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If iphones were charged with US labor costs then nobody would buy them
by ta1243 1y ago
If iphones were charged with US labor costs then nobody would buy them
- rayiner 1y agoOr we would have automated assembly faster—the investment in which would’ve been counted in domestic investment offsetting the trade deficit, right? I’m trying to verify my mental model of what’s going on.
- chii 1y agothe assumption being that the automated assembly is going to be price competitive with the manual assembly. If this is the case, why doesn't it happen with the chinese supply chain? After all, there's no reason not to make it cheaper. The only conclusion you can draw is that the automated assembly will still be more expensive compared to the current manual one.
- newsclues 1y agoOr it would mean the time and cost for tooling would be prohibitive to annual releases, as they would need to sell each refresh for longer. Like car manufacturing where the models are more consistent each year with longer cycles to refresh. I honestly don’t see that as a big issue. It may even be better.
- Joker_vD 1y agoAre you arguing that if something hasn't been invented/adopted yet, then it will never be? Because IIRC the Chinese do invest into attempts to automate the phone assembly. It may not yet be price-competitive today but why not tomorrow?
- Filligree 1y agoIt does happen in the chinese supply chain; it's already heavily automated. It's a bit late to try to undercut them using automation.
- sigmaisaletter 1y agoThe chain of thought goes like this: -american labour is expensive -because of tariffs (or geopolitics) cheap asian labour unavailable -investment in automation research -first Gen automation is expensive -further research -2nd Gen automation is price-competitive with american labour -iterate n times -Nth Gen automation is price-competitive with asian labour > why doesn't it happen with the chinese supply chain The idea is that because asian labour is so cheap, there is no real incentive to invest in automation research, because everyone knows it won't be price-competitive for long. No idea if that is actually true, but that is the argument.
- ryandrake 1y agoAmericans will not accept the quality-of-life sacrifice of their labor being competitive with Asia. It's never happening. The only way US manufacturing will be competitive with China's is if it is 100% automated from the mines to the store shelves.
- ta1243 1y agoWhich means 100% of the money goes to the owner. At least now some goes to foreigners who watch stuff on youtube so american workers get a little of the money.
- Sohcahtoa82 1y ago> Which means 100% of the money goes to the owner. As more jobs get automated, this is becoming more and more inevitable anyways. There have been massive strides in computer vision and planning in the past few years. I think in 5-10 years we'll have robots that can handle nearly any manual labor task. In 10-15 years, we could be facing skyrocketing unemployment. We'll either see the collapse of society as the economy collapses, or we'll need to increase taxes on the owners to fund UBI.
- ryandrake 1y agoThis is the obvious end-state of unregulated capitalism. Fewer and fewer people owning and benefiting from the means of production, and more and more people with nothing and nothing to do besides revolt and (eventually) chop heads off. All the ownership class needs to stop the "head chopping" part is a robust and powerful police/surveillance state, which we all know they are diligently working on right now.
- branko_d 1y ago> why doesn't it happen with the chinese supply chain There are already "dark factories" that don't require light or heating because they are fully automated and don't require human presence. Guess where they are? China.
- maxerickson 1y ago"I’m trying to verify my mental model of what’s going on." Why not try to improve it?
- ta1243 1y agoOK lets assume the entire chain is automated and you don't need to employ anyone. The factory can go anywhere, in China, in France, in California, in North Dakota. What benefit is that to the average American citizen?
- antihipocrat 1y agoMaintenance would be all that remains, and I would think that cost of energy to power the facility would be the biggest driver of location
- usefulcat 1y agoProximity to suppliers could be a factor..
- hollerith 1y agoThe US government can tax the factory and spend the tax revenue on average Americans. The German government for example gets a big fraction of its revenue from taxes on export industries that employ only a small fraction of Germans.
- ta1243 1y agoSo the company owning that factory moves it to Iceland or Ireland or India who don't tax it. Or you could bypass all that and simply tax Apple now, despite their factory being in China.
- hollerith 1y agoThe German export manufacturers show no great desire to leave Germany -- or at least they didn't till their energy supplies became very expensive in the wake of the Ukrainian invasion.
- ta1243 1y agoAnd apple seems happy staying in California and paying the tiny amount of tax it does. Assuming no change in costs, how does moving its factories from China to Nebraska change anything, for apple, for the US government or the US citizen?
