Do we really have to go down that same path that we went down with Microsoft vs. Apple? Each company should be held responsible for their own, singular actions. If Google is doing wrong, then Google is at fault, let's not pass the blame to Apple, or vice-versa.
Honestly, it's in the media's best interest for fanboys on each side to be at war with each other, not anyone else's. If you like an Android phone, use Android, if you prefer an iPhone, use an iPhone. It doesn't need to be a point of contention.
Both companies have made mistakes, but we needn't go "Oh, you think Google is evil? Well, let me tell you about Apple". The truth is, it's hard to not be "evil" and have the insane amount of revenue's that these companies both share. Of course, this all depends on how you interpret "evil".
Steve Jobs famously said: "We have to let go of this notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose. We have to embrace a notion that for Apple to win, Apple has to do a really good job".
It doesn't stop this topic from being completely inane, but he's really talking about the tech community's reaction to these stories, not the facts themselves. He gets a little lost in the weeds, but I think the real points are:
- "dear tech news sites: you are terrible reporters"
- "dear tech news site readers: you guys lap this stuff up, so we only have ourselves to blame"
witness, for instance, the meteoric rise of this post on HN's front page.
That's missing the point of the article, which his update was added to clarify.
This article is NOT saying "why is everybody angry at Google for being evil? We can't forget about all these other evil companies!" That's the common problem a lot of articles like this one run into, but not this one specifically.
Tim's point is that "Google is /not/ evil. Google is doing something that may seem evil, but is in fact not. Google could do something in the future that may end up as evil, but that has yet to happen. To compare, let me show you an example of actual evil. [Enter Apple.]"
Apple is used to demonstrate what, in his opinion, actual evil looks like and how that differs from what Google is doing, therefore making Google's actions not evil. The Apple example (which could be Ford or Monsanto, doesn't matter) does not serve to to excuse Google.
Tim has spectacularly missed the forest for the trees. Google isn't just evil today because they updated their privacy policy. If turning a blind or half blind eye to suppliers in Asia is evil then they, like every other tech company, are evil and have been for a long time.
Where do the 700,000 Android phones that get activated every day get made? Is Google blameless because they dont make it themselves? Would Apple be blameless if they just designed the phones and contracted someone else to build it? Well they did so I guess not...
Look, it's clear that Apple, as the most visible brand, is going to get the lion's share of attention here the same way Nike was the target of sweatshop complaints in the 80's.
That said, as opposed to just shaming the Big Bad Apple, I'd really love to see a detailed comparison between the standards and practices of Apple and other first world companies contracting with suppliers in Asia (and elsewhere).
Not only those giant piles of Android phones, also Google's cheap farms of Linux servers, so they are customly made rigs, but where do the components come from? Are they assembled by the same line workers making every other lowly PCs?
RIM manufactures their smartphones on-site in Waterloo Ontario Canada (I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong). I have a friend and a cousin who work at RIM and working conditions and wages are excellent.
I know for a fact I will never purchase an Apple device again. I don't want blood on my hands. RIM Blackberries may be the only ethical choice.
Good on you for citing ethics, but your point misses the mark.
Modern Blackberries include components from Samsung, Texus Instruments, Marvell, Cyprus, Renesas, Infineon, and dozen of other companies that may or may not be "ethically" manufacturing components.
As far as I'm concerned, there are no "responsibly built" electronics, but maybe I'm picking nits. (Or maybe I'm not picking enough nits! Are we responsibly sourcing our Lithium, Indium, and Tantalum? Seriously, search for "blood tantalum")
Just received confirmation that RIM's main manufacturing plant is in Waterloo. They also have a plant in Dallas, Hungary and Mexico. A person in RIM management has told me the costs on RIM devices are typically higher because they stay away from unfair labor practices.
BTW: Ethics is my point. The fair treatment of ALL human beings should and must trump all other matters.
RIM’s five biggest suppliers account for 90% of its production costs. They are:
Elcoteq SE: Elcoteq is a Finnish company with a global factory network that includes “a regional office in Hong Kong, branch office of Beijing in Shenzhen, an Engineering Service Center and after-market services unit in Beijing and high-volume manufacturing units in Beijing and Dongguan.”
Jabil Circuit, Inc.: Jabil is a successful U.S. multinational company whose customers include Apple, Cisco, GE, IBM, and Research In Motion. Much of its manufacturing is done in Asia. “Prior to 2005, it acquired a Lucent Technologies plant in Shanghai, China. The company later added the electronics manufacturing business of Varian Inc. to its arsenal. It opened new facilities in China, India, and Ukraine, and expanded plants in Hungary, Malaysia, Mexico, and the United States. During 2006, Jabil set its sights on Taiwan Green Point Enterprises Co., a manufacturer of plastic casings used for items including cell phones, iPods, and Blackberry devices.”
