More on Apple's Trust-Eroding 'F1 the Movie' Wallet Ad

Apple's Shift Towards Monetization and User Exploitation

A central theme is the perception that Apple, after experiencing plateauing growth, is resorting to monetizing its user base in ways previously seen from other "big tech" companies. This is seen as a betrayal of its past image of user-centricity and privacy.

• "I feel vindicated for when I said that the moment Apple's line stops growing, they'll resort to monetizing their users like the rest of big-tech to increase their shareholder returns, and everyone here was like 'Nooo, my sweet innocent publicly traded trillion dollar corporation would never betray me like that'." - FirmwareBurner
• "Eventually the only company that doesn't do (all the) bad thing will start doing bad thing." - denkmoon
• "Apple needs to show revenue growth every single year. Their hardware and services businesses will eventually tap out, and then they'll start mining their users for data and advertising. It's a miracle they've managed to avoid it for so long, but they will eventually be forced to." - matthewdgreen
• "The fact that Apple actually pushing an ad to its users is headline news speaks volumes to the trust they've earned (and damaged by doing so). Do you think it'd make headlines if Google showed its users an ad? Or Microsoft? Or Meta?" - drysart
• "Cook is an operations person. He makes the logistics work. He's no visionary. Jobs is a visionary, but is not a logistics person. Apple struck lightning when both existed, to provide complimentary ideas and counterbalances. Lighting doesnt strike twice imho." - chii
• "The point is, when Jobs was around, there was an overarching (unstated?) policy at Apple of 'nobody do anything to make us look like cheap tasteless shits'. Whereas now, Tim Cook is very happy to sell out for a quick buck. He's a logistics guy, not a product guy, and at his core is a bean counter; he neither has taste nor appreciates that it has value unto itself." - bobbylarrybobby
• "Jobs hated ads. You're right that he never wouldve done what Apple is doing now." - jmsdnns

The "Boiling Frog" Metaphor and Escalating Annoyances

The "boiling frog" metaphor is invoked to describe Apple's gradual introduction of practices that users find intrusive or unwelcome. While individual instances might seem minor, their cumulative effect is seen as a concerning trend. The U2 album incident is frequently cited as an earlier, albeit less severe, example of this pattern.

• "Give it a few more years love, now they're boiling the frog." - FirmwareBurner
• "Did they learn nothing from giving everyone a free U2 album that nobody wanted, and the backlash from that?" - jb1991
• "JimDabell: I think this is a lot worse than the U2 thing. Operating systems bundle free stuff all the time. Even the Windows 95 CD had a Weezer music video on it. The U2 album wasn’t spammy it didn’t interrupt people, it was in an appropriate place, and it was easily removed. Even if you didn’t want it, it’s reasonable to not consider it a problem. This was outright spammy. It was trying to sell people something. It was in a sensitive place. And it was an attention-seeking, interrupting notification."
• "ryandrake: I’ve met so many people who only have that one album on their devices, and it plays every time they plug into their car or connect via Bluetooth. And they are all just annoyed/accepting of it. My wife was one of them. And what made it worse was you couldn’t just pause it: with her car’s particular head unit, anything you touched (like the volume control) would cause the head unit to issue another “play music” command to restart it. Eventually enough was enough and I figured out how to remove the album for good."
• "lycopodiopsida: This damn U2 album still appears in my smart playlists in Apple Music from time to time - it is insane that I can’t delete it completely so many years later."
• "keiferski: Apple without Ive and Jobs increasingly has a taste problem. Everything from their ads to things like this are just in really poor taste, and aren’t something that they would have done 15 years ago because they would have thought it was beneath their brand."
• "ryandrake: The whole forcing a U2 album onto people’s devices thing, which happened shortly after Jobs died, was the first time I, a former Apple fan, sat up and realized 'wow, these guys are really losing their taste/tact!' Weird to think that was over a decade ago!"
• "jrockway: For me it's like 'oh, I didn't know Wallet was an advertising app', I thought it was something I paid for with the purchase of my phone. But I was wrong. It's just adware. 'We'll store your boarding pass if you'll let us spam you about movie tickets.' Do not want. I disabled notifications. Now a year from now, I'll be searching for some pass in my wallet. Someone will say 'don't you get a notification when you get to the venue'? I'll be like 'no I've never seen that work'. Multiply that by everyone, and suddenly the buzz is 'Apple Wallet doesn't work. Trust my money and credit cards with something that doesn't work? No thank you.'"

