[Halvedat]

It's very likely that people posting on Hacker News may hold equity in a company like Apple, may have their primary form of income derived from that company or may be able to attribute their sizeable wealth to its growth.

It is no surprise that people will come to the defense of this giant when you stop to consider this. Apple doesn't have to care about them, it already has.

I am of the opinion that there should be some sort of disclosure of financial interest.

[fauigerzigerk]

Maybe so, but I never found this line of argument particularly convincing.

The investments people have in Apple are often insignificant compared to the rest of their income or wealth.

Also, buying shares in the public market is like a bet. Instead of changing your opinion to agree with the bet you could simply bet the other way. Or you could bet that your own political activism will fail. Betting on an outcome doesn't mean you prefer that outcome. It can also be hedging.

The people who really do have something riding on Apple's success are employees getting stock options. And yes, I would also like to know whether someone is an Apple employee when they are commenting on these subjects.

Developers are affected by Apple's policies and success in very complex ways and can legitimately take either side on these questions.

Disclosure: I have an app in the App Store that made me ~£100 in the previous fiscal year. I also have £3000 in a NASDAQ 100 ETF. Apple's share of that is ~£270.

[lotsofpulp]

Pretty much everyone that invests in the public equity markets holds equity in Apple. In fact, Apple would be most public market investor’s biggest holding (or 2nd biggest due to Microsoft’s recent increases) via index funds.

Even if you are not invested in public equity markets, you can be exposed to them via local and state government’s pension fund investments, because if those do not perform as projected, then your taxes have to make up for it.

[darkwater]

With the caveat that if you just invest in indexed funds, if Apple does worse than before, probably some competitor does better than before, and it might compensate. If you just own AAPL stocks on the other hand...

[carlosjobim]

Not everybody who has a different opinion than you is a paid corporate shill or spy from Russia or China. If you seriously harbour these thoughts, you should be careful with where they can lead you. Group schizophrenia has become the most common issue among the population in industrialised countries, it seems everybody is suspecting everybody nowadays. And not only suspecting, but outright accusing, just on a hunch and without any evidence.

Please note that I was not paid by Apple to write the comment above.