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Hi. I’m an actual socialist. I think it’s also harmful to any cause limiting the power and harm of capitalism to treat all capitalists as if they have identical

Hi. I’m an actual socialist. I think it’s also harmful to any cause limiting the power and harm of capitalism to treat all capitalists as if they have identical behavior and preferences. Apple is surely a giant corporation with several horrible business practices and undue power. But knowing how they behave is important. They’re often accused of tactics that their corporate peers engage, because the outcomes look similar. Planned obsolescence is one of the most common accusations. But they generally provide more support for device longevity in the spaces they compete. They just don’t provide products full of modular junk. They mostly try not to serve the junk market altogether. And sure, that skews their prices higher, and limits what you can do after buying the device. But they’re serving mostly mid-high end markets who would rather pay more than repair or replace. People who voluntarily accept the limitations they place on their devices. A better criticism of their place in the market is how they distort “externalities”. Manufacturing labor costs and treatment, mining impact. The places they are renowned for outplaying every competitor. That’s where their abuse lies. They don’t care if you swap out a battery, they just don’t care if you can either. They care about offering consumer-luxury products no one else can. If you follow that money, it’s their supply chain who hurts, not their clientele.

_carbyau_ 6y ago
Apple literally was caught using software upgrades to make older devices perform worse. https://www.npr.org/2020/11/18/936268845/apple-agrees-to-pay-113-million-to-settle-batterygate-case-over-iphone-slowdowns https://www.npr.org/2020/11/18/936268845/apple-agrees-to-pay... But this about more than just Apple. It is about corporates in general. I don't think a "corporates are evil" mantra explains everything - or even anything useful. Product Designers are humans, CEOs are humans, all the employees are humans.(Unless ... Aliens ... :-) ) Some humans are better at whatever task than others, but all are operating under their motivational influences. Get enough people together under one banner, someone will do something poor under that banner's name.
- least 6y ago
  > Apple literally was caught using software upgrades to make older devices perform worse. ...which if you bothered to read even the article you linked, you'd know had to do with ensuring that battery voltage wouldn't drop low enough for the device to randomly shut itself off, a result which itself became a problem due to the actual longevity of their devices. You can certainly argue that they should have communicated this with their customers, though I'd argue that the vast majority would not notice nor care, while a lot more people would certainly notice their devices randomly shutting off.
  - a4isms 6y ago
    Another case of a lie--or misunderstanding due to reposting clickbait without engaging critical thinking--circumnavigating the globe at internet speed while the truth is still putting on its pants.
  - GeekyBear 6y ago
    More interesting is to look at what Google did for Nexus Phones with the same issue. >If you're among those affected, your phone will randomly shut down and completely die, even though your battery indicator might have said you had plenty of juice left. It's not a simple system crash, because your phone will stay dead until you connect it to a charger https://android.gadgethacks.com/news/nexus-6p-battery-randomly-dying-its-not-just-you-0175625/ https://android.gadgethacks.com/news/nexus-6p-battery-random... Instead of fixing the issue, Google's solution was to tell you to buy a new phone.
    - _carbyau_ 6y ago
      To paraphrase the original GP: "corporations can't be trusted" My point was that Apple is a corporation and so deserves the same suspicion as all the rest. You've just added another data point to "corporations can't be trusted". Yep, Google is a corporation and can't be trusted either.
      - GeekyBear 6y ago
        Sorry, but there is quite a bit of difference between "we don't like the way you explained your fix for the issue" and "screw you, buy a new phone".
- deergomoo 6y ago
  > Apple literally was caught using software upgrades to make older devices perform worse You've literally just proved the point the parent comment was making. The same outcome is not always equal to the same behaviour. The devices throttled themselves because worn batteries could not handle the sudden power spike needed by the CPU. You can very easily verify this by turning off the software fix on an affected phone—start pushing it and it literally just shuts off. Apple still behaved deplorably here: as soon as this software kludge was triggered, it should have popped up a warning saying "hey your battery is no good, go get it replaced. Your phone will perform way slower in the meantime". They undoubtedly sold more iPhones by not doing so. But they didn't slow down perfectly functional old phones, they slowed down phones which were effectively faulty.
  - _carbyau_ 6y ago
    I don't think I proved the parents case at all. I was supporting the idea that corporations can't be trusted. Apple was held up as some kind of paragon exception to this. It isn't. 1. slowing devices without telling anyone what they were doing. 2. assuming all their older devices were in the same state or had the same use cases. Replaced your phone battery recently? Who cares, you go slow anyway. The combination of 1+2 combined with a loyal fanbase (or trapped in the ecosystem depending on your views) does seem awfully suspicious regarding manipulated obsolescence and worth investigation. The article linked has Apple losing a court case in this regard. So the point still stands, don't trust corporations, including Apple. If you want to say that Apple is better than other corporations. Well that is a different point. You still can't trust them.
    - deergomoo 6y ago
      > assuming all their older devices were in the same state or had the same use cases. Replaced your phone battery recently? Who cares, you go slow anyway Sorry to be nitpicky, but this is actually not the case. The whole reason this was initially discovered was because someone on reddit ran Geekbench before and after a battery replacement and got a huge performance increase. Not telling users is inexcusable, but phones where the battery was fully functional continued to run at full speed regardless of age. > You still can't trust them On this point I 100% agree!
- ako 6y ago
  They didn't perform worse. It was a trade off between cpu performance and battery performance. They choose longer battery life over raw cpu performance. I think that's a valid tradeoff to make for a device that should last through the day on a single battery charge.
  - _carbyau_ 6y ago
    Worse is subjective, I accept. Battery life vs speed vs reliability. Different people cut it different ways. I think the issue was that everyone got the one solution without Apple telling them. So for a lot of people, it was perceived as worse.

