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I don't understand why #BoycottSomething should be used for protests. Boycotting an influential company is extremely hard. I'm sure that there are more rationa

I don't understand why #BoycottSomething should be used for protests. Boycotting an influential company is extremely hard. I'm sure that there are more rational ways to protest, instead of trying to boycott a company that actually delivers some of the best products. No company is perfect and Apple's case is just a tip of an iceberg in the whole industry. http://www.dontmakemesteal.com/ http://www.dontmakemesteal.com/ is a good example. We know the movie industry sometimes uses intellectual property rights against their customers but there are good ways to fight back without disregarding the merit of the entire thing.

shmerl 14y ago
If company behaves indecently (like Apple does) it deserves to be boycotted. The fact that it's influential is even a bigger reason to boycott it. Influential crooks are more dangerous.
- jaebrown 14y ago
  Not to say you're not right but just about every company behaves indecently. Samsung, Google, Microsoft and others all have their offenses in the people's eye for what is right but this is business and we people should just let it play itself out in court.
  - recoiledsnake 14y ago
    > but this is business and we people should just let it play itself out in court. I'd be okay if the patents in question were not trivial and something really innovative(like RSA). Also, consumers should make decisions based on their convictions too. For example, I shop at CostCo instead of Sam's Club because CostCo treats their employees much better than Walmart(which owns Sams) does. "Be the change you wish to see in the world." - Gandhi
    - jaebrown 14y ago
      I totally understand your point but these are the rules in which the game they play in. Each company has the money to make a stand for the change they want to see and if it was truly broken, I think we would see a unified body of tech companies coming together to enforce those changes. Either Congress is not listening or there are some companies that are fine with the current system. The companies I'm referring to are not Patent Trolls because they do not have the money to go toe to toe with a big company like Apple, Samsung, Microsoft or Google when it comes to hiring lobbyist, court fees, legals fee and PR. They're the companies we're speaking of now, that secretly like the current structure. Congress seems to be interested as they have a patent reform bill on the Senate right now. Consumers should take more of a note on issues of the companies and products they buy but I believe in this case it's irrelevant to them. I too choose CostCo over Sam's Club and Meijers over Wal-Mart because of the same thing you brought up. However, our choices are based on how they treat people and not patents on which a company clearly infringed upon. The basis on why they infringed or if it's wrong or not is not for us to decide but for the courts. I don't like the current system either but it is the current system.
      - shmerl 14y ago
        How is it irrelevant? Consumers should not support companies which engage in crooked anticompetitive behavior. Our choices should be based on something more than how they treat consumers. It's like "blood diamonds". They might be all nice and sparkling, but really stained in blood. Do you think it's enough to look just at the external value? It's not enough. It's good to vote with your wallet, boycotting companies which engage in unethical business practices.
        jaebrown 14y ago
        Using Blood Diamonds as an example is offensive. The two are no where close to related nor should be reference when speaking about each other. All companies engage in crooked anti-competitive behavior. Samsung is not excluded from the list and one of the reasons that this thread exist. Our choices should always be about how companies treat people, not just consumers of their products.
  - shmerl 14y ago
    If the patent system is so broken that it's abused by all kind of trolls (including Apple), do you think courts can fix it? Only patent reform can change something. And meanwhile, boycotting works too.
    - pbhjpbhj 14y ago
      It seems your from USA; I'll assume you mean the US patent system, and I gather that in the USA you elect judges but do you think that the courts should be "fixing" the law. Do you elect the judiciary to alter the law? Unbiased application of the law seems much more becoming of a judicial system than rewriting of it. If you have your judiciary do the statute [re]writing then do you want your government doing that too?
      - shmerl 14y ago
        Courts don't create laws, they interpret and apply them. Laws are created by the legislative power (i.e. congress). Courts is the judicial power. I.e. to fix this mess, legislative power needs to reform the patent law. Here is a proposal: https://defendinnovation.org https://defendinnovation.org
        pbhjpbhj 14y ago
        You said that the patent system was broken and asked "do you think courts can fix it" (my emphasis). I know that in general legislative power is not within the remit of the court (you might say it was ex judica, fnar-fnar) - you appeared to be saying that the courts should be fixing it though, hence my post.
        shmerl 14y ago
        I was asking, commenting on what jaebrown said earlier, quote: this is business and we people should just let it play itself out in court. So I asked: do you think courts (alone) can fix it? I.e. really courts won't help, until the law is fixed.
  - noble 14y ago
    As consumers , collectively we can influence corporate behavior. If Companies feels that customers can punish them for such acts they may refrain from it in the future. The point is , the scale of the protest should be big enough for them to sit up and notice
