Comment by fwn
4 days ago
I am sure there are quite a few people out there who have avoided getting a mainstream smartphone setup or other big tech services.
As you wrote yourself, this is not the majority. Quite the understatement.
However, this is only a tangential notion in my comment. What do you think of my (probably not unique or novel) observation that calls for ethical purity seem to be very selective in a way that (in effect!) benefits big tech?
For example: The other person in this very thread who pointed out that Mullvad is not perfectly pure recommended iCloud in their previous HN comment three days ago. Did their attitude change in this three days? Unlikely.
iCloud is a service from a company that deplatforms ICE transparency apps, among many other things. Its then CEO, Tim Cook, personally gifted one million USD to Donald Trump for his inauguration. (The very thing they criticized: "... their CEO is directly funding a far-right ...")
Humans are rarely pure or heavenly. Double standards help incumbents.
I'm not interested in generalising "calls for moral purity" as if all ethical concerns are equivalent.
There is a difference, also, between saying, "I am not morally okay with this, so I am going to do X", vs. "If you don't also do X, you are a Bad Person."
To me, after reading up on the platform of the right-wing party in question and Mullvad's CEO's level of involvement with it, the situation with Mullvad is worse. And because it is a much smaller company, a much greater percentage of my money would go to that CEO in particular. And my choice to pay or not has much more influence on Mullvad than it ever could have on Apple.
Others are free to feel otherwise, and to use their money as they please.
Besides, there are plenty of small company alternatives, like IVPN, which was recommended widely around the time this news broke. And I think that people who found out about Mullvad are likely often the sort to put thought and research into their choice of VPN, rather than just buying NordVPN or whatever based on name recognition only.
A single data point is pretty meaningless. If there were actually data to be found on how the customer base numbers or growth rates of the various VPN companies have or haven't shifted since the news broke, that would be interesting.
Ultimately though, what other people do or don't choose to do is irrelevant to my own choice. Moral purity, as you call it, is impossible. The world is not simple. I am going to do my best to make ethical choices anyway.
Agree fully. Also, using another VPN is simple and possible. Using another mobile platform than iOS or Android is virtually impossible or only possible with a lot of real limitations in your daily life.
And to reply to the parent of this comment: I also wouldn't judge others just because they are a Mullvad customer or whatever.