4 ms·

Our electronics are composed of so many modular elements that no single company can produce them all entirely. Not even Samsung. It must be very difficult to

by m_st 11y ago

Our electronics are composed of so many modular elements that no single company can produce them all entirely. Not even Samsung. It must be very difficult to track down all suppliers on the chain and control and monitor them. All while still making a profit (even for Apple). So I expect the usual behavior here from Apple: Remain silent, listen to accusations first, prepare a good reply and take necessary actions. Quite exemplary in my opinion.

k-mcgrady 11y ago
There's already been a statement from them, although it doesn't say much more than if they remained silent: > “Underage labour is never tolerated in our supply chain and we are proud to have led the industry in pioneering new safeguards. We are currently evaluating dozens of different materials, including cobalt, in order to identify labour and environmental risks as well as opportunities for Apple to bring about effective, scalable and sustainable change.”
- blockross 11y ago
  That mostly sounds like your typical marketing statement to me though, which is of course the best available move in their situation. Sourcing every component for a manufacturing company's supply chain in a responsible way is hard. Especially because tracking these components is made hard by shady providers who know or - for those higher in the chain - suspect that the components they provide are produced/extracted by children and/or exploited workers. But it's basically a "don't ask don't tell" situation where investigating what happens further down the chain can only cost you money or stir up shit, so as long as consumers don't complain there's no business incentive to do that. Obviously Apple is not the only company involved in this, but contrarily to their claim they don't lead the industry at all on this matter. If we had to elect a leader I'd argue it would rather be Intel, see this entry from a week ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10874850 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10874850

by m_st 11y ago

k-mcgrady 11y ago

There's already been a statement from them, although it doesn't say much more than if they remained silent: > “Underage labour is never tolerated in our supply chain and we are proud to have led the industry in pioneering new safeguards. We are currently evaluating dozens of different materials, including cobalt, in order to identify labour and environmental risks as well as opportunities for Apple to bring about effective, scalable and sustainable change.”

blockross 11y ago
That mostly sounds like your typical marketing statement to me though, which is of course the best available move in their situation. Sourcing every component for a manufacturing company's supply chain in a responsible way is hard. Especially because tracking these components is made hard by shady providers who know or - for those higher in the chain - suspect that the components they provide are produced/extracted by children and/or exploited workers. But it's basically a "don't ask don't tell" situation where investigating what happens further down the chain can only cost you money or stir up shit, so as long as consumers don't complain there's no business incentive to do that. Obviously Apple is not the only company involved in this, but contrarily to their claim they don't lead the industry at all on this matter. If we had to elect a leader I'd argue it would rather be Intel, see this entry from a week ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10874850 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10874850