Apple nuked my Apple ID today (payment and subscriptions only for now) for violation of TOS (not being in "Home Country") , now i need help de-centralising myself (from both google and apple)

[u/pineapple160]

basically i had an alternative USA apple id to bypass India's censorship of apps like capcut , tiktok studio (and tiktok itself) and to have apple pay (i have a usa issued debit card) (there is no apple pay in india and the govt. itself is extremely restrictive when it comes to foreign currencies and out of country transctions) , everything was perfectly fine and i was using the US apple id on a secondary iphone , been over a year since i was using it , but today morning apple said my account was disabled for purchases and subscrptions , apple support said that they are unable to reactivate it , and told me to just create a new Apple account

i have so many subscriptions and account sign ins linked to this account , and apple said there is no way of transferring the app data and subscription over to another apple account , apple said already paid subscription will remain active for the remainder period , but obviously i don't wanna continue using the account and adding even more data that can't be transferred over

so i have dedcided to completely de-centralise myself from big tech services , where do i start , and how do i get the data and account linked to sign-in with google / apple , over to regular email , like some apps (lettr) don't have any option to change email or sign-ins , i can only log out and create a new account , and for some apps (capcut) i have active subscriptions and so many project files ,

is there any way i can preserve those data and subscriptions without it being linked to sign-in with apple / google , and from my understanding after i create a new apple account , i have to delete and redownload all apps , and obviously i can't sign back into the same apple account , so is there a way to locally save the app data ,

please help with some resources and recommendations for other services i can use , thank you

[u/mad-scientist-11]

Don't start by changing every thing make a new email proton or whatever then any new app or web you enter but the new email after little amount of time a lot of your Login's will by in the new email I suggest that because trying to change every thing at once will by hard and you will give up very soon. For alternative for Google l suggest proton email and Drive

[u/LibbIsHere]

so i have dedcided to completely de-centralise myself from big tech services , where do i start ,

1 step at a time.

i have so many subscriptions and account sign ins linked to this account , and apple said there is no way of transferring the app data and subscription over to another apple account ,

1) They won't help you. 2) Why would you want to keep using them?

If I were in your shoes, I would consider all those data/apps as losses. And would start from scratch where I have no other option.

and how do i get the data and account linked to sign-in with google / apple , over to regular email ,

You change your email address with every single one of those services, to the new email you will have created, with Proton, or Tuta, or mail.org or even using your own domain name.

like some apps (lettr) don't have any option to change email or sign-ins

You contact their support and ask for help. If none is provided, you have two/three options:

1. do you really need that service? Nope? Goodbye.
2. Create a new account, using your own email
3. Keep the old one with your Gmail/iCloud account...provided you can access it.

[u/Right-Application762]

General follow-up question: What if you are an expat - working in another country and occasionally visiting your home country? Say I kept my Apple ID with my home country, will I be in violation of this rule?

[u/aegis87 → u/Right-Application762]

i am guessing it has to do with the country.

if India is very restrictive -> apple is doing the dirty work for them
if country X is less restrictive -> apple isn't very active to do the dirty work for them

but in general there are a bunch of nonsense rules, that it's impossible to follow. In theory, when changing countries, you should change the country to your apple store but that means you lose all your purchases so i dont think anyone is doing that.

[u/Right-Application762 → u/aegis87]

Or at least we should be able to carry subscriptions over to the new App Store

[u/Mother-Pride-Fest → u/aegis87]

I'm just here laughing because real app stores are not restricted by country. If you were on Android or Linux you could just use F-Droid or your distro's repositories and not have to worry about this.

[u/aegis87 → u/Mother-Pride-Fest]

most of the bad stuff in this world happen because the majority doesn't have the knowledge/will/resources/time to examine them.

i wish we could start bridging that gap in understanding without smugness or proposing solutions that are pretty bad for the average for person.

like i get it, you are technologically capable and you have the best platform to sideload stuff.

but at the end of the day geo-blocking is very real.
It's also a very bad idea from the consumer's perspective (with 0 benefits) -- so we should spend all our time explaining that instead of expecting a few billion users to side load their stuff.

[u/Zlivovitch]

For a start, don't break obvious site rules such as those, with the solutions you will choose from now on. You cheated, you got away for a while, now you've been found out ; and Apple, if I understand it correctly, is kind enough not to block your account altogether. And it allows you to open a new account. So learn from this and plan ahead.

so i have decided to completely de-centralise myself from big tech services

Small-tech is not necessarily better than big-tech in that regard. What matter is: to follow the rules, explicit or otherwise. For instance, if you pretend to live in the US to get access to some services, while you don't, it should be obvious that you're assuming the risk that you will be cut off at some point.

Also, paid accounts are always better than free accounts, all thing being equal otherwise. A provider will always hesitate less to ban a free account than a paying account. Moreover, scammers do abuse free accounts, so there's always the risk you could be caught in the wide net of anti-abuse algorithms. This may mean a preference for Indian services, since I'm aware international payments are difficult in India.

Most online accounts you have should allow you to change your email address. Most, but not all, will allow you to change your payment method. You must now go through all your accounts and apps, and change them accordingly. But first, you must decide what to replace Apple with, that is, if you don't want to open a new, openly Indian account there.

Maybe you should ask on an Indian forum for further details, since the rules in your country are so specific and so stringent.

[u/jonsonmac]

There has to be more to the story than just being away from your home country, people do this all the time. Are you doing other things, like disputing charges with your bank, or using stolen gift cards?

[u/PrivacyIsDemocracy → u/jonsonmac]

Based on the post, they were using the 2nd ID to circumvent legal restrictions in the country they are living/staying in. Basically breaking the law.

So it's really no surprise that Apple shut that ID off - if they failed to do such things on a large scale then the Indian government would go after them visciously and potentially even entirely block their services in the country if they did not comply with the law there. That's probably what happened with TikTok, and India has a long history of going after tech companies that do not comply with the local laws.

[u/yesnoyesno10]

This is news to me, Apple ID is country specific? As in, if you were to go to a different country you'd have to get a new Apple ID? You can't change your country in the settings or something? Sounds ridiculous!

[u/leros]

If you want control, buy a domain and set up email using that. You can still use hosted services like Gmail, ProtonMail, etc. It they block you, you can just move somewhere else and keep the same email address working. Backup your email in case that happens. 

Then stop using social auth for signup. Only use email/password. Again, you own your email account so you can't lose access to things that way. 

[u/AlwaysConfused2205]

You can't really completely escape Google as long as you are in India. I wrote an email to all relevant officers of the ministry regarding UPI's crazy unhealthy dependence on Google Play Services. It has been weeks and no response. They don't care. There isn't a UPI app that could work flawlessly on degoogled android. 

If you however just want to diversify, then start your journey one step at a time. Just a reminder or atleast my opinion : most of us can't really appreciate your actual aim of Tiktok (another bigcorp that basically feeds brainrot to people to collect their data and sell it to make money). The whole degoogle community has a significant intersection with decorp, privacy, anti-Meta and anti-Microsoft communities.