Multi-Fineline Electronix Inc.: A U.S. company who makes RIM’s flexible circuit boards at its manufacturing facilities in Suzhou, China.
QUALCOMM is another important supplier who’s CDMA development center is in Beijing although it’s not clear which of its many overseas facilities supplies RIM.
>Where do the 700,000 Android phones that get activated every day get made? Is Google blameless because they dont make it themselves?
But..but..but...as we are tirelessly reminded by some folks here, Apple takes most of the profits of the mobile handset industry, so they're in the best position to lessen their huge margin by a few percentage points so as to not endanger the lives of the people that make the phones. If they make the most money from making people work in inhumane conditions, they deserve the most blame, esp. since they have the most leverage to pay more.
According to Tim Cook's company email on the matter, they do.
The fact is, you can't just pour money over the place and see what comes out of it. Especially in a country like China, and with multiple factories sizing in the range of 100'000s of workers. Hundred fscking thousands. This is the same order of magnitude as the whole of General Motors, for a single factory. The whole thing is architected to be able to reconfigure itself to produce whatever the demand needs almost overnight. This is incredible. There is no single country out there which has such a powerful tool. It's of thermonuclear scale, when the US tries to fight with a bunch of Winchesters (and even smaller countries like France are battling with swords and bows in a stone castle). Even if you're Apple you can't come in cash in hand and say 'Okay folks, this is not how we want things to work here' and re-architect the whole thing in a day. As you said they're in the best position to use leverage and I think they're doing it but moving such a huge block needs a freaking huge lever, and time.
Now you're just arguing degrees of evilness. My point here is not to defend Apple, they may well be evil to the core, but to point out the error in O'Reilly's defense of Google. Google isn't just a privacy policy and a SAAS company.
As a continued tangent though, let's talk about Apple's culpability and how much blame they deserve.
"they deserve the most blame, esp. since they have the most leverage"
My problem with this is you're assuming Apple hasn't used any leverage positively here which may be true but may not, we've seen indications that they are doing more but also that might just be PR window dressing.
Let's see a real "apples to Apple" comparison side by side with other major vendors.
And by all means let's condemn then if they are worse then others.
OTOH if it turns out that Apple is, relatively speaking, the gold standard and is doing the most to improve conditions then it might turn out they are deserving of praise.
-Google is also in the hardware business (Chromebooks) and soon (Motorola).
-Google is the target of several antitrust and patent lawsuits.
Two years ago, Google offered to buy Yelp, but the talks broke down. Last year, Google introduced Places, a Yelp-like service for listing businesses and collecting consumer reviews. A Google search for a restaurant often displays the Places entry — linked to a map, user reviews and other services — ahead of Yelp.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/technology/googles-to-face...
Yelp gets popular? Copy their info, shove Yelp to the bottom of the page and put Google Places and reviews at the top.
Groupon won't sell? Spend billions from other businesses to destroy them.
Twitter and Facebook innovate on search? Take their content, whine when they try and stop you then spend billions to prevent their growth and hopefully destroy them.
Apple working on a touchscreen smartphone? Spend billions from another business and copy everything you can, down to swipes and apps.
Need a smartphone operating system with Java. Take Java and use it for your own ends.
Need a location mapping technology and Skyhook won't sell? Spend billions from your monopoly profits and strongarm your partners and drive Skyhook out of business.
Buy up the big travel search sites.
Claim you are open source but share nothing related to what your business claims to be about -- search, and nothing related to how you make your money -- advertising
Claim you are open and standards based but control who gets access to your smartphone operating system
Like all rich monopolists, they spend millions hiring high priced lobbyists and public relations teams inside the Beltway -- for their direct benefit
> Two years ago, Google offered to buy Yelp, but the talks broke down. Last year, Google introduced Places, a Yelp-like service for listing businesses and collecting consumer reviews.
So... what? At least they tried to buy the technology before building it in-house, which is more than what most companies do.
Apple has run out of businesses a lot of companies by stealing their ideas outright and shipping them as part of MacOS (Konqueror widgets, Spotlight, etc...).
You should calm down, the furiousness with which you defending Apple would only lead to people assuming that you are not taking their points seriously.
Now, Yelp case is where Google acted selfish. There is a thin line between a commercial entity being evil (not kill-people evil but steal-your-ideas-or-money-or-data evil) and it being selfish. Google definitely acted selfish, just like any other corporation should and does. The line that separates selfishness and evil is unfortunately subjective (and often biased) which means that while you see something as clearly evil, others find it just selfish - I am pretty sure that no one here is going to deem these actions selfless; we are not that naive.
Now, to your points here and at other places:
(1) Google made in Open Source Operating System. It is by definition (with some exceptions to how it was enforced), open source. If there was no Android, there would have probably been no competition to Apple and hence no leverage against them.
