macOS unable to open any non-Apple application

Because Apple would not benefit from doing so, I’m fact could be hugely damaged doing so.

They don’t have any significant advertising business. They don’t need to collect any personally identifiable information. They’ve promoted their brand by putting their customers privacy first.

So why would you believe they would intentionally risk all of that here?

Let me tell you a story about this frog and this scorpion..

What if a 3 letter agency told them so? (Since apparently it is entirely impossible for people to even conceive that apple might be doing it for their own benefit)

Only if catched. You've claimed Linux does similar checks. Linux is not a company, it is community. They don't need to collect PI, they don't play PR.

Why would private company not utilize leverage? You have no source, you can't even turn off these checks without hacks. Privacy first is open source and audit. It is removing feature people don't want.

For those not familiar with it, the fable is that the scorpion asks the frog to help it cross a river, it stings the frog, the frog asks why since they'll both drown, the scorpion says it's my nature to do so.

A corporation's nature is determined by their business model.

If you want to apply that fable to, say, Apple's relationship with independent repair shops, I'd 100% agree.

> They don’t have any significant advertising business.

This refutes that they're the scorpion in this relationship.

You are assuming that Apple would have a say in the matter. The US is deteriorating socially and becoming much more authoritarian every day. It is not at all outlandish to believe the US could simply compel Apple to store this information and/or funnel it right to the NSA/FBI/Whoever. They could even be ordered to lie and say they are respecting our privacy and would never do such a thing.

> They don’t have any significant advertising business. They don’t need to collect any personally identifiable information. They’ve promoted their brand by putting their customers privacy first.

Yes... now. Can you say that with certainty 10 years from now? 15? 20? Would you want an evil Apple 10 years from now having that? Or one that a 3-letter agency forced to collect it and they could never tell anyone because National Security Letter? Is that a bet you want to take? One you NEED to take? Is it truly unavoidable, sufficient to justify such a thing?

The best bulwark against overreach is to not create the capacity for it in the first place. Power will only ever do 1 thing, and that's amass more power.

Furthermore has everyone forgotten that Apple are a PRISM provider? https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Prism_slide_5.jpg