Does Apple promote nationalist agendas?
Recently Apple was found to support China in banning it's VPNs. This has implications for people in China who do not agree with the censorship policies. Understandable yet regrettable that Apple would for economic interests accept a reputation cost in exchange for adhering to the laws in China but then is there a point where social interests trump economic interests?
How do you feel about what Apple did in sacrificing the freedom of it's users in China? Does this indicate what Apple might do if the US government required something similar? A company typically will abide by the laws of all jurisdictions it operates in out of necessity, but should Apple have issued a written statement on principle to disagree with the decisions of the Chinese government?
This also shows the problem with closed source curated style app stores. It allows a company to essentially control what people can and cannot access or download and that allows a government to pressure the company to restrict access to particular apps. Whether it be cryptocurrency or VPNs, if there is a centralized company controlling the app store rather than a decentralized community then you have a bottleneck of control.
HI Dana,
Apple will protect their position anywhere in the world. I have a college friend who works for them in San Francisco. The stories he's told me are crazy.
Anyone that has anything to do with them is tied up in contracts that stack 6 inches tall on the desk.
This story is not surprising.
If Apple moved their manufacturing plant to a higher priced location, would the public be willing to absorb the price hike?
Upvoted. Fuck Apple.
What are the practical alternatives for Apple to pursue?
They are not mandated by their shareholders to go on crusades to "save the world".
So share prices are more important than the world? Of course people who care about the world now have the opportunity to boycott Apple over this incident.
Situation is very complex, in terms of assigning accountability.
How much accountability is there for the people in China to rise up and be the ones to push back against local policies that impact them?
How much accountability is there for people in developed world to push back on Chinese policies, to make the policies look like how external people believe the policies should be?
George Bush had a policy of "nation building". Which was total failure. US tried to do nation building in Afghanistan. They were living in the 7th century. Not possible to migrate them using nation building into a 21st century country.
Perhaps that recent history is relevant to attempts to "nation build" in China?
Answering what the "right" approach is by Apple, or by Apples customers, is not as simple as you make it seem. It is a complex situation with no obvious right answer in my opinion
That’s one rotten apple.