They are definitely both pretty terrible, pick your poison I guess. Apple will gouge your eyes out with overpriced hardware and Alphabet (Google) will spy and you and sell your data. I don’t like either, but faced with the choice I’d rather pay more for my phone and avoid Google’s surveillance capitalism empire as much as possible. If you don’t mind advertisements and privacy isn’t important Google is probably a better choice.

Ended my donations to Signal after discovering they choose Google Hosting Services over open source and privacy respecting alternatives.

It’s surprising that teenagers are uncomfortable using a surveillance device created by the largest advertising company in the world. Our friends at Alphabet Inc simply want to monitor everything you search for and all your communication because they care and want to keep you safe.

Pirating gives me the option not to support shit corporations that fuck over consumers with no business ethics. I can pirate the content I choose and pay for it when I want to support creators.

Historically, pirating and underground markets for good and services begin to proliferate in a society as a sign that their economic system is failing. IMHO, unbridled capitalism and corporate shitification in the US is turning the Internet into a hellscape with 5 companies basically controlling the entire Internet with so much lobbying muscle behind them they remain untouchable through what remains of the democratic system.