marshray 14y ago
I believe Apple's success still depends on public image more than most. Their products are high quality but some of those from other vendors are very very good as well. If this label of "evil ugly sociopathic corporation" were to stick they could end up in big trouble. Check out this tweet: https://twitter.com/joeycmiller/status/219271776394412032 https://twitter.com/joeycmiller/status/219271776394412032 The guy's profile says he's a Marketing professor so he knows the angle he's spinning. But this is the kind of thing I would be really worried about if I were Apple.
pg 14y ago
What are the other ways to protest? I don't mean that as a rhetorical question. I'm genuinely curious.
- zhoutong 14y ago
  On a small scale, petitions will work better than a hash tag on a Google-owned website. The person that made the decision is the judge. So a rational way to protest is to protest the decision itself. On a large scale, make something disruptively innovative to fight back. #BoycottApple may work by alarming and reminding Apple of their unethical act (to the crowd). But the effect is small because it has nothing to do with Apple's product quality and customer service. If no one buys Apple products any more, we won't necessarily be better off. That said, I think Apple seriously doesn't have to go this far. If they have the energy to continue innovating there shouldn't be any fear.
  - dfc 14y ago
    Has petitioning or protesting a judicial decision ever affected change? I think I would lose faith in the judicial system in such a thing worked.
  - klodolph 14y ago
    The problem here is that we're trying to apply social pressure to a legal problem. Being intensely social creatures, our instincts tell us it should work, or that it's at least worth a shot. What we're trying to fix is that companies can even get injunctions for stupid reasons, and that patents are used as warfare rather than for encouraging innovation. Boycotting every single company that abuses patents is simply not going to fix the problem, especially since some of those companies don't even sell products. Look at Righthaven -- a boycott would have been meaningless, but the right case came along and Righthaven lost its teeth. And this only involved two branches of the government! Imagine what you could accomplish if you could actually pass laws to fix the patent system...
  - mtgx 14y ago
    You're not going to change a judge's mind by protesting. But you are going to change Apple's nonsense lawsuits if the negative PR keeps building up against them. And that's what these boycotts could achieve if they become large enough.
bbrtyth 14y ago
The group of people that use Android and the group of people that are vehemently against Apple overlaps quite a bit, so this boycott costs them nothing. It's a bit of sound and fury slacktivism that makes them all happy but accomplishes nothing.
baby 14y ago
I extremely disagree with you, a boycott is the perfect weapon again a big brand like apple. People just tell others about it, and it's just really bad for their image.
- briandear 14y ago
  The average person doesn't care. I'm in this industry and I barely care. Watching Google and Apple is like watching NBA players scuffling over the last bottle of champagne. The average person just wants to use their phone, update their Facebook and find out what Snooki is up too. A boycot organized on a site that the muggles have barely heard of over an issue that they don't give two shits about isn't going to affect Apple's share price one cent. In fact their price will likely rise as the Street sees Apple defending their IP successfully.
  - dspeyer 14y ago
    But might it be seen by the average potential Apple employee? It's structured as "don't buy from apple", but it also covers "don't work for apple", which they actually need to fear.
    - briandear 14y ago
      That won't work either. A job with Apple is highly sought after. Even jobs in the retail stores get hundreds of applications. Engineers still flocked to Microsoft even during the "dark" days. I don't think a company that had an $89 stock price in 2008 and a $584 stock price now is going to have any trouble attracting top talent. A strong stock price and massive earnings == no problems recruiting. When it comes down to it, the average employee wants to work on interesting things and be well paid. They want job security. They choose their jobs less from ideology and more on finances, work-life balance, quality of work environment, innovation opportunities. If ideology was a defining factor, then people would be lining up to work for non-profit organizations, which they're not. Some 2-bit boycott attempt by a bunch of hysterical Android nerds will not make a dent in anyone's universe, much less Apple's. I doubt Apple is shaking in their boots over a silly hashtag on a social network only used actively by 89 people worldwide.
sschueller 14y ago
Boycotting Apple is very easy. They have a very limited number of products sold in their own stores. Try boycotting Johnson & Johnson or Nestle.
- pbhjpbhj 14y ago
  I've boycotted Nestle in the past and still err away from them as a producer. It's right that it's hard to avoid buying any single product that sends money back to Nestle or PG or J&J or whoever but it's not hard to cut back practically. Search online for a list of the company's products and try to avoid them. Like you said boycotting Apple [Computers] is very easy. I don't think the parent understands how a boycott works. You don't say "I can't boycott company X because their coffee tastes nicer that company Y's"; unless having slightly nicer tasting coffee completely outweighs the moral wrong that you're trying to punish.

