> Personal insults are inappropriate in this forum.

It's not a personal insult. Talking out of both sides of your mouth means saying contradictory things, and I made lists of the contradictory things you said in one comment.

> I haven’t made any positive comments about Apple here

There are several HN usernames that I recognize on sight, because I've seen them repeatedly defending Apple in the comments of every HN story. zepto is one. coldtea is another, for example. Your reputation precedes you. ;-)

> I haven’t made my mind up about anything, except that Dustin’s original tweet was bullshit

I don't think "bullshit" is a helpful way framing it. It may be the case that Dustin misunderstood the full causal connections in this case. However, there were still some very strange occurrences:

1) If your autopay fails, Apple Card will disable your card immediately and prevent further transactions.
2) If there's a mixup in returning a trade-in, then Apple will quickly hold your accounts as hostage.
3) If either 1 or 2 happen, you can't call Apple on the phone and get it cleared up quickly.

As an Apple customer, I wouldn't expect any of those to happen. Especially since Apple supposedly controls this whole process and has its name on every part.

> How many of those people also read the blog post, and how many are now aware of the uncertainty?

9to5Mac has a wider readership than Dustin, and their story was also repeated by other tech media. So I'd say there was ample opportunity for Apple's response. Moreover, if people make up their mind forever based on one tweet and/or blog post, and never revisit the issue, the blame is on them, not on either Dustin or Apple.

> We have a right to expect forthrightness from him as much as from Apple.

I just found this comment from Dustin. "Shortly after publishing, I received a phone call from "Apple, Inc.". When I tried to answer, the call dropped. Then my Apple ID account was suddenly unlocked and I got an email from someone saying they are going to try to call again tomorrow." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26314385 So yes, hopefully we'll see a follow-up article with further details.

> It just means someone is likely to buy again. Not that they see the company as a friend whose interests they want to protect.

Agreed. My point in calling him a loyal customer is this if someone is likely to buy again, a company ought to treat them well and give them the benefit of the doubt rather than treating them like a criminal with immediate suspicion. Such treatment is very likely to decrease their odds of buying again. In other words, locking Dustin out of his accounts was bad business, regardless of what Dustin did.

> Nobody is branding Dustin a criminal

You apparently haven't read the various comments that I have.

> The comments about the stolen computer are people pointing out that this is the situation almost any business would be concerned about in the absence of a response from the customer.

In general, I'm very concerned about out of control "fraud detection algorithms", big tech companies locking people out of their accounts based on false positives, and the complete inability of users to contact those companies and get support and restore their accounts. This is where I'm coming from. It's becoming a very big problem, and I disagree strongly with the many people who have claimed that Dustin got what he "deserved". None of us deserve that, no matter what. We're at the mercy of these giant corporations, who appear to have no mercy.

Apple has created perverse incentives for people to go public with problems, because that actually gets results, unlike trying to contact Apple customer service privately. Look how fast Apple reacted after the article was published! If our only recourse is to "run to the press", that's what you can expect, and that's what we see.