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I would say it’s simpler than that. Between Wall Street demanding “growth” and the executives’ stock options being tied to meeting those numbers, they always pu

I would say it’s simpler than that. Between Wall Street demanding “growth” and the executives’ stock options being tied to meeting those numbers, they always pull out any and all stops to push “growth”. As others have implied, with people like Jobs and others gone, there is also no cultural resistance based on core values that created Apple to push back on shameless debasement. It is also what is happening all over the western world in general as “growth” sacrifices the indigenous cultures and people at the altar of money for the executives, ie aristocrats, and anyone resisting or even just objecting is silenced, including here, because resistance to growth at all costs is futile.

supportengineer 1y ago
All you can do is be an executive, or failing that, be a shareholder
pas 1y ago
> resistance to growth at all costs is futile humans want to improve their (material) conditions, it's pretty much the thing we do at this point (that other species don't really) the issue that was a bit of an inconvenience, a mere side-effect of our culture is nowadays burning down the whole shebang we overvalue short-term gains (thus we have serious agent-principal and integrity issues), we have a laundry list of cognitive biases, and we managed to invent the weaponized cognitive-bias-exploitor and immediately tried it out on ourselves, and ... since the good old days of pamphlets and religious wars we are engaged in all kinds psyops. we are both great and terrible at "winning hearts and minds" (that's why it works, but unfortunately it works much better at turning people into crazy self-destructive antisocial trolls than courageous prosocial reformers)
- roody15 1y ago
  “ we overvalue short-term gains (thus we have serious agent-principal and integrity issues),” Agree and would even make the argument that Chinas rise in some is a response to short term with patience. China is willing to move mountains and allow western corporations 8-10 years of ridiculous low labor costs and promote incredible profits. They then learn the process and the tech and now companies like TP-link, Huawei, BYD, tencent, and so forth are all legit and make good products. This approach can even be seen in their military. With all the talk of China invading Taiwan… the reality is it just won’t happen. China will patiently build the largest Navy and infiltrate the political landscape of Taiwan until they just peacefully transfer back into the fold. Not sure what the answer is here but perhaps we could learn something back ?
  - fireflash38 1y ago
    Do you think that strategy is from their rulers? And do you think that when the rulers die, that strategy will live on? I think it will pass like every other empire/business: ruined by future generations who did not toil for it and who will trade it for short term gain.
    - somenameforme 1y ago
      I don't think the obsession with the short-term is necessarily the natural state of people, especially not in leadership. There were buildings built in times past knowing full well that it would take decades and even centuries to complete. But I think long-term thinking requires a unified people in a democracy, or a non-democratic system. Democracy in a divided society makes long-term stuff basically impossible when the next guy who comes in will just undo it to spite you. And long-term visions often come with short-term costs without anything yet to show for it, which can then be weaponized against you. Oh and the best trick of all is doing something with short term benefit and mid-term costs, and then blame the consequences of your own actions on the next guy in office. Excessive printing of money is an obvious and extremely common example of this.
  - vinceguidry 1y ago
    > China will patiently build the largest Navy and infiltrate the political landscape of Taiwan until they just peacefully transfer back into the fold. I don't think this would work, they can't manipulate a sophisticated Western political system without actual sovereignty over the land. Western soft power is just that good. If China had a playbook that could accomplish that, they would have used that instead for assimilating Hong Kong instead of what they ended up doing. They tried, but HK resisted Chinese influence HARD. So China stopped offering carrots and brought out the stick.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - graemep 1y ago
      The west is very naive. A lot of the current state of the world is a result of western politicians believing the "end of history" theories of the 1980s - the idea that any country would naturally become a free market liberal democracy as it grew richer. China is building soft power. We have Chinese funded teaching in British universities, lecturers moved from teaching a course because they upset Chinese students (who supported the regime), open apologists at places like Jesus College, Cambridge, agents building influence with MPs.... I agree Taiwan is unlikely to easily agree to be taken over by China, but that is because they know what living under Chinese rule will be like, not because of the soft power of the west.
BurningFrog 1y ago
Growth is awesome. We're incredibly fortunate to live in this high growth era! What Apple may be guilty of here is focusing on short term growth at the expense of the long term. If you make an extra buck today, at the expense of losing user loyalty, that's not what any shareholder wants. This could be a case of short term growth being rewarded inside the company. It could also be any number of other reasons.
- rchaud 1y ago
  > What Apple may be guilty of here is focusing on short term growth at the expense of the long term. Wall St growthbros do not draw these sorts of distinctions. If the focus on short-term growth ends up tanking a company, there will simply be another company to project its growth obssession on. It could be Apple services, or Peloton bikes or Subway sandwiches, they could not care less. Those companies aren't their customers; the investment houses, short sellers, market makers and pension funds are.
  - BurningFrog 1y ago
    That's a theoretical argument. The empirically existing stock market does quite well long term. Apple itself is over half a century old, as are many other big companies.
- Tepix 1y ago
  Maybe. But future generations (like yours kids) will have to pay dearly for our „growth at all cost“ mentality that uses up limited resources disproportionately and unsustainably.
Yeul 1y ago
Growth is difficult when Apple is pushed out of the Chinese market because of geopolitics. Decoupling was coined by Americans and enthusiastically embraced by the CCP.
rewgs 1y ago
> Between Wall Street demanding “growth” and the executives’ stock options being tied to meeting those numbers, they always pull out any and all stops to push “growth”. This right here. The perverse incentives integral to public companies are at the core of so much that is wrong with the world.
msgodel 1y ago
This stupidity isn't leading to growth though. I'm actually shorting them because their inability to produce products that actually add value to their customers lives is already manifesting in earnings/sales decay.

