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> For Apple, ownership of the "trust problem" is an intrinsic part of "making good products". Yes, this might be true. And the majority of elected officials in

> For Apple, ownership of the "trust problem" is an intrinsic part of "making good products". Yes, this might be true. And the majority of elected officials in EU fundamentally disagrees with that statement.

geodel 3y ago
> And the majority of elected officials in EU fundamentally disagrees with that statement. Well, EU can and will force, fine, or ban US companies as they see fit but there is not some fundamental correctness to their viewpoint
- ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
  Any fundamental correctness of their viewpoint is by virtue of them representing more people (EU citizens) than Apple's CEO represents (himself and, I guess, the Apple corporation, if you count that). On moral issues, the fundamentally "correct" viewpoint (if there is one) is, by definition, the one that more people say is the fundamentally "correct" viewpoint.
  - jdmdmdmdmd 3y ago
    [dead]
  - mckn1ght 3y ago
    What you should be comparing is the percentage of the market the EU represents in the total market available to Apple. EU politicians are accountable to their population. Apple’s CEO is accountable to every Apple customer. The EU does not now, nor has it ever, constituted a majority of Apple revenue.
    - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
      I don't believe the concept of a market has any fundamental place in morality, and my morality isn't limited to any particular "market". Indeed, who apple is or isn't able to sell to, doesn't affect what people think is moral or immoral. As for Apple's CEO representing Apple's customers: Are you sure? We didn't elect him. We just bought stuff made by an organization he currently runs.
      - mckn1ght 3y ago
        So you think government can prove morality, but markets cannot? If you don't think government is a marketplace where the currency is political capital, then you have a naive view of how governments work. Also, I don't believe the EU is a direct democracy, so the representative morality is lossy. Have you never disagreed with a decision made by a politician you voted for? I'm saying that customers decide whether or not to buy from Apple based on whether they resonate with them from a moral standpoint, at least as part of their decision to purchase their products. And I said Apple's CEO is accountable to their customers, not that they represent them. Yes, they're also accountable to shareholders, as your sibling comment points out. But if the company screws up enough to elicit a popular boycott, you can bet the reason shareholders will be exercising that accountability is due to the actions of the customer base.
        ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
        Yes, a democratic government represents the people, and thus their moral stance. A market sells stuff. There's really no relationship between the two nouns. No reason to compare them. You might as well ask, "So the people can decide what's moral, but a jar of pickles can't?" Yes, that's correct. A jar of pickles is technically a market, so this analogy applies particularly well. > I'm saying that customers decide whether or not to buy from Apple based on whether they resonate with them from a moral standpoint I fully believe that you might do that yourself. There's no evidence everyone else does, or even that a majority do. Especially since most people aren't informed of working conditions involved in manufacturing Apple products (or indeed, many others' products). It's just not believable that everyone thinks that buying a product = agreeing with every single moral stance made by the person currently running the company. And what if he changed his mind tomorrow? Would he offer a full refund to everybody who asked for one? > And I said Apple's CEO is accountable to their customers, not that they represent them. He's not accountable to them, only to the board*, but we're discussing representation - that is, speaking on behalf of a people, according to those people, not you or I or the speaker individually. If you mentioned accountability while we were on the topic of representation, and I returned us to the topic of representation, you're welcome :) [*]: Your example illustrates this: a complex chain of accountability from CEO to Corporation and BoD to Corporation and Corporation to shareholders is required for any action to happen. Being accountable to customers means customers can decide to fire him _directly_.
    - trinsic2 3y ago
      I'd argue that's not the case. CEO's are accountable to share holders, not its customers. And before you say its the same thing, there are a lot of pubically traded companies who get away with unlawful actions that direct effect its customer's for a long, long time without their bottom line being effected.
  - cwyers 3y ago
    Governments in other countries have come to a different view, and it's for Apple to determine how worth it is for them to conform to the view come to by the representatives of the EU citizens versus catering to markets with other regulatory regimes.
  - zappb 3y ago
    China represents twice as many people as the EU. This is not an enticing argument. Can you at least qualify this with democratic representation?
    - Nullabillity 3y ago
      Which free and democratic election did Xi win?
      - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
        none, which is what the comment was complaining about.
    - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
      Thank you for your comment. In the spirit of interpreting it in the most charitable way possible, I assume that when you say "China", you mean the Chinese government. The answer is that Chinese government doesn't necessarily represent people living in China. As you say, it is not democratic. That leaves us with few indicators of representation. It has control over the people living in China, true, but I do not think controlling a person, being able to put them in jail if they don't obey you, is the same thing as representing them.
paulmd 3y ago
Yeah, as I’ve said before: the root problem here is that the EU wants to outlaw apples business model. People don’t think of it that way, they tell themselves all the reasons why that’s a good thing, but that’s ultimately what it is - a legislative solution to end the “android vs iOS” debate for all time. The argument is walled gardens shouldn’t exist, so the solution is to either legislate requirements that apple destroy the walls, or that they exit the market. That is a statement that most android advocates would agree with. And the EU will largely just keep ratcheting up the legislation until that happens. Driving apple out is the point - walled gardens are (in the EU sense) unacceptable and the option for a walled-garden business model needs to be removed from the market. Apple is (correctly) perceiving this and pulling out of the market, first by dropping the affected features, and I’m sure there will be a “next compliance requirement” before many years too.
- Nullabillity 3y ago
  Apple is free to switch to a less fascistic business model.
  - paulmd 3y ago
    Is SELinux also fascistic? Grow up. if someone wants to sell systems where the only supported configuration is SELinux, why should that be illegal?
- munk-a 3y ago
  I feel like this is a win for consumers - I'd much rather there remain more OS competition on mobile devices[1] but if Apple wants to pursue a business model that excludes large portions of the world from their customer base that's their decision. I don't believe there exists any maliciousness from the EU towards Apple - they do, after all, benefit greatly from corporation tax revenues from Apple and iPhones are still quite popular in the EU. I think at the end of the day there's just a difference in the social expectation of privacy and freedom between the EU and NA. Apple, being primarily steeped in NA's expectations for freedom, hasn't built an ecosystem that is compatible with the EU's higher expectations. 1. Still hoping to see something amazing RIM!
dingle_thunk 3y ago
Because of course elected officials without any expertise, representing a very small minority of humanity, are the best arbiters of reality.
- munk-a 3y ago
  Non experts have to rule on expert subjects all the time - sometimes this goes hilariously wrong (like the internet being a series of tubes) but usually what happens is that the non-expert relies on the testimony of experts to make their judgement. Politicians aren't expected to be experts due to the immense breadth of subjects they need to consider - they're expected to consult experts. Whether an individual politician is an expert[1] is pretty irrelevant. All of these statements are about our general expectations of politicians - whether you think politicians adhere to that point or have comments on specific politicians is beside the scope of my comment. As a less controversial example it might be good to instead consider how judges operate who are expected to provide well reasoned judgements on subjects they know nothing about. 1. Sometimes those former expert politicians are the worst of all since they _think_ they know the way things are and won't listen to actual experts but they've been out of the industry so long that they've lost their familiarity with the subject.
  - Qwertious 3y ago
    >sometimes this goes hilariously wrong (like the internet being a series of tubes) That didn't go hilariously wrong, though - the internet is a series of tubes. Not physically (copper cables aren't tubes) but he obviously wasn't talking about specific stuff but broad-strokes analogy (his exact line was "It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes."), and his description was basically accurate.
- troupo 3y ago
  Unlike trillion-dollar corporations?

