Yea, that won't do much. How about convict Apple of monopoly practices.

ks2048 18 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Tim Cook hanging out with Trump at the White House a few days ago - not a good sign this will happen anytime soon.

	▲	epolanski 18 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Jeff Bezos commissioning an hagiography on Melania looking for other favours.

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Noaidi 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I really don’t understand this attitude. Of course it will. If enough people do it. This is how corporations change not through protest and we’re certainly not going to get any antimonopoly anything going on soon.

They make literally about 40% of their profit off of Apple services. Do you really think if people on mass stopped buying Apple TV, Apple Pay, Apple Music, an iCloud, they wouldn’t care?

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/01/2025-marked-a-record-...

I mean the minute people started talking a general worker strike in Minneapolis all of a sudden all these companies freaked our and wrote a letter protesting about IVE’s behavior in Minneapolis.

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pixl97 18 hours ago | parent | next [-]

>I really don’t understand this attitude.

It's not an attitude, it's an observation. Corporations almost never change their behaviors because of protests and people bitching about them. It's one of the least effective ways of implementing change, especially when said company holds a locked in/monopoly position.

The thing is the end consumer is mostly hidden from the problems of Apples over charging, it deeply affects the companies selling services on the Apple platforms. What would affect Apple far more is not consumers not buying, but a huge part of the people offering on Apples market pulling out. But, Apple has that game rigged to. Particular suppliers get special deals with far lower costs. The competitors to those suppliers are now screwed. Apple will not offer them lower costs (again, Apple hides these contracts until they eventually get disclosed in court), every other company ends up paying a huge Apple tax because pulling out hand the competitor a huge market.

Honestly I'm fine with Apple charging whatever it wants for on its store. I am not fine with Apple selling you what should be a general purpose device and saying only its store can be used. Competitive stores on the device would quickly break Apple of it's monopoly behavior.

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impossiblefork 18 hours ago | parent | next [-]

But it's completely wrong.

Having a boycott against you is like being hated. Firms spend enormous sums on advertisements.

Even a tiny group boycotting you has a substantial influence on your popularity-- they will tell their friends, etc. and will lead to reduced popularity.

	▲	pixl97 18 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It is not completely wrong. It's situational. The attention span of the general public is short, exceptionally short when it's about something that doesn't directly affect the general public too. General public: "OMG, I should boycott Apple because they are making some other businesses life hard, why?" It's a very hard sale because all the general public sees is Apple phones are easy to use and friendly. Attempting to explain the complexities that occur in the background gives Apple power in the narrative that they are doing everything to keep you "safe".

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johnnyanmac 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>Corporations almost never change their behaviors because of protests and people bitching about them.

Yes, because protests almost never reach critical mass when talking on the scale of a billionaire conglomerate.

The 3% rule is at effect here. if Apple made 200 billion last quarter (I don't know the exact numbers), we'd need at least 6 billion dollars worth of damage to make them listen, and make it clear it's because of this.

Even if the average IOS spender spent 1000/month (averaging in some super whales), we'd need 6 million users to stop spending for this to start having an effect. Can we get 6 million users to do that? I don't think so, but I'd love to be proven wrong.

>The thing is the end consumer is mostly hidden from the problems of Apples over charging, it deeply affects the companies selling services on the Apple platforms.

Yes. But that isn't proof that protests don't work. It's proof that people are ignorant to these situations. Making them aware is the hardest part in all this, and I'm sure corporations know this.

>every other company ends up paying a huge Apple tax because pulling out hand the competitor a huge market.

Companies work too, but we have even less coordination on this. And their incentives match Apple's. Patreon proper does not actually get directly impacted by this unless a bunch of creators pull out.

But the rare chances companies do push back, it works quickly. Just look at the Unity situation a few years back for a modern example.

	▲	derbOac 15 hours ago \| parent [-]
		My impression is that Apple as a corporation is really sensitive to their public image. I happen to believe that some corporations are actually highly sensitive to dollar losses but I also think what Apple worries about is a kind of downstream effects of brand image being lost. I don't think that's all it would take but I kind of see Apple worrying that their products will start to be like fur in the 1980s or something... something that gradually fades and loses its brand value. I guess in the end I sort of agree with the OP that boycotts can work and fretting about numbers initially leads to this kind of chicken and egg problem. If you try it it might work, if you try it repeatedly it's more likely to work, but if you never try it will never work.

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moogly 18 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> if people on mass [sic] stopped buying

Ah, the "vote with your dollar" argument. How's that been working out.

	▲	Noaidi 17 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It ended apartheid in South Africa.

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johnnyanmac 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I do think it will work. I also think most people won't even know this is a thing, and that many who do know won't be clamoring to ditch their tech anytime soon. I never owned an apple service, so I'm just paying lip service if I say I'm "boycotting apple". I can't do much more on my front as a customer.

I can do a bit more as a voter, but not in this current administration. It's sadly not even a top 10 pressing issue compared to what BS is going on right now. But I won't forget this.

>I mean the minute people started talking a general worker strike in Minneapolis all of a sudden all these companies freaked our and wrote a letter protesting about IVE’s behavior in Minneapolis.

Yes. And it took not one, but two blatant murders on the street to do that. Tech is much more ephemeral in its evils.