_carbyau_ 6y ago

Apple literally was caught using software upgrades to make older devices perform worse. https://www.npr.org/2020/11/18/936268845/apple-agrees-to-pay-113-million-to-settle-batterygate-case-over-iphone-slowdowns https://www.npr.org/2020/11/18/936268845/apple-agrees-to-pay... But this about more than just Apple. It is about corporates in general. I don't think a "corporates are evil" mantra explains everything - or even anything useful. Product Designers are humans, CEOs are humans, all the employees are humans.(Unless ... Aliens ... :-) ) Some humans are better at whatever task than others, but all are operating under their motivational influences. Get enough people together under one banner, someone will do something poor under that banner's name.

least 6y ago
> Apple literally was caught using software upgrades to make older devices perform worse. ...which if you bothered to read even the article you linked, you'd know had to do with ensuring that battery voltage wouldn't drop low enough for the device to randomly shut itself off, a result which itself became a problem due to the actual longevity of their devices. You can certainly argue that they should have communicated this with their customers, though I'd argue that the vast majority would not notice nor care, while a lot more people would certainly notice their devices randomly shutting off.
- a4isms 6y ago
  Another case of a lie--or misunderstanding due to reposting clickbait without engaging critical thinking--circumnavigating the globe at internet speed while the truth is still putting on its pants.
- GeekyBear 6y ago
  More interesting is to look at what Google did for Nexus Phones with the same issue. >If you're among those affected, your phone will randomly shut down and completely die, even though your battery indicator might have said you had plenty of juice left. It's not a simple system crash, because your phone will stay dead until you connect it to a charger https://android.gadgethacks.com/news/nexus-6p-battery-randomly-dying-its-not-just-you-0175625/ https://android.gadgethacks.com/news/nexus-6p-battery-random... Instead of fixing the issue, Google's solution was to tell you to buy a new phone.
  - _carbyau_ 6y ago
    To paraphrase the original GP: "corporations can't be trusted" My point was that Apple is a corporation and so deserves the same suspicion as all the rest. You've just added another data point to "corporations can't be trusted". Yep, Google is a corporation and can't be trusted either.
    - GeekyBear 6y ago
      Sorry, but there is quite a bit of difference between "we don't like the way you explained your fix for the issue" and "screw you, buy a new phone".
deergomoo 6y ago
> Apple literally was caught using software upgrades to make older devices perform worse You've literally just proved the point the parent comment was making. The same outcome is not always equal to the same behaviour. The devices throttled themselves because worn batteries could not handle the sudden power spike needed by the CPU. You can very easily verify this by turning off the software fix on an affected phone—start pushing it and it literally just shuts off. Apple still behaved deplorably here: as soon as this software kludge was triggered, it should have popped up a warning saying "hey your battery is no good, go get it replaced. Your phone will perform way slower in the meantime". They undoubtedly sold more iPhones by not doing so. But they didn't slow down perfectly functional old phones, they slowed down phones which were effectively faulty.
- _carbyau_ 6y ago
  I don't think I proved the parents case at all. I was supporting the idea that corporations can't be trusted. Apple was held up as some kind of paragon exception to this. It isn't. 1. slowing devices without telling anyone what they were doing. 2. assuming all their older devices were in the same state or had the same use cases. Replaced your phone battery recently? Who cares, you go slow anyway. The combination of 1+2 combined with a loyal fanbase (or trapped in the ecosystem depending on your views) does seem awfully suspicious regarding manipulated obsolescence and worth investigation. The article linked has Apple losing a court case in this regard. So the point still stands, don't trust corporations, including Apple. If you want to say that Apple is better than other corporations. Well that is a different point. You still can't trust them.
  - deergomoo 6y ago
    > assuming all their older devices were in the same state or had the same use cases. Replaced your phone battery recently? Who cares, you go slow anyway Sorry to be nitpicky, but this is actually not the case. The whole reason this was initially discovered was because someone on reddit ran Geekbench before and after a battery replacement and got a huge performance increase. Not telling users is inexcusable, but phones where the battery was fully functional continued to run at full speed regardless of age. > You still can't trust them On this point I 100% agree!
ako 6y ago
They didn't perform worse. It was a trade off between cpu performance and battery performance. They choose longer battery life over raw cpu performance. I think that's a valid tradeoff to make for a device that should last through the day on a single battery charge.
- _carbyau_ 6y ago
  Worse is subjective, I accept. Battery life vs speed vs reliability. Different people cut it different ways. I think the issue was that everyone got the one solution without Apple telling them. So for a lot of people, it was perceived as worse.