geodel 3y ago

> And the majority of elected officials in EU fundamentally disagrees with that statement. Well, EU can and will force, fine, or ban US companies as they see fit but there is not some fundamental correctness to their viewpoint

ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
Any fundamental correctness of their viewpoint is by virtue of them representing more people (EU citizens) than Apple's CEO represents (himself and, I guess, the Apple corporation, if you count that). On moral issues, the fundamentally "correct" viewpoint (if there is one) is, by definition, the one that more people say is the fundamentally "correct" viewpoint.
- jdmdmdmdmd 3y ago
  [dead]
- mckn1ght 3y ago
  What you should be comparing is the percentage of the market the EU represents in the total market available to Apple. EU politicians are accountable to their population. Apple’s CEO is accountable to every Apple customer. The EU does not now, nor has it ever, constituted a majority of Apple revenue.
  - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
    I don't believe the concept of a market has any fundamental place in morality, and my morality isn't limited to any particular "market". Indeed, who apple is or isn't able to sell to, doesn't affect what people think is moral or immoral. As for Apple's CEO representing Apple's customers: Are you sure? We didn't elect him. We just bought stuff made by an organization he currently runs.
    - mckn1ght 3y ago
      So you think government can prove morality, but markets cannot? If you don't think government is a marketplace where the currency is political capital, then you have a naive view of how governments work. Also, I don't believe the EU is a direct democracy, so the representative morality is lossy. Have you never disagreed with a decision made by a politician you voted for? I'm saying that customers decide whether or not to buy from Apple based on whether they resonate with them from a moral standpoint, at least as part of their decision to purchase their products. And I said Apple's CEO is accountable to their customers, not that they represent them. Yes, they're also accountable to shareholders, as your sibling comment points out. But if the company screws up enough to elicit a popular boycott, you can bet the reason shareholders will be exercising that accountability is due to the actions of the customer base.
      - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
        Yes, a democratic government represents the people, and thus their moral stance. A market sells stuff. There's really no relationship between the two nouns. No reason to compare them. You might as well ask, "So the people can decide what's moral, but a jar of pickles can't?" Yes, that's correct. A jar of pickles is technically a market, so this analogy applies particularly well. > I'm saying that customers decide whether or not to buy from Apple based on whether they resonate with them from a moral standpoint I fully believe that you might do that yourself. There's no evidence everyone else does, or even that a majority do. Especially since most people aren't informed of working conditions involved in manufacturing Apple products (or indeed, many others' products). It's just not believable that everyone thinks that buying a product = agreeing with every single moral stance made by the person currently running the company. And what if he changed his mind tomorrow? Would he offer a full refund to everybody who asked for one? > And I said Apple's CEO is accountable to their customers, not that they represent them. He's not accountable to them, only to the board*, but we're discussing representation - that is, speaking on behalf of a people, according to those people, not you or I or the speaker individually. If you mentioned accountability while we were on the topic of representation, and I returned us to the topic of representation, you're welcome :) [*]: Your example illustrates this: a complex chain of accountability from CEO to Corporation and BoD to Corporation and Corporation to shareholders is required for any action to happen. Being accountable to customers means customers can decide to fire him _directly_.
  - trinsic2 3y ago
    I'd argue that's not the case. CEO's are accountable to share holders, not its customers. And before you say its the same thing, there are a lot of pubically traded companies who get away with unlawful actions that direct effect its customer's for a long, long time without their bottom line being effected.
- cwyers 3y ago
  Governments in other countries have come to a different view, and it's for Apple to determine how worth it is for them to conform to the view come to by the representatives of the EU citizens versus catering to markets with other regulatory regimes.
- zappb 3y ago
  China represents twice as many people as the EU. This is not an enticing argument. Can you at least qualify this with democratic representation?
  - Nullabillity 3y ago
    Which free and democratic election did Xi win?
    - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
      none, which is what the comment was complaining about.
  - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
    Thank you for your comment. In the spirit of interpreting it in the most charitable way possible, I assume that when you say "China", you mean the Chinese government. The answer is that Chinese government doesn't necessarily represent people living in China. As you say, it is not democratic. That leaves us with few indicators of representation. It has control over the people living in China, true, but I do not think controlling a person, being able to put them in jail if they don't obey you, is the same thing as representing them.