shmerl 14y ago

If company behaves indecently (like Apple does) it deserves to be boycotted. The fact that it's influential is even a bigger reason to boycott it. Influential crooks are more dangerous.

jaebrown 14y ago
Not to say you're not right but just about every company behaves indecently. Samsung, Google, Microsoft and others all have their offenses in the people's eye for what is right but this is business and we people should just let it play itself out in court.
- recoiledsnake 14y ago
  > but this is business and we people should just let it play itself out in court. I'd be okay if the patents in question were not trivial and something really innovative(like RSA). Also, consumers should make decisions based on their convictions too. For example, I shop at CostCo instead of Sam's Club because CostCo treats their employees much better than Walmart(which owns Sams) does. "Be the change you wish to see in the world." - Gandhi
  - jaebrown 14y ago
    I totally understand your point but these are the rules in which the game they play in. Each company has the money to make a stand for the change they want to see and if it was truly broken, I think we would see a unified body of tech companies coming together to enforce those changes. Either Congress is not listening or there are some companies that are fine with the current system. The companies I'm referring to are not Patent Trolls because they do not have the money to go toe to toe with a big company like Apple, Samsung, Microsoft or Google when it comes to hiring lobbyist, court fees, legals fee and PR. They're the companies we're speaking of now, that secretly like the current structure. Congress seems to be interested as they have a patent reform bill on the Senate right now. Consumers should take more of a note on issues of the companies and products they buy but I believe in this case it's irrelevant to them. I too choose CostCo over Sam's Club and Meijers over Wal-Mart because of the same thing you brought up. However, our choices are based on how they treat people and not patents on which a company clearly infringed upon. The basis on why they infringed or if it's wrong or not is not for us to decide but for the courts. I don't like the current system either but it is the current system.
    - shmerl 14y ago
      How is it irrelevant? Consumers should not support companies which engage in crooked anticompetitive behavior. Our choices should be based on something more than how they treat consumers. It's like "blood diamonds". They might be all nice and sparkling, but really stained in blood. Do you think it's enough to look just at the external value? It's not enough. It's good to vote with your wallet, boycotting companies which engage in unethical business practices.
      - jaebrown 14y ago
        Using Blood Diamonds as an example is offensive. The two are no where close to related nor should be reference when speaking about each other. All companies engage in crooked anti-competitive behavior. Samsung is not excluded from the list and one of the reasons that this thread exist. Our choices should always be about how companies treat people, not just consumers of their products.
- shmerl 14y ago
  If the patent system is so broken that it's abused by all kind of trolls (including Apple), do you think courts can fix it? Only patent reform can change something. And meanwhile, boycotting works too.
  - pbhjpbhj 14y ago
    It seems your from USA; I'll assume you mean the US patent system, and I gather that in the USA you elect judges but do you think that the courts should be "fixing" the law. Do you elect the judiciary to alter the law? Unbiased application of the law seems much more becoming of a judicial system than rewriting of it. If you have your judiciary do the statute [re]writing then do you want your government doing that too?
    - shmerl 14y ago
      Courts don't create laws, they interpret and apply them. Laws are created by the legislative power (i.e. congress). Courts is the judicial power. I.e. to fix this mess, legislative power needs to reform the patent law. Here is a proposal: https://defendinnovation.org https://defendinnovation.org
      - pbhjpbhj 14y ago
        You said that the patent system was broken and asked "do you think courts can fix it" (my emphasis). I know that in general legislative power is not within the remit of the court (you might say it was ex judica, fnar-fnar) - you appeared to be saying that the courts should be fixing it though, hence my post.
        shmerl 14y ago
        I was asking, commenting on what jaebrown said earlier, quote: this is business and we people should just let it play itself out in court. So I asked: do you think courts (alone) can fix it? I.e. really courts won't help, until the law is fixed.
- noble 14y ago
  As consumers , collectively we can influence corporate behavior. If Companies feels that customers can punish them for such acts they may refrain from it in the future. The point is , the scale of the protest should be big enough for them to sit up and notice

marshray 14y ago

I believe Apple's success still depends on public image more than most. Their products are high quality but some of those from other vendors are very very good as well. If this label of "evil ugly sociopathic corporation" were to stick they could end up in big trouble. Check out this tweet: https://twitter.com/joeycmiller/status/219271776394412032 https://twitter.com/joeycmiller/status/219271776394412032 The guy's profile says he's a Marketing professor so he knows the angle he's spinning. But this is the kind of thing I would be really worried about if I were Apple.

