[KirinDave]

The shitfit is this sort of cognitive dissonance. As Apple does a lot of this shit without discussing it and has for years, but mysteriously people are comfortable with OSX.

And of course, mobile apps are saturated with complex metrics collections. Every major phone app ships with a huge sum of metrics embedded that can be monitored and almost no mobile apps discuss this.

Need we even mention web sites and their inescapable universal surveillance of their users? Even if cookies are turned off, there is so much we can (and do!) use to track users with startling specificity.

Microsoft is just a brand people like to yell about. It's a well-known brand name and people who want to express but not actually show education about digital privacy desperately cling to it to signal they are "IN THE KNOW."

[jmh42]

OSX example: Even 7 years ago Little Snitch on OSX was reporting to me every Apple App was trying to establish a connection home every time I opened it.

I just blocked it and didn't bother to inspect the packets.

[pyre]

The part you are missing is the more users use Microsoft than OSX. See how many of these people are complaining about being Microsoft users and feeling like they need to ditch Windows. These people probably didn't complain about Apple as much (or at all) because it didn't affect them. Now Microsoft has brought it to their front door, and they are forced to deal with it head-on (note: just accepting / ignoring the situation is also a form of "dealing with it").