Ecosystem Lock-in as a Dominant Factor

A recurring justification for sticking with Apple, despite criticisms, is the perceived lack of viable alternatives due to the strength of its ecosystem. Other platforms are criticized for being janky, ad-ridden, or requiring a significant technical commitment.

• "I really hate Apple - but what's stopping me from moving out of the ecosystem is that nobody else builds shit that works and is on same level. The M Pro series processor is only touchable by that one AMD chip you can't get anywhere. Windows is garbage and Linux is a part time job. Android is even worse in terms of spam and jank, and the only ecosystem that works is Google - where if you get locked out - you're just praying to HN/Google contacts that you didn't lose your access." - rafaelmn
• "You are correct that, just like in politics, you have to pick the best among problematic choices, which will often be Apple." - jb1991
• "For the desktop, I could probably just use Linux, but you're right, in terms of eco-system, where would I go? Phones are even worse. You basically stuck on iOS and Android and I honestly see no situation where picking Android wouldn't be worse." - mrweasel
• "Linux is a part time job." - rafaelmn
• "It has been good enough for the past 15 years or so." - rglullis (counterpoint to the above)

Erosion of Trust and Apple's Privacy Claims

The discussion highlights a perceived disconnect between Apple's strong public stance on privacy and its actions, such as introducing ads into core applications like Wallet and the App Store. This is seen as damaging the trust Apple has cultivated over years.

• "The fact that Apple actually pushing an ad to its users is headline news speaks volumes to the trust they've earned (and damaged by doing so)." - drysart
• "Because Apple makes its money by selling you hardware and services, not by selling advertising. Companies ultimately serve whoever they make their money from; and none of the other big tech players have a comprehensive business model where the end user is the customer instead of the product." - drysart
• "Privacy. That’s Apple. Privacy is a fundamental human right. It’s also one of our core values. Which is why we design our products and services to protect it. That’s the kind of innovation we believe in." - triska (quoting Apple's privacy statement)
• "The problem isn't sending an Ad to Wallet. It is the fact that Apple openly attack Ads, condemns Ads, talk about privacy as fundamental human rights, and then have targeted Ads, in a place / software / services where no body expected it to appear. And not everybody has the Ad, so by HN / Reddit / Internet definition that Ad is targeted." - ksec
• "They attack ads they are not getting paid for." - croes
• "Apple is absolutely fine with tracking and privacy invasion, as long as they're the ones doing it." - encom
• "What happens was they put a huge amount of effort into building a system that goes as far as it possibly can to implement CSAM detection that could work on E2E encrypted photo libraries while maintaining as much privacy as possible. The design of the feature demonstrates they put a lot of effort into privacy – competitors just scan everything that’s uploaded to them, while Apple went above and beyond to do something a lot more difficult. The entire point of it was to detect without Apple having to have access to your photo library. There’s no point to design a system like that if they weren’t prioritising privacy – they could just scan on the server like everybody else if privacy isn’t a priority. The whole point of it was to detect without Apple having to have access to your photo library. There’s no point to design a system like that if they weren’t prioritising privacy – they could just scan on the server like everybody else if privacy isn’t a priority. The entire point of it was to detect without Apple having to have access to your photo library. There’s no point to design a system like that if they weren’t prioritising privacy – they could just scan on the server like everybody else if privacy isn’t a priority." - JimDabell (defending Apple's intent with CSAM scanning, arguing it showed effort towards privacy)
• "rpdillon: I disagree with you. I think the majority of Apple's promises are purely marketing. And this is a moment where the mask has slipped. Your account does not allow for the case where Apple can successfully convince their users that they are privacy-oriented while simultaneously not being privacy oriented. A great example of this is that they say that iMessage is end-to-end encrypted, and then the second you have an iCloud backup that's completely broken. An actual privacy-centric product, this would be a major problem. Consider Signal. Apple is also the company that tried to introduce client-side content scanning of user photos. There is no giant moat between Apple and privacy violation. They'll do it whenever they feel like it, and Apple customers are very forgiving."

Questioning Apple's Taste and Product Direction Post-Jobs/Ive

Several users lament a perceived decline in Apple's "taste" and product vision since the departure of key figures like Steve Jobs and Jony Ive. The current direction is seen as more corporate, less innovative, and prone to questionable decisions.

