20 Years of Digital Life, Gone in an Instant, thanks to Apple
hey.paris
Summary: A major brick-and-mortar store sold an Apple Gift Card that Apple seemingly took offence to, and locked out my entire Apple ID, effectively bricking my devices and my iCloud Account, Apple Developer ID, and everything associated with it, and I have no recourse. Can you help? Email paris AT paris.id.au (and read on for the details). ❤️ Here’s how Apple “Permanently” locked my Apple ID. I am writing this as a desperate measure.
  • Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyzEnglish
    11·
    24 hours ago

    Prolly preaching to the choir, but…

    Big tech does not have walled gardens. It has corrals, full of milk cows. If you’re in one of those corrals, big tech will milk you dry, and cull you once the risk associated with you outweighs the predicted benefit from keeping you.

    As such, whenever possible/reasonable to do so:

    • Avoid big tech companies. They will likely treat you like cattle. If you’re looking for options, open source is typically way better.
    • If you can’t do the above, at least avoid the GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft). They will treat you like cattle, you can be certain of that.
    • If you can’t avoid GAFAM, avoid at least their corrals. For example if you have lots of Apple junk, stop relying on further Apple hardware or software; Google is equally crap but at least in this situation it has less power over you, so it’s a less worse option. The opposite would apply if you have lots of Google crap.
    • “teh cloud lol” is someone else’s computer dammit. Once they deny you access, it’s as good as gone. Under no moment or situation, rely solely on the cloud for keeping your files safe; keep a local copy. And if the file is so unimportant you’re OK losing it because “teh cloud” is denying you access, just delete it.

    inb4 “but dat’s too hard lol lmao” — play stupid games, win stupid prizes.