worlds and own an Android phone and an i0S device (if you can afford that, and I'm aware many citizens in third world countries don't have the luxury of owning two phones). It's like the old Chrome versus Firefox debates that happen every other month now on Hackernews & Reddit. I own a Chromeboo…
How would that not give you the worst of both worlds? You would be tracked by the weakest aspect of both devices.
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The "cheaper" customers you get, the less they demand. That includes privacy, unfortunately.
Yes, the idea is to give them privacy even though they aren't asking for privacy, just "cheap".
Most cheaper phones will just get revenue from selling users info instead.
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Of course they can, the paper just did. Security (which privacy is one subset of) is not binary. Just because it can never be perfect does not mean that it's all equal.
Privacy is absolutely binary and taking a hardline approach is absolutely the proper way to protect your privacy. You either actively choose to share information (1) or you don’t (0). The article compares who is sharing what to who — sharing info is sharing, period. A smartphone with all the bells and whistles in 2021 is not private. I stand by my statement, hardline.
Important details include: who are we trying to hide information from? and what are we trying to avoid sharing?
"Information" is just way too generic. It's possible to draw some conclusions from even the absence of a signal.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are we allowed to have an opinion about which company is better for our privacy?
If both are bad, does it matter which is less bad?
(Of course, this assumes people bother to switch. In reality, this isn't even true in oligopolist party politics, let alone in oligopolist markets. In practice, there need to be a lot more, smaller options before switching costs are forced down enough to encourage people to switch. In phone markets, this looks like how people switch somewhat easily between different Android device manufacturers for their next phone. If we could get phone Operating Systems working like that, we'd really have something!)