• "Apple without Ive and Jobs increasingly has a taste problem. Everything from their ads to things like this are just in really poor taste, and aren’t something that they would have done 15 years ago because they would have thought it was beneath their brand." - keiferski
• "The entire reason Apple made devices that were a level above competitors is because the design wasn’t just the aesthetic. Ive was chief designer and so obviously had a key impact." - keiferski
• "How do you know Ive had a key impact? Do you know it or read somewhere online?" - hshshshshsh (This question prompts further discussion on the role of key figures.)
• "How do you know that? Because of the title?" - dijit (responding to the above)
• "I know Ive had nothing to do with." - dkersten (This comment seems to be a misinterpretation or an incomplete thought in the context.)
• "What are you basing this on, the total number of iPhones sold since 2007? If so, it doesn't account for the users that have bought multiple iPhones." - ZenoArrow (Questioning user numbers, indicating a shift in the scale of Apple's operation.)
• "The moves Apple has made lately make me realize it is time to make sure I'll have a ripcord to pull if I need one." - throwanem
• "jobs did follow 'build great things and profits will come' philosophy. Apple these days is run for profit: profits are clearly first, and good things might accidentally come as well as a side effect." - jwr
• "Tacky things under Jobs were failed experiments. Modern Apple doesn't believe in either experiments or failed experiments." - troupo
• "The exclusivity (sort of) is gone now, and it shows with Apple trying to create likable, noncontroversial designs for the larger crowd. They try to make up for it with prices, but it misses the point." - trinix912
• "Apple became Gucci" - moomoo11

The Role of "Hidden" Monetization and Ecosystem Control

Beyond overt ads, concerns are raised about the subtler ways Apple might be monetizing its ecosystem, such as the Apple Music onboarding and the differential treatment of its own services versus third-party ones in the App Store.

• "The biggest trick they ever pulled was changing Music.app into Apple Music, and on first app start showing you a 'hey, want to try Apple Music? Tap here' fullscreen. That single-handedly unlocked a huge cohort of boomers and other tech laypeople that had never tried Spotify or any other music streaming platform before. It was smart and also a huge abuse of market power. Apple Music would have bombed without it." - jorvi
• "The worse abuse of market power there is that Apple Music doesn't have to pay the 30% to the app store for subscriptions made on the device, but but spotify etc do, so Spotify can't charge a comparable price on iOS, and also wasn't allowed to tell the user that they can subscribe for $x online. Deceptive app naming has nothing on that." - TheDong

HN's (Perceived) Bias and the Nuance of User Opinions

Some users push back against generalizations about Hacker News (HN) opinions, suggesting that the platform is more divided than critics often portray. There's also a meta-discussion on how user opinions are formed and whether they are based on accurate perceptions or a "reality distortion field."

• "Do you have links? Because every single time someone claims “everyone” on HN shared an opinion and I go check, the threads are split. What that tells me is that the people who accuse HN of being a biased hive mind are themselves biased to the point of being blind to other arguments." - latexr
• "holowoodman: sssshhh, don't disturb their reality distortion field! Apple can do no wrong, and if they do wrong, either your expectations were flawed and unreasonable, or it might just have been the accidential hiccup of a single deranged soon-to-be-ex-employee. Please ignore all the signs and portents that Apple is just another Microsoft or Google, only with a better marketing department and a quasi-religious following..."
• "JimDabell: I just want to highlight this because Hacker News can be incredibly dismissive about this. Apple’s focus on privacy is a competitive advantage. Consumers value it, and Apple’s competitors have business models that undermine it."
• "the problem isn't sending an Ad to Wallet. It is the fact that Apple openly attack Ads, condemns Ads, talk about privacy as fundamental human rights, and then have targeted Ads, in a place / software / services where no body expected it to appear. And not everybody has the Ad, so by HN / Reddit / Internet definition that Ad is targeted." - ksec
• "What? No they don’t. I wish. Where did you get that idea? Apple loves ads. They do a ton of them and sell them to you. You can’t do an App Store search without seeing an ad right at the top, and the bottom, and the sides, and under your pillow. It’s absolutely littered with them. What Apple rails against is the tracking and invasion of privacy. Which incidentally ads do a lot of." - latexr (challenging ksec's premise about Apple's stance on ads)