(2) Android is not a necessary software; which means that if arbitrary restrictions like "Only to be used on labour-friendly devices" are put, there is no way a third party OEM is going to sign it; there are replacements available and we have already seen (with R. Stallman) that overly offensive campaigns do not go well with majority.
(3) Google is not charging anything directly for the OS. This means that they cannot put forward conditions to manufacturers like "I will charge you $10 less, if the $10 goes to the labourers"; Apple should. Whether or not if that is a possibility for Apple is a different story altogether (one that I cannot comment about, I have no experience in Chinese Political system or in device manufacturing).
(4) I am from sort-of a third world country. Our evil is way different from your evil - labour exploitation and fierce competition practices that we see, are way worse. While you are focusing on First world problems (e.g. order of information when a place is searched on Google, which BTW is not affected directly - the changes were on Google Places) only these companies are fairly global in their user base and development sites. There is a rating of evil that hence we have to consider; some actions that they are involved in on some continents would be way worse than others that they do on the North American and European continents. Evil - Good is definitely not a binary object.
Hey beatle, are you a PR rep for Apple? You've become kind of conspicuous coming into every single thread on HN that mentions Apple and either defending their actions or trying to deflect attention on to some other issue. It's extremely consistent and you talk very little on any other topics, you're a one-issue sort of guy.
> "We have to let go of this notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose. We have to embrace a notion that for Apple to win, Apple has to do a really good job".
That's a typical politically correct answer from Jobs. I work at Apple and I can tell you from the inside that back then (and today), the intent is both "Let's make a great product" and "Let's kill the competition" (used to be Microsoft, now it's both Microsoft and Google).
How successful you think the iPhone would be today without Android?
The answer: it would probably have a 95% monopoly, instead of a distant 20% third place.
Apple did quite well, but make no mistake: they would have done spectacularly better without Android.
I'm glad some people have perspective on this issue. I remember MG Siegler's ridiculous article about why he hated Android[1] and just how furiously angry he was that they didn't deliver on some overly ambitious promise to take out the phone carriers.
Yet when he (reluctantly) took the time to write about the recent Foxconn issues[2], he tried to deflect blame from Apple because they're simply an easy target considering they're "now arguably the most successful company on the planet." No furious anger, no outrage, just a simple "uh well shit happens, its unfortunate."
What kind of hypocrisy must exist inside someone's head to be capable of writing both of those articles? What's worse is that nearly every article MG's written this past week or so has been about just how amazingly-super-awesome it is that Apple made so much money. Apparently it's all great to be the most "successful company on the planet", but heaven forbid anyone dare look at how those profits are earned in a critical light.
But but but Mom, Samsung is doing it too!! No one is going to change their manufacturing practices as long as a company like Apple is reaping in some of the largest profits in recorded history using Foxconn style labor as a foundation.
You had me up until "No one is going to change their manufacturing practices as long as a company like Apple is reaping in some of the largest profits in recorded history using Foxconn style labor as a foundation."
You are doing the exact same thing that you accused MG Siegler of doing, you're minimizing an abuse of workers.
I like Apple gear a lot and I'm enough of a fan to hate seeing them getting attacked, but I agree that they need to step up and force Foxconn and their other suppliers to provide as safe working conditions and fair employment as they would if they were in Cupertino.
However, if Apple fails to, that doesn't give Samsung, Dell or any other manufacturers a free pass to screw Chinese workers.
Of course it doesn't give the other manufactures a free pass... I'm simply saying that companies will more often than not try to emulate Apple's practices.
Apple is in the best position of any company to fix these problems. So in that respect, applying pressure at the top of the corporate food chain isn't an unreasonable thing to do.
There is NOTHING a foreign-owned company can do to change something that is so fundamental to China's culture and politics. This is the responsibility of Foxconn and the Chinese Government.
This is the norm in China because the Chinese government itself encourages, supports and even demands this kind of labor conditions.
> This is the norm in China because the Chinese government itself encourages, supports and even demands this kind of labor conditions.
No it's not the norm, and the government doesn't encourage and definitely doesn't demand these conditions.
It does support them, but in an apathetic "how the hell do we even try to stop this" kind of way. Not a "Yeah I want those workers to suffer" kind of way.
The chinese govt is not a 2 dimensional evil monster that The West paint it to be. It is like most govts with a left and right wing, and (shock-horror) even debate!
The difference between Mao Zedong, Chou Enlai, and Deng XiaoPing is evidence of this segregation.
If you read through the comments on this thread, it becomes apparent that posters "already know everything about China",its government, and its people. Reading statements contending that it is a developed country make that clear. That said, I appreciate that you still braved the waters and tried to correct some of these misconceptions.
The Chinese government want low wages to keep factories from leaving China. They don't want to lose factories to Bangladesh, Brazil, Philippines, Vietnam or India.