- pdfernhout 1y agoThe future the USA could have had, sigh: "A brief history of Steve Jobs’ automated factory at NeXT" https://www.cultofmac.com/news/a-brief-history-of-steve-jobs-automated-factory-at-next-cook-book-leftovers https://www.cultofmac.com/news/a-brief-history-of-steve-jobs... "Put simply, there was never any necessity for NeXT to have an automated factory. Jobs might have been right that the future of just-in-time manufacturing would involve a heavy dose of automation, but it made no financial sense whatsoever to have a plant staffed with the latest robots for such a low volume business. The problem with NeXT came down to one thing: no-one (relatively speaking) was buying the computers."
- corimaith 1y agoiPhones are already heavily overpiced considering how other companies regularly release phones with similar specs at lower prices.
- conception 1y agoLet’s be honest, no one is releasing phone with “similar” specs… https://browser.geekbench.com/mobile-benchmarks https://browser.geekbench.com/mobile-benchmarks Functionality sure maybe but competitors are not hot on apples heels or anything.
- Brybry 1y agoBeing honest, Geekbench 6 Single/Multi results vary depending on source and can be picked to fit different narratives. S M iPhone 16 Pro Max 3331 8106 Samsung S25 Ultra 3137 9769 [1] A18 Pro 3582 9089 Snapdragon 8-E 3155 9723 [2] A18 Pro 3452 8572 [parent link] S25 Ultra missing [parent link] SM-S938U 2k-3k 9k+ [3] [1] https://www.phonearena.com/phones/benchmarks/performance https://www.phonearena.com/phones/benchmarks/performance [2] https://nanoreview.net/en/soc-list/rating https://nanoreview.net/en/soc-list/rating [3] https://browser.geekbench.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=samsung+SM-S938U https://browser.geekbench.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=samsun... [4] https://browser.geekbench.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=Apple+A18+Pro https://browser.geekbench.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=Apple+...
- icedchai 1y agoiPhones also used to be carrier subsidized. I remember getting a new one for $200 - $300 thanks to AT&T.
- garciasn 1y agoThey still are, in the same exact way: with contracts. I haven't paid for an iPhone with cash, ever; I only have to sign a multi-year contract, just like it was in the past. I am currently using an iPhone 16 for 'free' in this way. It's just that people now want the latest and greatest NOW and are willing to pay monthly rates to do so, instead of waiting a few months for whatever carrier deal there is.
- mc32 1y agoHigher end Motorolas were mfg in the US in the early 2000s. It’s possible. Top of the line were ~$700, with inflation that’d afford iPhones. They were top sellers and not niche models.
- FirmwareBurner 1y agoHigher end Nokias were also 100% made in Finland, even the chargers. Companies just wanted that sweet Chinese labor.
- mc32 1y agoI’ve no idea why people downvote the above claims. Here from the Verge: https://www.theverge.com/2013/9/11/4717796/made-in-america-a-look-inside-motorolas-moto-x-factory https://www.theverge.com/2013/9/11/4717796/made-in-america-a... As late as 2014 phones were being made in the US. I believe Nokia in Finland was similar…
- tonyhart7 1y ago"If iphones were charged with US labor costs then nobody would buy them" idk, people pay premium for avocado sandwich a lof of cali folks certainly would do that
- tzs 1y agoFor most people who aren't very wealthy there is a huge difference between something making their $10 sandwich become a $20 sandwich and something making their $1000 phone become a $2000 phone. Also, people are generally more flexible with sandwiches. If the $10 sandwich I have once a week goes to $20 I might respond be switching to having that sandwich every other week and get something else on the alternate weeks. That won't work for a phone because I generally replace my phones when the old phone is no longer adequate.
- vel0city 1y agoIf I'm buying 3 sandwiches a week most weeks of the year (or similar eating out) that's like 150 meals a year. Adding an extra $10 to that is $1,500. I might get a new phone every 2-3 years. A $1,000 increase in my phone cost is $333-500/yr on average. And honestly if they jump $1,000 I'll probably try even harder to stretch it out another year or more. A $10 sandwich going to $20 is probably going to be far more impactful to my budget than a phone going up $1,000 in price.
- tonyhart7 1y agoidk why people have negative sentiment on this its the same like "health" food product vs industrial food You can have option for product that got manufactured on US soil to support US worker vs cheaper product that manufactured in Asia because cheaper wages in fact European,Asian country do this all the time
- kylebenzle 1y agoMaybe the military could just start forcing people to buy all US made products instead of just our currency?
- timacles 1y agoTrust me they are exploring this
- ta1243 1y agoThat's what the UK was doing before WW1, when private army (including warships) from a private British company attacked places like Guangzhou, before the UK government forced their terms of trade on China. History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.