My point is that carriers and manufacturers have so much dirt on each other that trying to escalate things would just hurt them both. The reason why Apple (and mobile carriers, for that matter) don't take swings at each other is because they both need the other to look as pristine as possible to sell units. They have a mutual interest in looking good together, and neither Apple nor the carriers have any vested interest in breaking that relationship.
I don't think the American public would particularly care – and some would probably even support – that Apple does business with China. If that's the best the carriers can throw at Apple, versus Apple cutting them off from the single device doing the heaviest lifting to keep them relevant, then yikes.
Oh, that's certainly not the worst they'd grab for, but more of an example where they can call their bluff. Cell carriers and hardware manufacturers alike get bent over backwards for compliance in the United States, trying to assert that you're "the private one" is just going to get you called on every other front. It's not even a question that these companies do shady things, the real question is more about the lengths they'd go to diminish their competition.
Again though, rupturing this conversation is mutually assured destruction. The reason why Apple won't call T-Mobile's bluff is because it's better for them to look like a symbiotic company than an adversarial one, and T-Mobile can get away with this because data protection in the US is a moot-point anyways. It's about as unremarkable as news gets.
Hell, Apple was even nice enough to give T-Mobile a special error message when you try to use Private Relay:
> "Your cellular plan doesn’t support iCloud Private Relay. With Private Relay turned off, this network can monitor your internet activity, and your IP address is not hidden from known trackers or websites."
I wouldn't call it security theater if I couldn't see the curtains on the left and right.
It's strange that you think Americans would equate "people in China are suffering" and "X is spying on me".
Your suggested response doesn't change my mind at all, it seems quite desperate and pathetic. And I want to see a stronger moral stance on trade with China.
