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TikTok wants to keep tracking iPhone users with state-backed workaround

arstechnica.com

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Re: TikTok wants to keep tracking iPhone users with state-backed workaround

#131

Post by elmomle »

tw04 wrote: post #120
CountSessine wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying that employees expecting a livable wage is "parasitizing earnings" is a pretty outrageous claim. More defective programming in the wetware. Why is pay the only part of the equation? When Japan realized that their housing market was undermining living standards in the late 90’s, they cracked down on NIMBYism and took housing and land zoning authority away from cities. The housing market almost immediately corre…

>More defective programming in the wetware. Why is pay the only part of the equation? When Japan realized that their housing market was undermining living standards in the late 90’s, they cracked down on NIMBYism and took housing and land zoning authority away from cities. The housing market almost immediately corrected itself and housing prices in suburban Tokyo have been in free-fall ever since. You can get a 2000s…

>The world does exist outside of Silicon Valley. I can get exactly what you're describing in over half of this country, pick your state including the entirety of the midwest.

This is equivalent to saying sky-high housing prices in Tokyo didn't need fixing, since folks could always just live in Hokkaido--a pragmatic absurdity.

A city is a giant organism that needs people to play a variety of roles in order to thrive. All those people deserve (and arguably, for the health of the city, need) to be able to earn enough to live with some dignity. If only the wealthy can afford decent housing near a city, that city is no longer a functional community--it's a NIMBY bubble that creates a feedback loop of socioeconomic disparity.

Re: TikTok wants to keep tracking iPhone users with state-backed workaround

#132

Post by tumetab1 »

mrweasel wrote: post #73
kingaillas wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think China has some extra leverage to deploy here: China can respond "We leave it. Oh, one more thing: our domestic market is off limits to you. Pray we don't alter the deal further by kicking your manufacturing out too."

Kicking out Apple manufactoring won’t happen, because it’s actually dangerous to Chinese manufactoring. Apple is currently one of the only companies who could deal with being banned in China. It won’t be cheap or easy, but Apple could move manufactoring. They already have a deal with an Indian company who makes older iPhones for the indian market. Apple is also one of the few companies who can either absorb the addit…

You're assuming the shareholders would support such decision.

Keep in mind there's a legal mandate for public traded companies to increase share holders value. It's grey-ish legal requirement but I don't think the executive management wants to risk the legal consequences of doing the right thing.

Edit: it's shareholders and not stakeholders that matter.

Re: TikTok wants to keep tracking iPhone users with state-backed workaround

#133

Post by jonathannat »

topspin wrote: post #45
tediousdemise wrote: post #28

As much as I like Apple products, it looks like the privacy buck stops at China. The western world needs to desperately work on making their supply chains independent of the CCP, lest they'd like their supply chains to be poisoned at some point in the future. I'm a big fan of Purism and everything that they are doing. I hope their software and hardware matures with the same level of polish we've come to know and expe…

> The western world needs to desperately work on making their supply chains independent of the CCP The western world can't. The world is only so big and the remaining sites of refuge for cheap, exploitable labor and Potemkin regulatory regimes are few. Almost any alternative place you might cite is either already beholden to China (the viable parts of Africa) or too unstable (due to endemic corruption, external threa…

> The western world can't.

I'm not sure if you've been paying attention, but supply chains have been moving to Vietnam/Malaysia/Indonesia/India/Mexico for the last few years, and the trend is only increasing.

There's literally a growing military alliance (US, India, Australia, Japan) against China right now. Also not to mention other countries (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, US) actively incentivizing their companies to onshore or move out of China. And because South China Sea is crucial to the growth of SE Asian economies, now France/UK/Germany along with Japan/US have warships sailing there to stop China's expansion.

So yes, the western world can.

Re: TikTok wants to keep tracking iPhone users with state-backed workaround

#134

Post by rootusrootus »

Larrikin wrote: post #106
rootusrootus wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple seemingly doesn’t mind having a double standard for China. That seems to be the case with many businesses. Nobody wants to lose that entire market just to stand on principle.

Google did and didn't stop existing as a company

Google opted out of the Chinese market because it violated their principles? They didn't try to make a censored Chinese version of Google?

Re: TikTok wants to keep tracking iPhone users with state-backed workaround

#135

Post by mrweasel »

tumetab1 wrote: post #132
mrweasel wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kicking out Apple manufactoring won’t happen, because it’s actually dangerous to Chinese manufactoring. Apple is currently one of the only companies who could deal with being banned in China. It won’t be cheap or easy, but Apple could move manufactoring. They already have a deal with an Indian company who makes older iPhones for the indian market. Apple is also one of the few companies who can either absorb the addit…

You're assuming the shareholders would support such decision. Keep in mind there's a legal mandate for public traded companies to increase share holders value. It's grey-ish legal requirement but I don't think the executive management wants to risk the legal consequences of doing the right thing. Edit: it's shareholders and not stakeholders that matter.

If Apple was kicked out of China, leaving them with no Chinese manufacturing... ? In that case the shareholders have no option, it's either that or sell no new devices.

