What Businessweek got wrong about Apple • Hacker News Board

Re: What Businessweek got wrong about Apple

#181

Post by _Tev » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 10:49 PM UTC

lordlimecat wrote: post #180

_Tev wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why people on HN take these arguments seriously. You either anger govt that is authoritarian & capable of confiscating your entire production (basically ending your current business) OR You make some half-truth statement (not necessary to be lying, but that does not change the point), and - if everything will be revealed - one agency of democratic govt will be pissed and slap you with big fine. Basically thi…

The idea that the Chinese gov't would seize Apple's "entire production" is up there with the possibility that the US invades China. It isn't going to happen. There are just too many consequences, not least of which is the withdrawal of most US companies from China. The SEC on the other hand literally just got done fining Elon Musk $20m for a tweet. Fines for something like this could be in the hundreds of millions, t…

SEC fined him over something so much easier to verify that I wonder why is everybody bringing it up? Why do you think truthiness of Apple'a / Amazon's statements will be obvious in next year or two? Why do you think that accussation like "China is hacking our HW" from Apple would not escalate situation dramatically? (implicating they have to deny as hard as possible)

It's such obvious damage control in shit-has-publicly-hit-the-fan situation ... Why do you think SEC's fines (lol $20M, even for Tesla/Musk it's not a big deal, Apple would have to be hit with 100times that to even notice it) are even relevant now?

And "It isn't going to happen." could have been said about hardware attacks on USA from China last week. Situation has changed quite a bit, China is either starting to abuse its hw monopoly or someone is doing A LOT to prevent such scenario, so the stakes are too high for simple SEC fines to be worth discussing.

Re: What Businessweek got wrong about Apple

#182

Post by mercer » Sun, Oct 07, 2018, 1:58 PM UTC

onetimemanytime wrote: post #8

Very strong denial. Frankly, if true and Apple is saying this kind of a "no" shareholders will sue. Two possibilities: Left hand doesn't know (or can't know) what the right hand is doing at Apple. Top secret? Bloomberg was a victim of a hoax, some nation state (huh huhm!) wants to target China for something so they need a story. Based on what I've read here these past days, I'm leaning towards the second one. Apple c…

I'm also leaning towards Bloomberg being wrong, but I can't help but feel that's partly wishful thinking.

Let's say Bloomberg was correct. Considering the tension between 'the West' and China, and considering how much it's been escalated recently, the consequences of all this are unpredictably catastrophic.

I don't find it difficult to believe that even just to maintain stability for now, various governments would instruct their corporations to lie in a way they haven't done previously.

It's important to keep in mind that for the first time in a while, there's serious tension between China and the West. On top of that, the idea of having China manufacture crucial infrastructure has probably been a concern for quite a while. Making assumptions based on recent history probably doesn't serve us well when predicting our current reality or the future.

So while I'm still inclined to think Bloomberg got things (mostly) wrong, many of my reasons for believing this are based on a 'status quo' that I don't think is the case currently.

Re: What Businessweek got wrong about Apple

#183

Post by mercer » Sun, Oct 07, 2018, 2:09 PM UTC

GordonS wrote: post #62

akavel wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you delete one of your 2 nearly identical comments?

Done, and thanks for pointing this out. I wrote this on mobile, and thought the app (Materialistic) had lost what I'd written, hence I wrote it again. Not targeting you with this, but it seems a bit harsh to get downvoted for what was obviously a mistake.

I think many people, myself included, will downvote duplicate comments without too much thought. It might seem harsh, and perhaps it shouldn't be done so thoughtlessly, but at least based on my personal experience it's not meant to be harsh.