Do principles always have to lose when it comes to tech?

In Principles vs Pragmatism, Pete Moore writes:

It’s a mistake to judge others for their software choices, while still making exceptions for ourselves. Our hands aren’t exactly always clean. It would be akin to me blasting someone who is using HEY or Kagi, while disregarding my use of Apple products or occasionally ordering from Amazon. Case in point: I’ve seen discourse and uproar about Tim Cook donating $1M to Trump’s inauguration fund, while simultaneously ignoring others who are doing the same thing. No doubt it’s cringeworthy beyond words, and symptomatic of the larger, more pernicious issue of political lobbying and capitalist corruption.

Cook’s donation being cringeworthy is an understatement. I have made my tiny contribution to that discourse and uproar, by posting this on Mastodon a few days ago:

For me, this is the straw that broke the camel’s back.

No more money spent for an Apple product until there’s some clear sign of a change in stance and direction with Cook’s successor.

And I’m going to stand by that. I’m not ignoring the fact that Sam Altman, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg are doing the same thing. I am actually not surprised about that. But I also largely don’t care about their businesses or products. I don’t use any product by Meta. I stopped being active on Instagram the day after Meta acquired it in April 2012. I’ve never had a Facebook account. I only order something from Amazon if there is no real alternative option. And so forth.

And for me, the issue here isn’t what others like Cook have done. The issue is that Cook didn’t act differently. He’s the CEO of the most valuable company in the world, a company that supposedly has thinking different in its DNA and culture. A company that certainly has all the resources to shoulder possible consequences from acting differently here.

Moore continues:

Are those who are lashing out at Tim because of their principles going to abandon Apple entirely, or does their pragmatism prevent them from doing so? I believe it would be naive and unwise to assume a change in leadership at Apple—or any of these other guilty parties—will prevent this from happening again. Spoiler alert: it won’t. This is the gaping wound that’s been allowed to fester and rot in our political systems.

We have to clarify what ‘abandoning Apple’ means. In my case, it’s not the same as rage-quitting, and that would be silly. Between current, older, and vintage models, I own about 40 Apple devices (Macs, iPhones, iPods, iPads, Newtons), purchased or acquired over the past 30 years or so. I’m not going to put them all in a crate and bring them to the recycler. Some of these devices hold sentimental value, and others were bought when Apple was overall a better company, innovation-wise and culture-wise. Plus, I study user interfaces. I want to keep having access to older versions of Mac OS/iOS/iPadOS to compare and contrast with the newer ones and analyse how they’re evolving (or not). I also need access to Apple devices for work reasons, though this requirement, over time, has become more relaxed.

Getting rid of all traces of Apple in my household as a reaction to Tim Cook donating $1M to Trump makes little sense and doesn’t really ‘boycott’ Apple in any meaningful way. However, as I said more succinctly in my Mastodon post, this is the straw that broke the camel’s back; I have been increasingly frustrated with Apple, their products, their design decisions, their software, their attitude towards third-party developers, their App Store policies, their attitude towards EU legislation’s requests, and in general with Cook’s direction over the years. This last gesture by Cook is something I find especially shameful considering the recipient of the donation and the ulterior motives behind it. So, my abandoning Apple is a process that’s starting now, by refusing to invest a single cent in an Apple product from now on, unless things were to dramatically change. And since, according to Moore, it would be naïve and unwise to assume they will, then okay, I will live with my principled decision.

I found Moore’s piece via Eric Schwarz, who comments:

Over the weekend, there have been a lot of words written about Apple CEO Tim Cook’s $1 million personal donation to the incoming administration’s inauguration fund and I think Moore nails a lot of aspects of how I’ve felt about it. It’s disgusting and we shouldn’t even be in a spot where it’s a necessity. However, while is something that will potentially benefit Apple and its shareholders, it also benefits employees and customers. Apple may get a special carve-out from the threat of tariffs and not have to raise prices.

