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It's more like Apple comes to the court of public opinion for equitable relief, but has unclean hands. Its history of hostility towards self-repair and indepen

It's more like Apple comes to the court of public opinion for equitable relief, but has unclean hands. Its history of hostility towards self-repair and independent professional repair basically precludes them from complaining about the grey markets and black markets in Apple device repair parts. Of course the black marketeers are in it to line their own pockets. They wouldn't be able to do that if Apple weren't artificially restricting the supply! It couldn't be a racket without Apple's help. Apple elected to operate the Apple repair business as a monopoly, restricting supply to raise prices, and parasitic businesses are trying to siphon some of the monopoly profit off. It's illegal, but that's just one factor in the economic analysis of potential [criminal] entrepreneurs. It isn't that they deserve to be plundered by poor thieves because they are rich, but that they deserve to lose some of their repair revenues because their repair policies are unreasonable in the opinion of some consumers. Aside from that, I'm glad that they're combating the fraud on their own, rather than pushing the problem onto national criminal justice systems as an externality of their business. But that's mainly because they believe Chinese cops would be uncooperative in prosecuting Chinese citizens on behalf of a foreign-owned company.

close04 8y ago
> It's more like Apple comes to the court of public opinion for equitable relief, but has unclean hands. This is not about what Apple is doing, it's about people justifying stealing and suddenly finding it OK because Apple is on the other end. Of course I'm not OK with what Apple is doing but morally you can't justify doing something shitty because "they" do it too. > Apple elected to operate the Apple repair business as a monopoly Again, this is trying to justify stealing. The way they choose to run their business does not justify breaking the law. It justifies changing it. > they deserve to lose some of their repair revenues because their repair policies are unreasonable And doing that by stealing or justifying this method makes you no better than them or the fraudsters. If you want them to lose revenue buy/repair with someone else, don't steal. How is this different from someone stealing a phone and saying "it's because Apple made them so unreasonably expensive"? It reminded me of this parody: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51-hepLP8J4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51-hepLP8J4
- logfromblammo 8y ago
  > This is not about what Apple is doing, it's about people justifying stealing and suddenly finding it OK because Apple is on the other end. Of course I'm not OK with what Apple is doing but morally you can't justify doing something shitty because "they" do it too. Actually, you can. It is not a criminal defense, but it is an equitable defense, and the court of public opinion is a court of equity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_hands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_hands To be more nuanced, it isn't justifying the stealing so much as ignoring Apple's complaints when they whine about it. Who are we to care if two blackguards are to brawl in the gutter? It's bad that the stealing by fraud is happening. But because it is Apple that is the victim, I am entirely unwilling to help them with this problem that they brought upon themselves with their own avarice. And that's fine. They're dealing with it alone, apparently. But not with my revenues. I won't willingly enter the garden with the highest walls and the most dongles with proprietary patented connectors and the most secret repair procedures. I can still hate the thieves while expressing zero or negative sympathy to the victim. The situation is akin to a heroin dealer getting robbed of his cash. The robber is scum for stealing money, but so too is the dealer scum for peddling poison to junkies in lieu of a more ethical product with lower margins. I'd have more sympathy for a marijuana dispensary, and perhaps some actual motivation to punish the robber if the victim were an entirely-lawful pharmacy. If you want a society to help you with your problems, you need to do things that the society likes. In short, until Apple respects right to repair and starts selling genuine repair parts at reasonable cost (including bureaucratic procedural cost), I won't care one whit that they're being fleeced for billions on repair fraud.
  - close04 8y ago
    In the court of public opinion you can judge anything any way you like if you have enough people behind it. That seems to work ok with extremism, why wouldn’t it work with stealing, right? Just because you can judge doesn’t mean you’re right. In the meantime Apple is immoral for profit. You’re immoral out of principle. As I said before, in the court of public opinion even rape is justifiable by what the victim did (Dressed too provocatively? Got too drunk? Deserved it). “The public said it, must be correct”.

close04 8y ago

> It's more like Apple comes to the court of public opinion for equitable relief, but has unclean hands. This is not about what Apple is doing, it's about people justifying stealing and suddenly finding it OK because Apple is on the other end. Of course I'm not OK with what Apple is doing but morally you can't justify doing something shitty because "they" do it too. > Apple elected to operate the Apple repair business as a monopoly Again, this is trying to justify stealing. The way they choose to run their business does not justify breaking the law. It justifies changing it. > they deserve to lose some of their repair revenues because their repair policies are unreasonable And doing that by stealing or justifying this method makes you no better than them or the fraudsters. If you want them to lose revenue buy/repair with someone else, don't steal. How is this different from someone stealing a phone and saying "it's because Apple made them so unreasonably expensive"? It reminded me of this parody: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51-hepLP8J4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51-hepLP8J4

logfromblammo 8y ago
> This is not about what Apple is doing, it's about people justifying stealing and suddenly finding it OK because Apple is on the other end. Of course I'm not OK with what Apple is doing but morally you can't justify doing something shitty because "they" do it too. Actually, you can. It is not a criminal defense, but it is an equitable defense, and the court of public opinion is a court of equity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_hands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_hands To be more nuanced, it isn't justifying the stealing so much as ignoring Apple's complaints when they whine about it. Who are we to care if two blackguards are to brawl in the gutter? It's bad that the stealing by fraud is happening. But because it is Apple that is the victim, I am entirely unwilling to help them with this problem that they brought upon themselves with their own avarice. And that's fine. They're dealing with it alone, apparently. But not with my revenues. I won't willingly enter the garden with the highest walls and the most dongles with proprietary patented connectors and the most secret repair procedures. I can still hate the thieves while expressing zero or negative sympathy to the victim. The situation is akin to a heroin dealer getting robbed of his cash. The robber is scum for stealing money, but so too is the dealer scum for peddling poison to junkies in lieu of a more ethical product with lower margins. I'd have more sympathy for a marijuana dispensary, and perhaps some actual motivation to punish the robber if the victim were an entirely-lawful pharmacy. If you want a society to help you with your problems, you need to do things that the society likes. In short, until Apple respects right to repair and starts selling genuine repair parts at reasonable cost (including bureaucratic procedural cost), I won't care one whit that they're being fleeced for billions on repair fraud.
- close04 8y ago
  In the court of public opinion you can judge anything any way you like if you have enough people behind it. That seems to work ok with extremism, why wouldn’t it work with stealing, right? Just because you can judge doesn’t mean you’re right. In the meantime Apple is immoral for profit. You’re immoral out of principle. As I said before, in the court of public opinion even rape is justifiable by what the victim did (Dressed too provocatively? Got too drunk? Deserved it). “The public said it, must be correct”.