If you mean that the shareholders would rather please the Chinese government, rather than risk getting kicked out of China, then yes, I think Apple would go a long way to not piss off China.

Re: TikTok wants to keep tracking iPhone users with state-backed workaround

#136

Post by pydry »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #126
pydry wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's frequently not cheaper and occasionally more expensive. One reason it is popular is that it gives the managers who oversee it a lot more power and control: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/05/more-on-the-myth-of-...

Managers can't force people to buy products based on how they like power and control. They either deliver an acceptable price to value ratio, or people buy something else. I couldn't figure out what point the article you linked to was trying to make, but the fact that pretty much everything you buy is not stamped with "Made in USA" means that the cost to make it in the US was higher than elsewhere, and presumably peo…

Products low on the value chain that are unskilled-labor intensive are almost universally cheaper abroad. It wouldn't make economic sense to make t shirts in the US unless consumers paid a premium.

Products high up on the value chain - the kind you don't dress up in your best slacks to go and buy at Walmart are a different story, however.

I can count several software projects that were outsourced off the top of my head that were ostensibly done for cost savings purposes and were utter disasters. These disasters are routinely covered up and bullshitted, too.

This has at the same time not dampened the appetite for outsourcing software much. Coordination (i.e. management) costs are higher. Consulting companies can bill millions for these projects.

This is the point the article was making - pretty cogently.

It's less of a smoke-filled room conspiracy and more of a mundane "conspiracy" to shape the supply/demand curve.

Re: TikTok wants to keep tracking iPhone users with state-backed workaround

#137

Post by mdpopescu »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #101
topspin wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The western world needs to desperately work on making their supply chains independent of the CCP The western world can't. The world is only so big and the remaining sites of refuge for cheap, exploitable labor and Potemkin regulatory regimes are few. Almost any alternative place you might cite is either already beholden to China (the viable parts of Africa) or too unstable (due to endemic corruption, external threa…

> Insourcing is obviously out of the question; the wealthy Western establishment is violently intolerant of industrial expansion. As far as I can tell, it’s simply more expensive to insource, taking into account wages, labor regulations, and environmental regulations. If and when other countries catch up to the production costs in the US, then there won’t be a reason to ship things halfway around the world.

Or, if the parent is correct, the rest of the world will never catch up - because the US will keep adding regulations to keep itself more expensive.

Re: TikTok wants to keep tracking iPhone users with state-backed workaround

#138

Post by tw04 »

elmomle wrote: post #131
tw04 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>More defective programming in the wetware. Why is pay the only part of the equation? When Japan realized that their housing market was undermining living standards in the late 90’s, they cracked down on NIMBYism and took housing and land zoning authority away from cities. The housing market almost immediately corrected itself and housing prices in suburban Tokyo have been in free-fall ever since. You can get a 2000s…

>The world does exist outside of Silicon Valley. I can get exactly what you're describing in over half of this country, pick your state including the entirety of the midwest. This is equivalent to saying sky-high housing prices in Tokyo didn't need fixing, since folks could always just live in Hokkaido--a pragmatic absurdity. A city is a giant organism that needs people to play a variety of roles in order to thrive.…

>This is equivalent to saying sky-high housing prices in Tokyo didn't need fixing, since folks could always just live in Hokkaido--a pragmatic absurdity.

It isn't even remotely the equivalent of saying that. The land mass of Japan is a fraction of the US, and the jobs are highly concentrated in their large cities. The US, as a whole, is nothing like that.

Regardless, it was a pointless argument for him to make in the first place, he was just moving goal posts by trying to equate calling employees parasites to San Francisco zoning laws. There was absolutely no point going down that path other than to distract from his original (disgusting) statement and implying that somehow people wanting more than minimum wage should really be blaming the Mayor of San Francisco for high housing prices. Which again... is completely irrelevant to the vast majority of the population of the US.

Re: TikTok wants to keep tracking iPhone users with state-backed workaround

#139

Post by summerlight »

rootusrootus wrote: post #134
Larrikin wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google did and didn't stop existing as a company

Google opted out of the Chinese market because it violated their principles? They didn't try to make a censored Chinese version of Google?

A part of Google tried to do so and the majority of its employee (enough to scare its senior executives) fiercely rejected that attempt, so it gets overturned.

Re: TikTok wants to keep tracking iPhone users with state-backed workaround

#140

Post by kukx »

jimkleiber wrote: post #130
dalbasal wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're getting kind of semantic. Theoretically, No company "needs" to be in business at all. If Chinese consumer market growth continues as it has been, it may the biggest market for Apple. Hard to be the largest luxury goods company in the world without the largest luxury goods market... OP is right. This gives China influence. Supply chain influence is a minor thing, relative to " I'm your biggest customer " influe…

Why I don't like the "needs to" framing, especially as it comes to business decisions, is that I think it takes the agency out of the process. Too many of my friends and family seem to assume that just because there are customers willing to pay or cheaper labor, a company must automatically do a certain thing unless the government makes a law to prevent them from doing it. I guess that's why I like the "chooses to" f…

Well, let's merge both narrations: they need to, if they choose to pursue the leadership in the global market ;)
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