pg 14y ago

What are the other ways to protest? I don't mean that as a rhetorical question. I'm genuinely curious.

zhoutong 14y ago
On a small scale, petitions will work better than a hash tag on a Google-owned website. The person that made the decision is the judge. So a rational way to protest is to protest the decision itself. On a large scale, make something disruptively innovative to fight back. #BoycottApple may work by alarming and reminding Apple of their unethical act (to the crowd). But the effect is small because it has nothing to do with Apple's product quality and customer service. If no one buys Apple products any more, we won't necessarily be better off. That said, I think Apple seriously doesn't have to go this far. If they have the energy to continue innovating there shouldn't be any fear.
- dfc 14y ago
  Has petitioning or protesting a judicial decision ever affected change? I think I would lose faith in the judicial system in such a thing worked.
- klodolph 14y ago
  The problem here is that we're trying to apply social pressure to a legal problem. Being intensely social creatures, our instincts tell us it should work, or that it's at least worth a shot. What we're trying to fix is that companies can even get injunctions for stupid reasons, and that patents are used as warfare rather than for encouraging innovation. Boycotting every single company that abuses patents is simply not going to fix the problem, especially since some of those companies don't even sell products. Look at Righthaven -- a boycott would have been meaningless, but the right case came along and Righthaven lost its teeth. And this only involved two branches of the government! Imagine what you could accomplish if you could actually pass laws to fix the patent system...
- mtgx 14y ago
  You're not going to change a judge's mind by protesting. But you are going to change Apple's nonsense lawsuits if the negative PR keeps building up against them. And that's what these boycotts could achieve if they become large enough.

bbrtyth 14y ago

The group of people that use Android and the group of people that are vehemently against Apple overlaps quite a bit, so this boycott costs them nothing. It's a bit of sound and fury slacktivism that makes them all happy but accomplishes nothing.

baby 14y ago

I extremely disagree with you, a boycott is the perfect weapon again a big brand like apple. People just tell others about it, and it's just really bad for their image.

briandear 14y ago
The average person doesn't care. I'm in this industry and I barely care. Watching Google and Apple is like watching NBA players scuffling over the last bottle of champagne. The average person just wants to use their phone, update their Facebook and find out what Snooki is up too. A boycot organized on a site that the muggles have barely heard of over an issue that they don't give two shits about isn't going to affect Apple's share price one cent. In fact their price will likely rise as the Street sees Apple defending their IP successfully.
- dspeyer 14y ago
  But might it be seen by the average potential Apple employee? It's structured as "don't buy from apple", but it also covers "don't work for apple", which they actually need to fear.
  - briandear 14y ago
    That won't work either. A job with Apple is highly sought after. Even jobs in the retail stores get hundreds of applications. Engineers still flocked to Microsoft even during the "dark" days. I don't think a company that had an $89 stock price in 2008 and a $584 stock price now is going to have any trouble attracting top talent. A strong stock price and massive earnings == no problems recruiting. When it comes down to it, the average employee wants to work on interesting things and be well paid. They want job security. They choose their jobs less from ideology and more on finances, work-life balance, quality of work environment, innovation opportunities. If ideology was a defining factor, then people would be lining up to work for non-profit organizations, which they're not. Some 2-bit boycott attempt by a bunch of hysterical Android nerds will not make a dent in anyone's universe, much less Apple's. I doubt Apple is shaking in their boots over a silly hashtag on a social network only used actively by 89 people worldwide.

sschueller 14y ago

Boycotting Apple is very easy. They have a very limited number of products sold in their own stores. Try boycotting Johnson & Johnson or Nestle.

pbhjpbhj 14y ago
I've boycotted Nestle in the past and still err away from them as a producer. It's right that it's hard to avoid buying any single product that sends money back to Nestle or PG or J&J or whoever but it's not hard to cut back practically. Search online for a list of the company's products and try to avoid them. Like you said boycotting Apple [Computers] is very easy. I don't think the parent understands how a boycott works. You don't say "I can't boycott company X because their coffee tastes nicer that company Y's"; unless having slightly nicer tasting coffee completely outweighs the moral wrong that you're trying to punish.