So we tweeted yesterday about Apple’s Gatekeeper technology (that “verifies” local apps on macOS machines as they open) failing with the download pressure while the Big Sur release happened. So even people totally unconcerned with the new macOS couldn’t open local apps on their machines.
But I hadn’t realised the amount of unencrypted data being sent to Apple’s servers, and that the new macOS Big Sur has been specifically designed to prevent circumvention or opt-out. Alerted to this by a very long, ranty Louis Rossman video but you can simply read the blog post he reads on camera here:
These machines are the first general purpose computers ever where you have to make an exclusive choice: you can have a fast and efficient machine, or you can have a private one.