> The question is which is a greater societal power, Apple's desire to minimize lawyer costs or the US government's desire to be able to surveil everyone who owns an Apple device?
For sure. But to broaden the picture, this isn't the only for coming from governments. While right hand might be pushing for surveillance, the left hand might mandate that companies put reasonable effort into protecting the privacy (and other constitutional rights) of its users; be transparent about data handling etc. Companies don't want to be caught in the middle, especially if doing that right gets prohibitively expensive. See also WhatsApp adopting OWS' Signal protocol and Telegram moving from Russia to UAE to escape "the hassle".
I think what Apple intends to do with end-to-end encryption is hide their responsibility behind unbreakable math that say: look, don't ask us because we're not in the loop. Ultimately, that cannot be true unless Apple's soft- and hardware were completely open and transparent — which they won't do for commercial reasons. So some level of trust is always involved. So trust is what Apple sells to end users — warranted or not — but the profit margins are mostly in not needing to be involved in moderation between users mutually or between customers and law enforcement. I think "hassle" and IP are Apple's primary motive for security, selling trust is a second and doing good to the world is an afterthought.
For sure. But to broaden the picture, this isn't the only for coming from governments. While right hand might be pushing for surveillance, the left hand might mandate that companies put reasonable effort into protecting the privacy (and other constitutional rights) of its users; be transparent about data handling etc. Companies don't want to be caught in the middle, especially if doing that right gets prohibitively expensive. See also WhatsApp adopting OWS' Signal protocol and Telegram moving from Russia to UAE to escape "the hassle".
I think what Apple intends to do with end-to-end encryption is hide their responsibility behind unbreakable math that say: look, don't ask us because we're not in the loop. Ultimately, that cannot be true unless Apple's soft- and hardware were completely open and transparent — which they won't do for commercial reasons. So some level of trust is always involved. So trust is what Apple sells to end users — warranted or not — but the profit margins are mostly in not needing to be involved in moderation between users mutually or between customers and law enforcement. I think "hassle" and IP are Apple's primary motive for security, selling trust is a second and doing good to the world is an afterthought.