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If your app shows ads, apple customers are more valuable.
If your app sells any kind of product apple users buy more.
Market power is not determined by the number of users but by control of revenue.
The article makes sense to me. Apple has such a large marketing clout, they are able to set the prices. So prices are so low, they can only be made using boarderline slave labor.
I'm sorry what? Poor pay and working conditions in the semiconductor hubs of China has been a problem as long as and before Apple made the iPhone. Apple certainly isn't HELPING that situation, but none of them are. All these fabs have made the news at different times for everything from suicide prevention nets to using slave labor to make Apple products, sure, along with every other major tech OEM in the business. I'd be shocked if you could find ANY large manufacturer of these things that hasn't been embroiled in one scandal or another over shitty conditions in their factories.
> Even for the American suppliers who have managed to stay in business, things are hard. With Apple accounting for most or all of the revenue of many of its suppliers—by buying most of their output and blocking its competitors from using similar components—suppliers “dare not put a foot wrong” by speaking against Apple, or even mentioning it by name.
Then how do you know if they refuse to talk about it? This feels like a piece banking on outrage clicks about Apple.
> In 2017, when Apple announced it was moving away from using UK-based Imagination Technologies for graphics processors, the company lost two thirds of its value overnight. Apple’s monopsony power means component suppliers have few buyers.
Yeah, Intel lost a bunch on the stock market too when Apple announced they were rolling their own silicon. Losing Apple as a client is absolutely going to suck for any supplier and a stock dip makes perfect sense in that situation.
Like, none of this is strictly wrong but it's just describing the highly centralized nature of this industry. None of this is unique to Apple. I'm sure Samsung would have no issues at all swinging suppliers by the tail if they were so inclined to do everything outlined here, and I'm sure they have too.
Edit: TIL about the word monopsony.
The article makes sense to me. Apple has such a large marketing clout, they are able to set the prices. So prices are so low, they can only be made using boarderline slave labor.
Are we buying the same devices? Apple hardware is notoriously expensive.
I find the article compelling. He cited a lot of other articles, isn't making outrageous claims, provided concrete numbers, and isn't spinning unrealistic conspiratorial claims. The only core feature of human behavior we need to accept to believe the article is that some people are very greedy.
Apple is a large beast for sure. With as much expertise as the author has. I didn't read solutions or ways forward. I suppose the main objective is awareness?
Then it goes on to state that Apple stole technology when that is not actually a fact -- it's part of an ongoing legal battle that hasn't been proven (innocent until proven guilty in America right? Right?).
So, it just comes across as a weird hit-piece with some pretty shaky arguments.
The article makes sense to me. Apple has such a large marketing clout, they are able to set the prices. So prices are so low, they can only be made using boarderline slave labor.
I think their products are genuinely competitive. It's not just marketing.
If you're talking about America's semiconductor problem and not mentioning Intel even once, your view is horribly horribly slanted
The article makes sense to me. Apple has such a large marketing clout, they are able to set the prices. So prices are so low, they can only be made using boarderline slave labor.
Sounds like the tech version of Walmart killing the small town. Except they kill American “tech manufacturing” or whatever you want to call it. It’s 100% about borderline slave labor pay. I used to think it was because chip manufacturing is very nasty but I think it’s both pay and subpar working conditions.
This is the part I don't understand... they have placed orders with the new fabs that aren't even built yet. How are they killing American manufacturing if there is no American manufacturing for them to buy from?
The kind of monopoly apple has is interesting. In the US Apple has a complete monopoly on customers that spend money. If your app shows ads, apple customers are more valuable. If your app sells any kind of product apple users buy more. Market power is not determined by the number of users but by control of revenue.