Mr Otis regrets that his company
profits from using sweatshops
But to trade with these small countries
youve got to afford the pay offs
Its not HIM exploiting them, its their own governments,
running their countries on bribes.
And besides, he pays £10 a month to charity
and that will apparently save 5 lives.
You surely can't be that naive. There are numerous things a foreign company can do, such as leaving the country entirely. Threaten to withdraw unless China and Foxconn begin to take these issues more seriously. At $13 billion a quarter in profit and $100 billion in cash, it's not like Apple doesn't have a choice as to where their products are made.
Another idea is to offer financial incentives for factories that meet strict safety requirements. Offer them better terms, longer contracts, etc.
oldstrangers, beatle, who you are debating with, seems to be a PR rep for Apple, he comes into every thread that mentions Apple and advances the positives and deflects the negatives. He doesn't respond to most other threads, it's Apple ones he goes for specifically. This sort of single-topic commenter doesn't match the usage pattern of real people, they are always working for someone.
If apple is paying Foxconn, then they are encouraging and supporting those labor conditions. If they set deadlines for delivering the product, they are also demanding those conditions.
Even leaving aside completely the issue of working conditions in the factories that produce all these smartphones running any OS, one could make a strong case that Apple is more "evil" than Google on account of its restrictive policies around iOS.
Apple wants a future in which we can't do anything with the devices we own which isn't sanctioned by them. No imagination is required to realize how this will be – and in some cases, already has been – abused by Apple themselves and by the governments which hold sufficient power over the company. Moreover, Apple is abusing the legal system of the United States and other countries, trying to eliminate competitors through bogus patent claims and lobbying for legislation that would make jailbreaking illegal, in order to hasten this future.
As others have stated here, I don't think there's great utility in arguing over which company is more "evil", except that it does highlight the absurd extent to which the Hacker News community in general defends Apple right or wrong, while freely calling Google and others "evil" for issues as negligible as a transparent terms of service consolidation.
It's well past time for us to stop deifying Apple around here. The future of computing is at stake.
It is in human nature to see things in black&white with vilifying and glorification. And we overvalue intent, when there isn't is one. For example, I don't see them trying that hard in fighting against Jailbreaking. Instead Apple dealings with it are rather practical. They never released updates specifically to stop a JB. They never used legal actions against customers and Apple even hired JB-hackers or borrowed nifty ideas from that scene (notifications, home-screen camera access). I also never did get why some (web?)people are frightened by Apps, but a browser only Chromebook is regarded as a cool thing. I see that as more limiting for the future of computing.
Speaking of Google, I do find them to be more "evil", or to use a more precise word "threatening" for the computer industry, because they are aiming for ruling the world. They want to achieve dominance. They want to diversify in different markets. This is only possible with defeating competitors. Even if they have to subsidize products heavily or bordering on unfairly leveraging their search monopoly.
Apple is harmless, because they are not aiming for a 95% market share. No, they want to make niche products in the premium segment. In 2007 they had the chance to being the new Microsoft if only they had licensed iOS. They didn't do it. Because they wanted to be like the Ford Motor Company instead of being Standard Oil. The result is a company making three desktop models, two laptop models and basically just one iPhone (in two colors). It is possible to co-exist, even thrive, for competitors when Apple is leading. And they are not really that dangerous in peripheral markets. Far from that! Compare Facebook vs G+ and Ping vs Facebook.
Here's a hypothetical situation. What if MGS has a large stake relative to his own wealth in Apple stock. Would it be a bad thing for him to continue to write articles assailing Google and pumping Apple? I don't know if he has any inside knowledge or not but could what he writes which influences many readers who could be potential investors be considered illegal?
I really have no idea but if anybody does I'd like to hear it. I get really suspicious when I hear guys like Gruber and Siegler have such strong one-sided opinions about things like this when they reach such a wide audience.
Gruber has explicitly stated before that he doesn't own AAPL. I remember him saying this on his podcast so I don't have a link. No idea about Siegler, I wish people would stop paying that guy attention.
Absolutely right. The second article is so hypocritical. His point about Apple being targeted as it was the most successful company is absolutely right. Media has to concentrate on number 1 and being number 1 brings responsibilities. People follow you. If you have sweatshops, then every one will try to do the same.Be the number 1 and do the right thing. It's hard. But guess you can try
Key quote: "At best, forcing developing countries to adhere to our labor standards would create a privileged labor aristocracy, leaving the poor majority no better off. And it might not even do that. [...] A policy of good jobs in principle, but no jobs in practice, might assuage our consciences, but it is no favor to its alleged beneficiaries."
Is he wrong? (Please don't downvote me just because you disagree with Krugman.)
There's a difference between a job with low wages and long hours, and a job that poisons or cripples.
I think that, to the extent that this exists, it's fair to call out the companies responsible. It also seems particularly egregious when there are known alternatives with much reduced harm (different chemicals, shift rotation to prevent repetitive stress).
