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Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

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Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#311

Post by Sebb767 »

joakleaf wrote: post #241
misnome wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are they deceiving people outside China when only showing the difference inside China?

Well, for one thing because we outside China would automatically assume they are showing the same thing inside China as we see. Now we know that is not true. That is deceptive. ... And a a shareholder, I was also kept in the dark -- Which is actually also pretty problematic and deceptive.

> Well, for one thing because we outside China would automatically assume they are showing the same thing inside China as we see. Now we know that is not true. That is deceptive.

Would you expect a big pop "WARNING: THIS CONTENT IS SHOWN DIFFERENTLY IN MAINLAND CHINA DUE TO REGULATIONS!"? Also, this will mostly yield a well-duh response. The only "appropriate" option in scale would be to put it somewhere in the fine print (IMO), but this is so close to not mentioning it at all that they might as well not.

Also, I don't think there's a general expectation for website to be the same everywhere. If you open google.com from Germany, would you be suprised to see Google in German? Project Gutenberg also was unavailable in Germany for quite some time; I don't think they informed every non-German reader about it.

> ... And a[s] a shareholder, I was also kept in the dark -- Which is actually also pretty problematic and deceptive.

I'm pretty sure they don't inform shareholders over standard legal requests. They probably didn't ping you about FCC restricted radio frequencies either.

It's not that I generally agree with censoring, but I don't think Apple acted unreasonably here.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#312

Post by dang »

chrischen wrote: post #13
ohmanjjj wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple paid protection money. Pretty simple, no need to sugar coat it

That’s what all government is: a racket.

Please don't post unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to HN. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#313

Post by Sebb767 »

kelnos wrote: post #102
qeternity wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally get that people want companies to act with dignity, but the idea that a company, even one as large as Apple, is going to make any sort of difference with respect to China's oddities is wishful thinking. Apple has a business to run. They abide by all sorts of requests in various countries in which they operate. Of course there has to be a line somewhere, I'm just not sure this is it.

I know this would never happen, but I wish companies would just default to not doing business in China, unless they are able to sell their product, uncompromised. I wouldn't mind legislation to that effect, though I'm sure that would come with a ton of unintended consequences. If China (and similar repressive regimes) wants these sorts of products with onerous restrictions built in, they should have to build them the…

> If China (and similar repressive regimes) wants these sorts of products with onerous restrictions built in, they should have to build them themselves.

I'd also like to add that they are, for the most part, already building our products quite literally. Being on the bad side of China might've a farther reach than just missing out on a few customers.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#314

Post by Aperocky »

onepointsixC wrote: post #108
sneak wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are forgetting about manufacturing. While China is indeed an important and huge market for sales... approximately 100% of Apple's products are manufactured in China (save some tiny fraction that are assembled in India or Texas). Every iPhone sold everywhere worldwide (except the few assembled in India) comes from China. Apple cannot exist without China. Full stop.

That's completely wrong. How is it that one of their largest global competitors, Samsung, exists despite having no factories in China for years now? Apple could leave China just fine as far as manufacturing is concerned. The question is would it be able to still sell to the Chinese market if it does.

> X could leave China just fine

If something has potential, then it will happen. The higher the potential, the faster it will happen. And laws, contrary to what many believe, only has limited potential.

So if leaving China has potential, then it will happen. Tariffs have already made the potential higher, but unfortunately it doesn't seem like it's breaking even just yet.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#315

Post by gonehome »

hereforphone wrote: post #308
gonehome wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporations are made up of people and people can make decisions despite incentives to behave otherwise. I’d argue Zuckerberg did this in his Georgetown speech [0]. Recently the head of the woman’s tennis association did too when pulling out of China. Palantir is also principled about this (read their S1) - though incentives are more aligned there. Add in the South Park writers too. It is possible to do the right thi…

Easy to do when A - You have the "right" opinions (they aren't politically incorrect or unpopular among your target customer demographic), and/or B - You are insanely rich.

Sure, it’s when it’s hard that principles actually count for anything.

