Apple's apps bypass firewalls like LittleSnitch and LuLu on macOS Big Sur

I trust Apple a lot more than I trust Google or Facebook, but this clamping down of the Mac without options for power users while officially stating that the Mac will remain a Mac is alarming and distasteful on the part of Apple.

With the transition to Apple’s own chips looming, it seems like the days of “a Mac is a personal computer and not an app console like an iPhone or iPad” will be over by the middle of this decade. All Apple devices locked down completely and Apple decides the limits of what users can do on devices. This model made some sense for mobile (where restrictions were gradually removed or workarounds provided), but the Mac is going in reverse.

People keep saying "I trust company X a lot more than I trust company Y" but is "trust" really something that applies to companies at all? Feels weird to humanize companies in that way. If you trust a company, isn't it really that you trust the humans working at that company? So you should really say "I trust person X who happens to work at X today", as as soon as they leave, the trust went with them.

Companies are not people and cannot be trusted to act in any interest but profits. Any trust you feel towards a company is towards humans in the company, but let's not anthropomorphise companies (yet, until we have better AI at least).

Think of companies more like nation states than people and it will make more sense.

The organization is still molded heavily by those in power, but it is what the organization “stands for” that you must put your trust in.

For example, the United States is a republic and stands for “freedom and justice for all.”

As we have seen, different people in leadership will interpret these foundational ideas differently and will take actions accordingly.

It’s worth asking again what Apple stands for.

The company has made privacy and thus security core values. However, above that is a goal to make _the best_ products of any company, which as Jobs put it is a matter of “taste.”

So the sentiment of feeling as though Apple’s networking software and developer api choices deviate from your taste has to be measured against one’s support of these other values, and whether one believes Apple’s leadership succession will be measured and protected from weakness.