China is far from a developing country. So this isn't about taking advantage of a developing nation. It's very difficult for many foreign company to start a business in China. These are companies that China has approved that are mistreating the Chinese people. The bulk of the blame falls on China for allowing their people to be used like robots. You can't openly treat American workers like this because American government won't legally allow it. The Chinese government has the all the power to dictate what a business can do in China. The government use it's power on many occasion silent dissent, why not use that power to help it's own people ?
China uses a lot of it's power to try and stop things just like this. What evidence do you have that they haven't tried?
Are you seriously going to try and argue the US doesn't exploit "American" workers? Or are you defining "American worker" as someone with american citizenship rather than a worker in america.
I still find it amazing the lack of 'personal accountablity' in your response. Companies aren't bad for exploiting people, countries are bad for letting them... seriously?
Not true, I said I would used an alternative to Apple if all tech companies did not produce computers in similar or worse factories. The bulk of the blame, not all of the blame, has to fall on Chinese government. The government is in the business of protecting it's people from foreign dangers. These multinational companies are allowing things to happen to foreigners (the chinese people) that would be illegal in their home nation. The Chinese government has the bulk of the blame because Chinese government approved these companies, the Chinese Government approves of every single foreign entity, it's not hands off. Immediately the abuses would stop if the Chinese government ordered it to. The Government can not protect it's own people from foreign harm, (foxxcon is not a Chinese company) then that Government should be blamed. No China is not using its power to stop this because if it did it won't happen on such a large scale. Moreover I never said American workers are not exploited, it happens, but what is happening in China is far worse.
Missionary: Our church is part of a pan-Asian ministry, located in Colorado. We are all volunteers who, around this time of year, bring in medical supplies, medical attention, prayer books, and support to the Karen tribespeople. People say you know the river better than anyone.
Maybe Krugman has a fair point if we were "merely" talking about severely underpaid workers making way too many hours[1], but it doesn't explain this:
> The account of how Apple's factories substituted n-hexane, a neurotoxin with well-documented long term adverse health effects, for alcohol to wipe those shining screens clean, gaining a miniscule advantage in drying time but exposing workers to a lifetime of disablement
[1] a fair point, which I will consider as soon as such a situation actually presents itself in reality. I bet it will be a factory that manufactures containers for thermodynamically closed systems, which are to be sold on a free market to rational agents. Now clap your hands.
Apple doesn't have factories, they outsource their production. Large corporations, whether Apple or Foxconn, will pretty much inevitably do things like this if they perceive a net benefit in it. This is a Chinese company under the jurisdiction of the Chinese government. The Chinese government is in the best position, both morally and practically, to put a stop to these abuses to their own people. How much has Foxconn been fined due to this? How have the people who made and approved this decision been punished? My guess is that the answer is "not at all", and that's where the outrage really ought to be focused.
These kinds of arguments strike me as apologetic - like an intellectual wild card that you can use to not worry about the downside of what you're buying.
I'm not saying they're wrong, maybe he's right about labor standards. I'm just highly skeptical of this line of thinking.
Google is a huge customer of cheap electronics, and somewhat less directly behind the production of a whole lot more due to Android. Shouldn't some of the blame for awful working conditions apply to them as well? Unless their server farms are made only from components built in factories which treat their workers universally well (do such things even exist for everything you'd need?) they're just driving the demand that causes this stuff to happen.
I think that concentrating on Google, Apple, or any of these other big Western companies is getting off on the wrong foot. It makes us feel all self-righteous to do it, but doesn't actually get to the root of the problem. Ultimately, those countries which host cheap labor and allow its exploitation are responsible for offering it. Perhaps not the true in small, powerless countries which can get pushed around by large corporations, but China certainly doesn't fall into that category.
If we want things to change, I think we either need to turn our eye to the Chinese government for not enacting stricter controls, or simply declare that these problems are an inevitable result of poverty and industrialization, and that the only ways out are to either return everybody to agrarian lifestyles (which is in many ways worse than working in an evil factory) or allowing these poor conditions to produce economic growth.
FoxConn has almost 1 million employees, and they aren't all working on Apple products. If we're going to call out companies, shouldn't we be calling out them all?
The New York Times article said Apple was the single largest customer of Foxconn. So they're not some minor player.
Also from the NYT article, HP apparently lets Foxconn have a bit more profits "as long as the extra goes towards the welfare of the workers". So kudos to HP for putting its money where its mouth is.
> Also from the NYT article, HP apparently lets Foxconn have a bit more profits "as long as the extra goes towards the welfare of the workers". So kudos to HP for putting its money where its mouth is.
Absent any kind of details about this suposed arrangement, that sounds like a PR flack at HP spinning the fact that they can't negotiate better deals with Foxconn into something altruistic on their part. Or, more succinctly it sounds like happy horseshit.