Or Apple may get absolutely nothing out of it. That wouldn’t surprise me in the least. Everyone I’ve talked with about this disgusting donation these past days has pretty much reacted the same way: Steve Jobs wouldn’t have donated anything and would have stood by his decision.

I’ve had plenty of instances where I swore off businesses for one reason or another, but if you keep writing them off for every little thing, you’ll run out of options. Bad customer service? Sure. Disrespect of your time and patronage? Fine. Institutional values that don’t align with your own? Okay. […]

Except this isn’t ‘a little thing’, at least for me. It’s the cherry on top of the shit cake.

I’ve stood by my principles and choices even when doing so had made my tech life a bit more difficult or increased friction in my workflows. I’m not completely inflexible, and I’m the kind of person who very rarely makes rash decisions. I tend to give people a second chance. In a technology context, I similarly tend to give companies, products, and services a second chance except in cases of major screw-ups that ended up impacting me severely. But when I’ve really had enough of something, it’s unlikely that I’ll reconsider.

I think it’s increasingly important to have principles and to stand by them in a tech landscape that has never been as insidious as it is now. The only way to stand up to big tech companies is to refuse to be complacent, to refuse to play their games. We always tend to focus on how tech has made a lot of things better or easier, but we never really stop and consider the hefty price we have been paying in return.

Moore ends his piece with this:

The choice between principles and pragmatism often means being content living within the grey area between them.

More and more often, I feel that for many people ‘pragmatism’ means essentially ‘convenience’. Why bother taking a stand? — they rationalise, — It’s not going to change anything and I will have made my life harder for nothing. Tech companies, and every other entity that wields some kind of power over us, know this well. That’s why today only legislation seem to have enough power to make certain things change in the tech world. A lot of people like to spout about Voting with our wallet, but then they rarely act on their words.

Before you think I’m acting all holier-than-thou on this: I’m not judging anybody, and if you’re fine with what Cook did — or if you aren’t, but stopping supporting Apple feels too much or is unfeasible for a dozen reasons — I totally understand. The people I do have a problem with, however, are those who keep whining about how Big Tech is increasingly shaping and controlling our lives, but effectively do nothing to oppose that trend, and always choose convenience while telling themselves they’re being pragmatic. By constantly choosing the path of least resistance, doesn’t this ‘pragmatism’ eventually morph into acquiescence?

If I publicise my stance and my decisions, it’s not out of a desire to virtue-signal, but to manifest my unrest and disagreement, hopefully in a meaningful way. I’m still on team Principles even if it’s clear we’re losing the battle, and I really wish more people joined our team. But in the end I do what I do because it matters to me, because it means something to me and my conscience.

Eric Schwarz:

If you’re mad at Tim Cook, that’s also fine, but what’s the alternative? Microsoft or Google products? Building your own computer and phone with open source tools and hoping it works as well?

Well, it can be done. It takes patience and a healthy amount of tech-savvy, but it’s not impossible. There was a time when I thought, I don’t think I’ll ever touch Linux — it’s too ‘this’, and not enough ‘that’, and so forth. There is some friction, there is some workflow re-evaluation, some habits may change, but ultimately it’s a bit like those games that hit you hard in their first levels, but as you familiarise with their mechanics, you get more proficient.

But to respond to Eric more directly: Google or Microsoft aren’t necessarily better alternatives, but again, the crux of the matter here isn’t whether these and other big tech companies have donated money to Trump and how much. The matter is, quite simply, that Tim Cook did. Am I naïve and an idealist in thinking that he could have acted differently? Perhaps. That doesn’t change how I feel about it — disgusted and disappointed.

Schwarz closes his commentary with this:

Politics are a disgusting game, probably even more now, but anyone who is tasked with running one of the largest companies has to unfortunately play a little.

Should they, though? One thing is having to comply with, say, international laws, and with what foreign governments require (e.g. China, Russia, the EU, etc.). Another thing is participating in this nauseating show of bringing offerings to the loose cannon who is now again U.S. president, in the hope that he shall be benevolent in return; all this while forgetting he is, indeed, a loose cannon.