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

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

#141

Post by michaelt »

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…

> Kicking out Apple manufactoring won’t happen [...] it would set a dangerous precedence

Ah, but if you don't care about setting a public example, you can punish them in more subtle ways.

The traditional trick in corrupt countries is to have a bunch rules that aren't enforced and everyone breaks all the time - then if the leaders decide they don't like you they just start enforcing the rules on you.

A corrupt regime would simply announce they were shocked - shocked! - to find parts of Apple's Chinese supply chain had low environmental standards.

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

#142

Post by MiguelX413 »

jquery wrote: post #119
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…

You’re making a lot of bold claims. It would be nice if you justified at least one of them before chaining them together to reach a pre-ordained conclusion.

Nice name

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

#143

Post by CountSessine »

majormajor wrote: post #123
CountSessine wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again - the fact that you can’t see both sides of the equation is why we don’t make things anymore.

Terms like "parasitize earnings" don't sound like seeing both sides of the equation. Why's your anger and blame focused there for not seeing both sides? The people who outsourced things weren't simply trying to reduce gains made by unions, they were looking at price differences that could not exist in the US due to cost and standard of living. They certainly weren't looking at both sides of this in terms of long term…

Terms like "parasitize earnings" don't sound like seeing both sides of the equation

I don't want employees to get those earnings. I don't want investors or shareholders to get them either. I want consumers to get lower prices.

they were looking at price differences that could not exist in the US due to cost and standard of living

Again, what does that mean, "standard of living"? That we indulge industrial labor monopolies and pay more for manufactured goods than we need or want to like the 60's? How do you feel about paying $5000 for that computer? Or that we reward landlords and enrich landowners for participating in the creation of dysfunctional regulations?

I agree - Western industrialists have been able to play both sides of the equation - outsourcing production to places where industrial cost-control is effective and selling in to markets where there's a large upper-middle class of well-compensated credentialed professionals like us and entitled land-owners.

But I don't think that the solution is to give more power to industrial labor unions. My own pet solution is German worker councils - if only because they empower workers and make managers and industrialists accountable to employee needs, but at the same time can't coordinate labor demands across an industry. Managers can't ignore employee welfare but also employees can't gang up on consumers. But no one else wants this - industrialists hate the idea of inviting unions in to C-level planning and unions at their core want labor monopolies.

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

#144

Post by [deleted] »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #85
schiang wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China doesn't just provide supply chain anymore. They are also a huge market now because of its growing middle class. China has money to spend and US companies need to tap into that market.

Apple has a $2T market cap. Do they truly "need" China? I know, I know, they have a responsibility to their shareholders, blah blah. But Two Trillion Dollars.

[deleted]

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

#145

Post by bjelkeman-again »

kukx wrote: post #140
jimkleiber wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ;)

at the detriment of human rights and the environment.

A lot of investors and pension funds are starting to add more criteria to their investments than just a profit.

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

#146

Post by Shadonototro »

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…

china, usa, i see no differences

different words, but same techniques

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

#147

Post by faeyanpiraat »

dalbasal wrote: post #100
reaperducer wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China has money to spend and US companies need to tap into that market. "Choose to" tap into that market. No company "needs" to be in China. Just like there are thousands of companies in Europe that do not do business in the United States, and thousands of companies in Brazil that do not do business in Russia.

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…

I would consider businesses providing for our basic human needs (eg food) to be needed to be in business.

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

#149

Post by jonathannat »

ng12 wrote: post #83
schiang wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China doesn't just provide supply chain anymore. They are also a huge market now because of its growing middle class. China has money to spend and US companies need to tap into that market.

Is there a good reason why we shouldn't sanction China like we do Russia, NK, and Iran? There's plenty of money to be made in those countries too.

US has started to, with sanctions on xinjiang related companies, with sanctions on chinese officials over hong kong.

It's just a matter of time before more sanctions arrive. Because dictatorships are short-sighted and incapable of change. So let's say China tries to prod Taiwan with some military approach and fails. Or escalation of border war with India or Vietnam or Japan. Or increasing purchases or Iranian goods.

When there's a mini-war started by China in Asia, you will see a full worldwide sanction on China.

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

#150

Post by nomel »

jonathannat wrote: post #133
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…

> 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…

It appears that Apple is part of that trend:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-foxconn-vietnam-apple-exc...

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