We can't push Foxconn directly, so Apple serves as a good bellwether among clients of Foxconn to see whether the sort of pressure they have been receiving of late results in verifiably improved conditions.
I'm open to an alternative to Apple products, but I'm hard pressed to find a company that make computers that are not made in similar or worse factories. And why does China get a free pass in this ? Isn't communism suppose to prevent this sort of thing ?
1. China isn't a communist state anymore. Hasnt been for decades, regardless of any propaganda or rhetoric. It is an authoritarian state run by a single party that happens to be named Communist.
2. China does not get a free pass in the eyes of most. Its just that no one is willing to stick their neck out and take a stand.
I think a properly elected representative democratically elected government would help prevent this sort of thing regardless of economic ideology.
I've never been to china but the impression I have gotten is that it is basically a class system where those on the bottom have no power whatsoever.
This means that the Chinese government have no incentive to improve working conditions as they don't have any votes to win, workers can simply be used to "churn" which seems to be working well for boosting their economy right now.
> I think a properly elected representative democratically elected government would help prevent this sort of thing regardless of economic ideology.
This may be rather naive. Similar conditions in Western factories didn't really go away until after World War 2; in the case of exposure to known-dangerous substances, not til the 60s or 70s. Some of the countries involved were democratic in the early 20th century; certainly the UK and arguably the US (I say 'arguably' because the US excluded a substantial part of its population from the franchise at the time). Certainly, government did something; the effective banning of factory towns (through banning scrip and mandatory rental), in particular, was very important. It was mostly down to the labour unions, though.
> This means that the Chinese government have no incentive to improve working conditions as they don't have any votes to win
When has improving working conditions _ever_ been a vote winner for a major party, anywhere? Historically, it has almost always been done due to union pressure.
RIM manufactures their smartphones on-site in Waterloo Ontario Canada (if I'm not mistaken, I know people who work there). The working conditions and wages are excellent by any standard.
I was never a user of Blackberry smartphones, but I will be from now on because I refuse to support inhumane and cruel working conditions with my money.
Exactly, but people always come up with bullshit reasons to harp on Apple about this instead of any other company or discussing it as an industry-wide problem. It shows that they are more interested in doing that and hanging onto petty notions of moral superiority than actually fixing anything. Perspective indeed.
Note the ones that lack sources and how hard it is to find those sources, which might mean they don't exist or the companies are working really hard to hide it.
The box on the Galaxy S2 I got a few days ago says "Phone Made in Korea". Without knowing anything about Samsung's factories there, I feel very safe saying they're probably far better for workers than Foxconn.
Samsung assembles most of its devices in Korea, but also has many factories in China, and is also a Foxconn customer. This is rather common for Korean and Japanese companies; there is some pressure to do at least some of the work in the home country, but it's not feasible to do it all there.
Exactly. With recent privacy changes we're reminded of what we've known all along but have been ignoring; that we have next-to-nothing protecting us.
We love all those free services and we're sort of OK with ever more targeted ads but we want to keep our illusion that Google are the good guys.
Unfortunately its an inevitable consequence of Google facing a competitor - Facebook - who is willing to step over limits in sacrificing our privacy, in the name of creating a more competitive ad network. Google has to follow suit or risk losing their business.
The question is where is the bottom of that race? Profiling people with tendency to get hooked on games and pushing them Zynga products seems pretty much like evil to me and I think we're already there.
Apple always acted monopolistic when it didn't have the market share, and now it has decent market share in portable music players, phones, tablets, laptops. That's why no one is surprised by their behavior but only now are asking them to change.
Google always had market share but competed fairly ("don't be evil"), and only now is acting monopolistic. That's why everyone is surprised by their behavior.
"You can either manufacture in comfortable, worker-friendly factories, or you can reinvent the product every year, and make it better and faster and cheaper, which requires factories that seem harsh by American standards,” said a current Apple executive.
"And right now, customers care more about a new iPhone than working conditions in China."
Morality clashes with business priorities. Every single company under the sun deals with this fundamental conflict.
The myopic lens of online discourse is currently focused on Apple, presumably because it got the This American Life treatment, and because it is the most successful company of our time – but there isn't a single business out there that doesn't have something to answer for.
While you're definitely right that the other manufacturers are playing the same game, i think it makes perfect sense to focus on The Most Successful Company of Our Time, just like the adbusters/anti-sweatshop movement did with Nike in the nineties.
i think it makes perfect sense to focus on The Most Successful Company of Our Time
Sure, and Apple is (and has been) doing something about this. Hopefully they will do more, but as long as their competitors continue to make use of the price advantage of Chinese labor, there is only so much they can do.
Unless of course they decide to manufacture in the US, in which case their prices will increase and we can go back to complaining about how much more expensive Apple stuff is compared to Dell, HP, etc.