Anyone can have “principles” when it’s also easy to have them. Someone should mention that to Ray Dalio.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#316

Post by quitit »

gbasin wrote: post #114
ryandrake wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who has worked in mapping/GIS at a company that sells in China has seen this in action. The "display these islands larger" requests, the obfuscated coordinate system for geo-aligning maps, and other map content regulatory issues[1] all need to be dealt with if you want your map product available in the country. Not excusing it, but every company with maps there is required to do this, not just Apple. 1: https:…

I compared the same area in apple vs google maps, the islands don't even show up in google unless you zoom way in. You sure about this?

People outside of China are served a different set of maps. Each country is served maps that conform to their territorial claims.

E.g. If you view the map of India while in India, it'll appear different than if you viewed it in China.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#317

Post by rtpg »

hereforphone wrote: post #308
gonehome wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporations are made up of people and people can make decisions despite incentives to behave otherwise. I’d argue Zuckerberg did this in his Georgetown speech [0]. Recently the head of the woman’s tennis association did too when pulling out of China. Palantir is also principled about this (read their S1) - though incentives are more aligned there. Add in the South Park writers too. It is possible to do the right thi…

Easy to do when A - You have the "right" opinions (they aren't politically incorrect or unpopular among your target customer demographic), and/or B - You are insanely rich.

Right, it's clear that Apple does not have any financial resources or pull in the industry. Not like they have enough money to personally just build up an entire city of factories somewhere.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#318

Post by AnthonyMouse »

mempko wrote: post #280
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://electrek.co/2021/12/07/elon-musk-senate-not-pass-bui... Context: The bill they're talking about is unusually porcine, to the point of overwhelming even cynics. Relevant example: Subsidies of $12,500 for electric vehicles, but only if they're made by a union. Because auto unions are major campaign donors. Everybody always talks about "oh the government spends so much money on pork all the time, deficits are so…

All that money goes into the private sector. Government deficits are an investment. Recent investment is huge and helped millions of people. Without the investment we would be in a depression (not just a recession). Elon Musk is not happy about this kind of investment for some reason. He doesn't want the government to invest so much in it's own people, which is so strange to me. There are of course criticism in the d…

> There are of course criticism in the details. For example, a majority of the funds went to the top 10% which isn't great. How the funds were deployed was far, far from ideal. It lead to asset price inflation because of this. So there are problems with it, but the alternative, not investing, would have been much worse.

The criticism of the details is the point. Spending half as much money by cutting out the portion that went to the top 10% is only the most obvious of the better alternatives.

This doesn't mean anything without the details:

> Government deficits are an investment.

The government can borrow a trillion dollars and give it to Mark Zuckerberg or whoever else donates the most to their campaigns. That's not an investment, it's corruption. It represents a net loss to the American people, because they lose the money, have to pay interest on the debt forever, and get nothing in return.

To be an investment you actually have to invest in something. But during an economic crisis, the best thing to invest in is people. If you're going to borrow money, just send out the checks. Everybody gets the same amount. It helps the people who are in trouble, it stimulates demand, and it isn't susceptible to corruption or regulatory capture.

And if you did that, you wouldn't have to borrow as much, because the same money would be more effective and the same benefit could be achieved with less of it.

But that's not what's happening.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#319

Post by sschueller »

bell-cot wrote: post #4

So...local politicians, in a market where Apple was making money hand-over-fist, were feeling kinda used. By a huge foreign corporation. And the they started getting sticky on all sorts of regulatory things that Apple needed. Until Apple's CEO promised to do a bunch of "local investing" in their country. How different is this from the 1980's in the U.S., when Japanese auto makers decided that they needed to start bui…

Bribery is illegal, just ask FIFA and the FBI.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#320

Post by gowld »

mc32 wrote: post #259
tonyhb wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, as much as people like to throw shade at Google, we can say that they haven't caved on this. That's a plus for them.

Google withdrew from the Chinese market for multiple reasons, but one influential one was the state sponsored penetration of Google ops in China.

That was 10 years ago, before they negotiated for access.
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