paulmd 3y ago

Yeah, as I’ve said before: the root problem here is that the EU wants to outlaw apples business model. People don’t think of it that way, they tell themselves all the reasons why that’s a good thing, but that’s ultimately what it is - a legislative solution to end the “android vs iOS” debate for all time. The argument is walled gardens shouldn’t exist, so the solution is to either legislate requirements that apple destroy the walls, or that they exit the market. That is a statement that most android advocates would agree with. And the EU will largely just keep ratcheting up the legislation until that happens. Driving apple out is the point - walled gardens are (in the EU sense) unacceptable and the option for a walled-garden business model needs to be removed from the market. Apple is (correctly) perceiving this and pulling out of the market, first by dropping the affected features, and I’m sure there will be a “next compliance requirement” before many years too.

Nullabillity 3y ago
Apple is free to switch to a less fascistic business model.
- paulmd 3y ago
  Is SELinux also fascistic? Grow up. if someone wants to sell systems where the only supported configuration is SELinux, why should that be illegal?
munk-a 3y ago
I feel like this is a win for consumers - I'd much rather there remain more OS competition on mobile devices[1] but if Apple wants to pursue a business model that excludes large portions of the world from their customer base that's their decision. I don't believe there exists any maliciousness from the EU towards Apple - they do, after all, benefit greatly from corporation tax revenues from Apple and iPhones are still quite popular in the EU. I think at the end of the day there's just a difference in the social expectation of privacy and freedom between the EU and NA. Apple, being primarily steeped in NA's expectations for freedom, hasn't built an ecosystem that is compatible with the EU's higher expectations. 1. Still hoping to see something amazing RIM!

dingle_thunk 3y ago

Because of course elected officials without any expertise, representing a very small minority of humanity, are the best arbiters of reality.

munk-a 3y ago
Non experts have to rule on expert subjects all the time - sometimes this goes hilariously wrong (like the internet being a series of tubes) but usually what happens is that the non-expert relies on the testimony of experts to make their judgement. Politicians aren't expected to be experts due to the immense breadth of subjects they need to consider - they're expected to consult experts. Whether an individual politician is an expert[1] is pretty irrelevant. All of these statements are about our general expectations of politicians - whether you think politicians adhere to that point or have comments on specific politicians is beside the scope of my comment. As a less controversial example it might be good to instead consider how judges operate who are expected to provide well reasoned judgements on subjects they know nothing about. 1. Sometimes those former expert politicians are the worst of all since they _think_ they know the way things are and won't listen to actual experts but they've been out of the industry so long that they've lost their familiarity with the subject.
- Qwertious 3y ago
  >sometimes this goes hilariously wrong (like the internet being a series of tubes) That didn't go hilariously wrong, though - the internet is a series of tubes. Not physically (copper cables aren't tubes) but he obviously wasn't talking about specific stuff but broad-strokes analogy (his exact line was "It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes."), and his description was basically accurate.
troupo 3y ago
Unlike trillion-dollar corporations?