articles/2026/tim-cook-sold-apples-soul/

[giscus[bot]]

articles/2026/tim-cook-sold-apples-soul/

Apple used to stand for something. Now Tim Cook gifts golden statues to Trump, removes apps at the administration's request, and cozies up to accused rapists at White House screenings. The company I once admired has become morally bankrupt, but leaving the ecosystem feels almost impossible.

https://www.loopwerk.io/articles/2026/tim-cook-sold-apples-soul/

[luc0x61]

I’m sorry for the delusion, and even though I agree on many of your points, my opinion is that there’s a basic misunderstanding in the basis. In short, things are worse than depicted, since they’ve always been worse.

I’ve been in the electronics/software industry for nearly forty years. Frankly speaking, I’ve seen this happening (in different forms and with varying intensity) all the time.

Take a look back at the “innocent” good old times you long for. The late beloved dictator, sanctified in his times and beyond, did the same. Just search for the companies that Jobs helped go bankrupt or out of business to maintain dominance. The key technologies developed by experts have been rewarded with real misery (like computer mice) or with total disregard (like laser printing, another interesting story).

That’s not to say it’s the only large company to blame for tricking customers and locking them in. You can safely list everyone in the top anything.

And no one is above all in freedom, even counting the so-called open software developers. The most elaborate licensing schemes are just taliban precincts; the worldwide development networks are simply pyramidal societies ruled by small groups of ego maniacs: they simply feed their love of power, or their “hold of absolute truth”, instead of money, but the results are the same.

Then, from a pragmatic standpoint, you can’t ever be bound to a single, unique, good producer. It simply doesn’t exist, for bad or good.

The evolution of modern times is that products aren’t on sale: customers are.

[kevinrenskers]

I actually haven't mentioned Jobs even once in my article. I am not longing for some mythical "good old times". I am just pointing out all the ways Cook is selling his soul to the devil, rather than using Apple's massive cash reserves to fight back. I am looking at ways that I can get out of the walled garden, because I feel increasingly uncomfortable with Apple.

[lmorchard]

More importantly, leaving Apple doesn’t mean switching a device. It means abandoning an ecosystem I’ve been slowly locked into for years. Photos. Notes. Contacts. Apple Music. Safari bookmarks and Reading List. iCloud Drive. Passwords and Passkeys. AirTags. And I absolutely refuse to swap iMessage for WhatsApp, because Meta is far worse than Apple.

This is, literally, how they get ya. It will never get easier. If this actually bothers you at all, you'll have to extract yourself. You'll need to intentionally do something about it. Migrate anything important to you over to formats and tools that aren't traps. Accept that all devices are compromises, consider them purely on utility and value. Mindfully avoid any notion of loyalty or admiration for your personal technology vendors.

[kevinrenskers]

Indeed. That's why I wrote about setting up Nextcloud / ownCloud plus self-hosted Bitwarden. Start to move my data out of Apple's ecosystem.