I don't know if I would call Google evil per se. Paternalistic and cavalier about invading people's personal space? Yes. Evil? Hmmm, I think that cheapens the word somehow.
It has more dimensions than is presented by Mike Daisey. I really is heart breaking, similar to the stores of child labour in Nike factories.
But on the flip side, you pull the industry out, and those 'poor workers' become just 'poor people with no income'. So the industry needs to be moved to more ethical standards. Apple do "seem" to be trying, with their releases of working conditions. But it's hard to tell how much of that is truth vs propaganda.
I guess raising awareness, will slowly put pressure on companies like Apple/HTC/etc to change these things.
Someone needs to think of a system that couples a profit motive to a 'people motive'...
His argument might have had some merit if he'd talked about the posh working conditions at Nexus factories. For all we know those are made at Foxconn as well.
And don't just blow off people's concerns about data mishandling. "We haven't done anything bad yet, so people shouldn't be worried." Go ahead and whistle past the graveyard, Tim.
Apple's manufacturing should not be compared to Google, because they dont do any manufacturing. Lets wait and see what they do with their Motorola devices then comment on it. Until then, the best comparison to Apple's hardware manufacturing is Samsung who sell the most mobile devices. And where do they manufacture their phones? in Asia. And who do they partner with? Foxconn.
The question that we really need to ask about Apple is : Is Apple worse than Samsung in treating its laborers? I dont know. But my best guess is that its the opposite.
Google on the other hand is being given a hardtime lately because of the title Don't be evil that they enjoyed for a long time. That is not helping them to compete with Apple or Facebook. Now Page is taking a hard look at the company and transforming it to really compete with the frontrunners. To do that effectively they cannot send flowers to the war. And now when they pick up their weapons, they are being criticized for it.
As much as I love Tim, I don't think he thinks critically of Google as much as he does about Apple. He might have liked all they did in the past, but the new Google is not going to play the savior of the world. They are going to bring in their guns to the war, there is going to be blood spilled all over the field, and if they have to win, Google will be responsible for the blood as much as Facebook or Apple.
> Apple's manufacturing should not be compared to Google, because they dont do any manufacturing
Strictly speaking, neither does Apple (or they do, but very little). Google has just contracted it out one step further.
> Is Apple worse than Samsung in treating its laborers? I dont know.
It's messier with Samsung, because there are three sets of workers; those in Korean Samsung factories, those in Chinese Samsung factories, and those in Foxconn (which contracts for Samsung). In the last case, they're the _same_ workers.
Right, because Android devices are manufactured in USA standards factories where people make $10/hour. What a load of horseshit, especially since Google OWNS Motorola now (something people seem to constantly forget, including Google employees). He has no excuse, this is just a completely ridiculous and unfair comparison.
I might as well just say that Google is evil because they pay very little tax, and Apple is awesome because they give Americans good development jobs. Both facts are true about both company, but why let a little thing like reality stop you from ignoring that to serve your point?
The consumer electronics manufacturing and assembly business is ugly. No one company is better or worse unless they actually demonstrate that. Apple at the very least offers their reports. Where are the reports from all the assemblers that also use Foxconn, including ones involved in some high profile suicide related cases like Microsoft?
Oh right, Apple is the big boys so let's throw rocks at them. I get why the guy in the TAL segment focused on Apple. We can all agree they are an attention grabber and delving into "Well, Microsoft does it too" is totally missing the point in that instance.
However, if Googlers are going to start casting stones like they are sinless because they just deal in data and collecting data is A-OK, I'm afraid I'm going to have to point out what a load of crap that is.
I recently had to decide where my tech needs end and my beliefs begin - I bought a new laptop. Although Apple has amazing hardware, I had to decide if I was willing to support their practices or possibly use a machine that offered less CPUs/dollar.
In the end, I went Tim's route and went with a company that treats its workers better - but it was a very hard decision and I was struck by the similarities between my purchase and the localvoire trend.
Me too, I am considering to leave the macbooks (sadly) to support my principles but it is not an easy task to find a company that threat their workers better.
Because this thread is becoming heated, I am going to bow out. But before I do, I looked into how companies reacted after the 2009 Foxconn stories and based my decision on who reacted, what they admitted, and incidents associated with them since then. Remember, not all Foxconn employees are forced to work with the same chemicals or conditions. Also, Toshiba doesn't use them at all. (I went with another brand, but am walking away because the Apple fanboys are in a mood today...)
"According to a study by Oekom Research, a ratings agency with a focus on sustainable investment, 42% of consumer electronics manufacturers are guilty of violating labor rights, far worse than the next two offenders: textiles (30%) and mining (24%)."
>Although Apple has amazing hardware, I had to decide if I was willing to support their practices or possibly use a machine that offered less CPUs/dollar.
That new laptop you bought was manufactured at the exact same factory where they manufactured Apple products. Good job.
