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> This shows that they are willing and able to collaborate with any government, no matter how repugnant their stance on human rights, if it will result in incre

by jsnell 3y ago

> This shows that they are willing and able to collaborate with any government, no matter how repugnant their stance on human rights, if it will result in increased revenue or market access for Google. That's evil, in my book. Google actually left China and didn't go back. That's rather different to other large tech companies. Consider Apple, which not only never left China but become totally dependent on it for manufacturing the phones they sell elsewhere, and direct revenue from iPhones and the App Store. For example Apple is regularly giving user data to the Chinese authorities -- they get thousands of requests per year and handing over the data in the vast majority of cases [0]. Google has accepted one request in a decade [1]. So it's pretty odd to use China as an example of why they're evil. How can their leaving and aborting a later attempt to re-enter be worse than Tim Cook being held over the barrel by the CCP and doing little to get out? [0] https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/cn.html https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/cn.html [1] https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/overview?hl=en&user_requests_report_period=series:requests,accounts;authority:CN;time:&lu=user_requests_report_period https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/overview?hl=...

sneak 3y ago
At present, China is the only place on all of Earth that can manufacture 50,000 iPhones per hour, which is on the close order of how many they sell. There's literally no other way for Apple to come up with the 250 million units a year that they sell. In a certain sense, the iPhone is a wholly Chinese product. Without China, there is no iPhone, and there is no Apple-as-we-know-it-in-2023. I am of the belief that Apple is doing everything in their power to change that, as even a cold war with China would put a rapid end to that. Apple is investing huge amounts of money in India to create a parallel supply chain for iPhones. I imagine that people in the USG are acutely aware that the CCP has, at present, ultimate control over the revenue stream of one of their largest and most profitable companies, and have coordinated a response plan to address this (ultimately untenable) state of affairs.
- jsnell 3y ago
  Yes, I agree. That makes Apple completely beholden to the CCP. If they anger the CCP, their whole business is gone. But I fail to see how that makes any of this more acceptable. They had 15 years to diversify. They didn't, but chose to instead spent that time just becoming more involved with a brutal autocracy, gambling their whole company on it. It was stupid (one of the rare strategic missteps by Apple), it was amoral, and somehow still this is seen as being totally fine while Google toying around with launching a single product in China but not doing it was quoted as evidence of them being evil in this very thread. And I kind of feel like your reply reinforces that point.

by jsnell 3y ago

sneak 3y ago

At present, China is the only place on all of Earth that can manufacture 50,000 iPhones per hour, which is on the close order of how many they sell. There's literally no other way for Apple to come up with the 250 million units a year that they sell. In a certain sense, the iPhone is a wholly Chinese product. Without China, there is no iPhone, and there is no Apple-as-we-know-it-in-2023. I am of the belief that Apple is doing everything in their power to change that, as even a cold war with China would put a rapid end to that. Apple is investing huge amounts of money in India to create a parallel supply chain for iPhones. I imagine that people in the USG are acutely aware that the CCP has, at present, ultimate control over the revenue stream of one of their largest and most profitable companies, and have coordinated a response plan to address this (ultimately untenable) state of affairs.

jsnell 3y ago
Yes, I agree. That makes Apple completely beholden to the CCP. If they anger the CCP, their whole business is gone. But I fail to see how that makes any of this more acceptable. They had 15 years to diversify. They didn't, but chose to instead spent that time just becoming more involved with a brutal autocracy, gambling their whole company on it. It was stupid (one of the rare strategic missteps by Apple), it was amoral, and somehow still this is seen as being totally fine while Google toying around with launching a single product in China but not doing it was quoted as evidence of them being evil in this very thread. And I kind of feel like your reply reinforces that point.