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Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors

nytimes.com

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Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors

#111

Post by mistermann »

mtgx wrote: post #43
reustle wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure they've spent plenty of time running the numbers

Yes, and did they take into account a backstabbing from the Chinese government (both national and local) and the stealing and then re-using of their IP for the purpose of replacing them in China in due time? They are public corporations. They probably only took into account the next 2 years of profits they could make there, put it in balance and said "yup, betraying our Chinese users as well as our principles is wort…

The people making these decisions care about their stock and stock options, not the long term future of Apple or the USA.

Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors

#112

Post by chrismeller »

jjoonathan wrote: post #55
madeofpalk wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe there's a middleground? You've still got to pick your battles and understand the scope of them. It's also entirely reasonable for a company to not to choose to follow a particular fight because it's too expensive or would have to much of an impact on the strategy of the company. If a company decides to not fund healthcare for everyone in the US, even if that aligned with their values and CSR, there's no need to…

Aiding Chinese censorship for a quick buck is your idea of a "reasonable middleground"?

So they should have just defied the Chinese government, had all their manufacturing facilities cut off, and just closed up shop and called it a day?

Of course they don't agree with it, but they don't have the power to effectively ignore their demands right now. Yes, this sucks, but it means they get to live and fight another day, hopefully when they do have a bargaining chip.

Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors

#113

Post by illuminati1911 »

To all these "you either support freedom of information or you dont" commenters:

If life was only so simple.

No sane CEO would try to fight against Chinese government risking their access to the market.

Even if the goal for the company is freedom of information, pissing of Chinese government, risking the safety of the company employees in China and getting smoked out by the shareholders is not gonna help anyone. It's much better to initially comply with their rules, gain their trust and try to change things in the long run. Might never work but still better than this "in or out" idiotism which will never work.

Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors

#114

Post by sangnoir »

mistermann wrote: post #104
evanlivingston wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If increased awareness isn't a reason to change our minds and we stubbornly stick to ideas we had a decade ago we're in trouble.

"We're" already in trouble. Just like HN commenters wisely advise not to build your company on top of someone else's service, the entire planet has built their service on China's manufacturing. The thinking (if there even was any, I personally doubt it) was that we'd just use them for labor intensive but low intellectual assembly work, but it seems no one considered if China was happy to continue being the servant of…

Amazon's Cloud services aren't made in China - it's the Chinese market they want, not Chinese factories. China depends on foreign markets for its factories output, but generally isn't as keen on having its (huge) market buying foreign goods and services. Having saturated their other markets, Western companies are desperate to tap into China to keep their growth numbers.

Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors

#115

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

Larrikin wrote: post #35
jimmywanger wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google wasn't giving up too much in China. The search engine wasn't getting much tractions, based on differing asthetics. Chinese websites are far more clustered and busy - take a look at https://world.taobao.com/ . I guess that it's being shifted - baidu seems relatively uncluttered, but the Chinese aesthetic is cramming as much information as possible on the same web page.

>but the Chinese aesthetic is cramming as much information as possible on the same web page I suspect that the language just simply looks busy to people who aren't fluent/native, even if you know enough to actually read it. I had the same complaint in Japan, even though I could read most of it. At the same time, even in English, a large complaint on here is that most redesigns simply result in a dumbed down design wi…

No, it's a completely different design aesthetic. If anything, Japanese / Chinese websites should be less cluttered because the characters can potentially convey more in lesser space. Not everything is cultural relativism.

Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors

#116

Post by ariwilson »

illuminati1911 wrote: post #113

To all these "you either support freedom of information or you dont" commenters: If life was only so simple. No sane CEO would try to fight against Chinese government risking their access to the market. Even if the goal for the company is freedom of information, pissing of Chinese government, risking the safety of the company employees in China and getting smoked out by the shareholders is not gonna help anyone. It's…

Disagree. In my opinion, American/other foreign tech companies have gotten a raw deal in China, with constant technology theft and hindered access to the domestic market, in addition to the usual suppression of dissent/free speech. I haven't seen any signs that this has been changing for the better, so why should American tech companies engage in China?

Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors

#117

Post by sangnoir »

mistermann wrote: post #107
veidr wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, playing ball with a despotic authoritarian regime is precisely what people are faulting these companies for. A lot of companies left the market in South Africa market in the 1980s, to which the parallels are obvious. But they didn't do it because they suddenly woke up and felt like doing the right thing; they did it because people's outrage over human rights in South Africa began to threaten the profits gained f…

South Africa is tiny, China is an 800 pound gorilla upon which the majority of the world's manufacturing depends. The decision of whether to "play ball" with China needs to be made at the government level, and 10+ years ago. It's too late now, the horse is out of the barn. China, and only China , will decide how they act on the world stage.

Why are you acting like Apple is the first company to face this dilemma? Google faced a decade ago and chose not to play ball with China with no assistance from any government.

Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors

#118

Post by lostmsu »

mistermann wrote: post #110
lostmsu wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have to admit, perhaps that thought only came so strong because of me literally yesterday reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1... , knowing about this information being censored in China, and, suddenly, Amazon submissing to government to prevent people from accessing it. Right now feels too dramatic.

Living by strong personal principles in a world that no longer has any is a recipe for a very unhappy life. The business and government leaders of the world have, over more than a decade of decisions, put us on this path, what's going to happen will happen. Don't sacrifice your life in some futile attempt to "do the right thing", it won't change anything other than harm you.

As option mentioned above, SDE job market is very hot right now, so finding another position will not be a problem.

Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors

#119

Post by curiousgal »

How is this different from companies abiding to a country's tax laws for example. If you want to do business in a country, you stick to its rules. China's rules call for censorship so companies must comply or leave. A bit too simplistic but that's how I see it.
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