[exabrial]

Correction: Mobile phone operating systems are designed to give a single player in the market unlimited access to your privacy while locking out competitors. The operating system is not your friend.

Bravo on the rest, you nailed it.

[judge2020]

Correction: The operating system is a friend that vets your friends. Sometimes I don't want to have to do a full background check on "everyone" I want to "friend" so I let the OS do it for me.

[franga2000]

More like an abusive parent that unilaterally decides who you're allowed to do what with - sometimes because they think they know better than you and sometimes just because it's more convenient to them.

[eyelidlessness]

I legitimately experienced the abusive scenario you’re describing as a child. I’ve never once felt even an analogous experience from my OS vendor (which is Apple on all of the devices I own).

[franga2000]

Obviously the analogy is deeply flawed, I was trying to fit it to the style of previous comments. It's possible you never had a use-case that required such a feature, since you're fully in the Apple ecosystem. They intentionally limit their OS to give their own solutions an edge: clipboard sharing, notification mirroring, call forwarding, etc. only work iOS-macOS - if you have a Windows or Linux PC, Apple won't let you have those features, even if you're willing to develop them from scratch. Access to the WiFi, NFC and Bluetooth hardware is heavily limited - you won't find "WiFi Analyzer" on iOS. There are also many entirely legal categories of apps (web browsers, things that run code, porn, gambling...) that Apple refuses to allow on iOS, even when the user is fully informed of their "risks" and wants to use them. They won't let anyone but themselves fix your device because they think nobody could do it right, despite the fact that their own service technicians are almost always much worse than the third party, who then have to scavenge parts from damaged devices because Apple forced their suppliers into exclusivity contracts.

[danuker]

Indeed. One data point is here: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/79906367

[pindab0ter]

What an incredibly uncharitable take.

[hdjjhhvvhga]

Care to elaborate? Because nothing the parents said is untrue. Even if you yourself don't feel that way, there are numerous reports of predatory and unethical behavior on the part of any corporation that is able to control your device, whether this is Sony[0], Samsung[1], Microsoft, Google or Apple[2][3].

They even stopped apologizing and consider their actions a standard practice. You know, Microsoft actually used to asked me if I allow them to send a report when Word crashed. What happened? What changed that they no longer ask me but do whatever they want? Why with each update they insist on "syncing my ms account" and I have to disable it each time?

The take is not uncharitable, it's realistic.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/pqi486/samsu...

[2] https://gizmodo.com/apple-iphone-analytics-tracking-even-whe...

[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2019/07/30/confirm...

[LarryMullins]

Being charitable to huge corporations (paperclip maximizers) is extremely naive.

[voakbasda]

No, experienced. Too many examples of this being true have been presented over the years. You do not own the software on your devices. You never have.