> Apple is venturing into advertising and that'll tempt them to weaken privacy protections sooner or later.
I hope they never become this short-sighted. I buy Apple primarily because I believe that they protect my privacy—or at least that they do a better job of it than everyone else.
The thing is, yes Meta/Google did make mistakes in the past and malicious players were able to gather individual information from them.
But the current business of Meta/Google Ads is actually based on protecting your private information and curating it into anonymous Personas.
They protect your privacy for the very same reason as Apple: To be the sole gatekeeper for effectively reaching you with Ads.
There also won't be any "weakened privacy protections". The goal of Meta/Google/Apple is to reach maximum precision for those Personas they create from their users, and protect the underlying data for competitive advantage.
Personas are legally not personal data, they are abstractions. Advertising to you via a cluster with other people who recently purchased a new car is not a legal violation of privacy.
This is how Meta/Google advertising works and how Apple Ads works as well, their T&C already state this clearly ("your information will be used to show ads relevant to you").
The problem is that once the apple turns sour, and it will, you’ll turn around to see that all the fruit is spoiled. Some moldy, some maggot-ridden, but none made for you.
I hope they never become this short-sighted. I buy Apple primarily because I believe that they protect my privacy—or at least that they do a better job of it than everyone else.