supportengineer 1y ago

All you can do is be an executive, or failing that, be a shareholder

pas 1y ago

> resistance to growth at all costs is futile humans want to improve their (material) conditions, it's pretty much the thing we do at this point (that other species don't really) the issue that was a bit of an inconvenience, a mere side-effect of our culture is nowadays burning down the whole shebang we overvalue short-term gains (thus we have serious agent-principal and integrity issues), we have a laundry list of cognitive biases, and we managed to invent the weaponized cognitive-bias-exploitor and immediately tried it out on ourselves, and ... since the good old days of pamphlets and religious wars we are engaged in all kinds psyops. we are both great and terrible at "winning hearts and minds" (that's why it works, but unfortunately it works much better at turning people into crazy self-destructive antisocial trolls than courageous prosocial reformers)

roody15 1y ago
“ we overvalue short-term gains (thus we have serious agent-principal and integrity issues),” Agree and would even make the argument that Chinas rise in some is a response to short term with patience. China is willing to move mountains and allow western corporations 8-10 years of ridiculous low labor costs and promote incredible profits. They then learn the process and the tech and now companies like TP-link, Huawei, BYD, tencent, and so forth are all legit and make good products. This approach can even be seen in their military. With all the talk of China invading Taiwan… the reality is it just won’t happen. China will patiently build the largest Navy and infiltrate the political landscape of Taiwan until they just peacefully transfer back into the fold. Not sure what the answer is here but perhaps we could learn something back ?
- fireflash38 1y ago
  Do you think that strategy is from their rulers? And do you think that when the rulers die, that strategy will live on? I think it will pass like every other empire/business: ruined by future generations who did not toil for it and who will trade it for short term gain.
  - somenameforme 1y ago
    I don't think the obsession with the short-term is necessarily the natural state of people, especially not in leadership. There were buildings built in times past knowing full well that it would take decades and even centuries to complete. But I think long-term thinking requires a unified people in a democracy, or a non-democratic system. Democracy in a divided society makes long-term stuff basically impossible when the next guy who comes in will just undo it to spite you. And long-term visions often come with short-term costs without anything yet to show for it, which can then be weaponized against you. Oh and the best trick of all is doing something with short term benefit and mid-term costs, and then blame the consequences of your own actions on the next guy in office. Excessive printing of money is an obvious and extremely common example of this.
- vinceguidry 1y ago
  > China will patiently build the largest Navy and infiltrate the political landscape of Taiwan until they just peacefully transfer back into the fold. I don't think this would work, they can't manipulate a sophisticated Western political system without actual sovereignty over the land. Western soft power is just that good. If China had a playbook that could accomplish that, they would have used that instead for assimilating Hong Kong instead of what they ended up doing. They tried, but HK resisted Chinese influence HARD. So China stopped offering carrots and brought out the stick.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - graemep 1y ago
    The west is very naive. A lot of the current state of the world is a result of western politicians believing the "end of history" theories of the 1980s - the idea that any country would naturally become a free market liberal democracy as it grew richer. China is building soft power. We have Chinese funded teaching in British universities, lecturers moved from teaching a course because they upset Chinese students (who supported the regime), open apologists at places like Jesus College, Cambridge, agents building influence with MPs.... I agree Taiwan is unlikely to easily agree to be taken over by China, but that is because they know what living under Chinese rule will be like, not because of the soft power of the west.

BurningFrog 1y ago

Growth is awesome. We're incredibly fortunate to live in this high growth era! What Apple may be guilty of here is focusing on short term growth at the expense of the long term. If you make an extra buck today, at the expense of losing user loyalty, that's not what any shareholder wants. This could be a case of short term growth being rewarded inside the company. It could also be any number of other reasons.

rchaud 1y ago
> What Apple may be guilty of here is focusing on short term growth at the expense of the long term. Wall St growthbros do not draw these sorts of distinctions. If the focus on short-term growth ends up tanking a company, there will simply be another company to project its growth obssession on. It could be Apple services, or Peloton bikes or Subway sandwiches, they could not care less. Those companies aren't their customers; the investment houses, short sellers, market makers and pension funds are.
- BurningFrog 1y ago
  That's a theoretical argument. The empirically existing stock market does quite well long term. Apple itself is over half a century old, as are many other big companies.
Tepix 1y ago
Maybe. But future generations (like yours kids) will have to pay dearly for our „growth at all cost“ mentality that uses up limited resources disproportionately and unsustainably.

Yeul 1y ago

Growth is difficult when Apple is pushed out of the Chinese market because of geopolitics. Decoupling was coined by Americans and enthusiastically embraced by the CCP.

rewgs 1y ago

> Between Wall Street demanding “growth” and the executives’ stock options being tied to meeting those numbers, they always pull out any and all stops to push “growth”. This right here. The perverse incentives integral to public companies are at the core of so much that is wrong with the world.

msgodel 1y ago

This stupidity isn't leading to growth though. I'm actually shorting them because their inability to produce products that actually add value to their customers lives is already manifesting in earnings/sales decay.