Apple users get hit harder w/dynamic pricing. Could this be another carrot to get ppl on Tor? (lemmy.sdf.org)

submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by evenwicht@lemmy.sdf.org to c/tor@infosec.pub

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Just heard a radio interview where a dynamic pricing expert said some online shops detect a Safari browser and assume Apple users have deeper pockets. The algo positions higher priced items to the top of the page and perhaps shows them higher prices as those on non-Apple platforms.

So of course I’m thinking: this is perhaps a good reason to get more folks using Tor. If you cannot sell the idea of privacy, maybe money savings would sway them.

Tor users are fucked by tor-hostility, but that marginalisation is only possible because we are a small demographic. We need to be a bigger demographic.

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[-] cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 weeks ago

This definitely makes sense. Safari is kind of its own thing and it isn't available on non-Apple devices. If a web page detects Safari and knows nothing else, it can correctly surmise that you are either using an iPhone, an iPad, or a Mac. If it can get your aspect ratio/resolution, it knows what device, but they're still all manufacturer=Apple.

Also, Apple recently announced that 1 in 4 phones is an iPhone. That's wild that they have 25% share because Apple does not have cheap/inexpensive or free phones. Almost all of the Android OEMs do. So yes, the Galaxy S25 is a premium device, I think it's $800 or thereabouts, it competes with the iPhone 17. And then you have Plus and Ultra competing with the Pro and Pro Max. But then you have the Samsung A-series, which are frequently given away with carrier service and a commitment to same. So yes, while there are actually people out there spending iPhone money on phones that are less powerful and sell your personal data out the back door via Google Play Services, most Android users are using a phone they were given for free for signing up for 2 more years of service. And they don't care that they're paying for it in their service, they don't care that it has ads and it has apps and games they can't remove, they got it for free and that's all they really need to know. But if the user is any kind of savvy, you can't tell whether they have a premium Android phone or a freemium one. You might know it's Android though, so you can assume via statistics that it was cheap or free. If we look only at phones that the user paid $500 or more for, iPhone absolutely dominates... but we don't.

Anyway, question: I have an iPhone 16 Pro Max. I do have the Tor Browser, but I don't really use it because I don't know any .onion sites, and I recognise that Tor is used by a lot of people who need it and I don't want to jam up the network with frivolous traffic. But I do have Tor. Or, do I? Because of how iOS works, Tor Browser is just a Safari skin. Right? Would Tor help me on my iPhone? Or just on my Macs, where I don't use Safari, I use Firefox + uBlock Origin.

[-] Carnelian@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

Just want to quickly say that people do get cheap iphones often via carrier promotions

[-] cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 weeks ago

Whether you won it, bought it, or paid for it over time through a carrier promotion, it's still a premium device.

Apple has, to date, made five non-premium phones. One, when the iPhone 5s released, they recalled the iPhone 5 and replaced it with the iPhone 5c, which was an iPhone 5 with a plastic back to indicate you were too poor to buy the latest model. But otherwise, internally, it was still last year's flagship. Two, when the iPhone 6s was out, before the 7, they re-released the iPhone 5s with the guts of the iPhone 6s and called it the iPhone SE. So it was still the iPhone 6s, just with the two-year-old flagship's screen, and (slower) fingerprint reader. Three, the second SE was an iPhone 8 with the guts of an 11. Four, the third SE was the second SE but with 5G. I think this was the "oldest flagship" that Apple put out, and it was still competitive (at least, in performance) with modern Android flagships. And five, the iPhone 16e. The iPhone 16 with only one camera and Apple's "experimental" modem, the C1. (The second-generation, C2, is in the iPhone Air.)

None of those phones were less powerful than the Android flagships released the same year, though they all had less features, like fewer cameras, and the latter four lacked headphone jacks, none of them had memory card slots, etc. And they started at $400, IIRC.

Android phones go a lot cheaper. And that's the point the article makes as well. The cost of ownership is much lower in Android, especially if you buy secondhand and last year's flagship, or especially last year's mid-range.

[-] Carnelian@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

I understand the retail price of the phones. But I’m not talking about installment plans. Carriers have insane deals on phones (both android and iphone).

The iphone I’m using right now was old when I got it for free ($0). I just took a look at my carrier’s website and I can get another old one for free ($0) right at this very moment lol. It’s extremely common to see deals in the $50-300 range, too. Typically the only concession you make is you agree to stay on the same contract for a period of time, usually 2-3 years. But people don’t typically change carriers that much.

Dunno if other places have the same deals pop up, looking just at US offerings. To be fair we do get fleeced on our monthly phone bill anyway, so maybe that’s why they’re willing to ‘bait’ people in with the free phones. But generally speaking there isn’t really an income bracket beneath which people switch to android. Iphone has about 70% market share here, it’s extremely common even for people with food assistance to have iphones.

Again I know the phones in general are premium, just pointing out that access to the phones here is a relatively low bar. Androids have the same deals pop up too fwiw

[-] evenwicht@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 weeks ago

One of the core purposes of Tor Browser is to reduce browser-fingerprint uniqueness. I can’t say whether the Apple version requires compromises on that, but it’d be alarming if TB on iOS failed to at least mask the Apple factor. Worth noting that adding extensions to Tor Browser can compromise the anti-browserprinting effect.

Tor Browser is not just for onion services. You should be able to reach clearnet sites using exit nodes and that should be automatic.

I would not worry about adding congestion to the Tor network. The Tor community relies on cover traffic to some extent.

[-] evenwicht@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

B&M shops also implement dynamic pricing. So we must wonder if they grab MAC addresses as people enter and adjust cat food prices based on proportion of MAC addresses from customers in the Apple ranges.

this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2026

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