Data collection is not evil and Google's intentions may not be evil today. But storing too much personal information in one place is evil waiting to happen. Data could be stolen, subpoenaed or lost for instance. Or Google could turn evil (I'm starting to hate this word) down the road. I'd rather pay in a different currency.
About the factories of Apple's suppliers: I think the way towards better health and safety conditions for workers in developing countries is via local laws and rights. You can't rely on some corporation to police this.
The problem is if a government is known to be a bunch of thugs with guns whose children are the super rich owners of the country, can you rely on that government to play its part? What if that's not the case? Do you leave the country and maybe cause more poverty? I'm not sure.
> Collecting data isn't evil. It's the currency of the future, a currency that we provide in order to buy useful services...
For all I know, data is mostly used to sell other services for cash, except a little more effectively.
And blaming Apple for working condititions during manufacturing is missing the forest for the trees. The whole model of short-lived consumer electronics is absolutely terrible, starting with where materials come from, ending one some landfill where children burn valuable metals out of the remains.
I think we could change much more if we would absolutely oppose the notion that it is normal to throw away cellphones after two, and computers after three years.
"Google’s mission is to organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful."
Oh my god, they're COLLECTING the information that I give to them, in order to organize it and make it universally accessible and useful?!
And they're giving me options to disable collecting my information, if I don't want them to?!
And if I do choose to let Google collect my information, they're giving me tools to audit the information they have on me?!
OUTRAGE!
Google should figure out a way to organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful, without first COLLECTING that information!!!
How long have they had this mission statement, anyway? Is it like a week old, or something?
Google develops Android which runs on many devices made in similar or worse conditions. They could change the license under which Android is distributed under to include a clause that it cannot be used on devices that aren't made under certain minimum labour standards. They don't. Are they evil too then? It's really a lot more complex than good vs. evil. There are many fine religious books that tackle that subject. This is an economic issue not a religious issue.
You are really suggesting that a company create an open-source OS that is supposed to run only on devices produced under certain labour standards? OK, so if you put some software on Github and a company use it on any computer manufactured in China you are evil? This is the same principle that the iranian government is using on the Saeed Malekpour case and it is absurd.
Not really just taking the argument to its logical moronic extreme. Google could simply change a few lines of text in a license agreement and (somehow) make life better for people in China. It's no different than the people who say Apple should (effectively) abandon the Chinese labour market and somehow the Chinese people would be better off.
I don't disagree with him about Google but come on... Tim O'Reilly complains about journalists and then becomes one by pointing fingers and not following up on the entire story.
"Foxconn clients include American, European and Japanese companies. Notable products which the company manufactures include the Amazon Kindle, iPad,[5] iPhone,[6] PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn
I may get in trouble for saying this, but here goes.
No good deed goes unpunished I say <sigh>. Google, a company which has been more transparent than most other companies I care to remember (and I've worked for a lot of shitty big companies). A company which gives away more open source than most other companies. A company which hires people based on "Googley" culture, which includes, a culture of employees who actually desire to be open and to act against abusing consumers and often confront management if they try to do so. A company which has stood up for the internet and protested SOPA. (A company I'm proud to work for.)
After all that, people still keep putting up batshit crazy conspiracy theories about what Google plans to do ("dominate the world" and other crazy shit in comments). Did you ever think that maybe, just maybe, Google management, although in the business of generating a return for shareholders, is not in the business of maximizing shareholder returns at the cost of everything else, including abusing their customers, users, and employees? If Google's sole interest was to bend over for profits and shareholders (to go evil because that's what Wall Street demands), they could have cut costs a long time ago to boost EPS, or sold your data to direct marketers.
Or maybe, that tens of thousands of employees, trained into a progressive culture of openness and transparency, won't just sit idly by while some kind of uber conspiracy theory using your data takes place? Even if Larry and Sergey were false prophets, preaching sermons every week at TGIF about Googley-ness, but secretly practicing evil, they still have created an expectation in their employees of being well behaved, and that doesn't fade fast.
Google's been running lots of free services that cost a hell of a lot of money to develop, maintain, and host, from search, to email, to maps, street video, youtube, etc. Not to mention hundreds of open source projects, including big ones like Android and Chrome which are staffed by very large teams. None of this costs anything for the end user, except the ability to model your preferences and target advertising. For Developers, besides open source, Google runs lots of developer conventions, and hands out free hardware costing millions like candy. When you go to Apple developer events, how much does it cost, and how much free stuff do you get?
You may think that is a bad bargain, so then, don't use free web services. But there is nothing inherently evil about modeling users via their behavior. A perfect search engine would know enough about you from your behavior, to predict what your question really meant out of a set of possible ambiguous ones, and that requires a historical relationship with the person asking the question.
Google's privacy policy changes really is about simplifying the legalese as well as having single-sign on for its services, and combining data to allow all of them to better serve the user. We don't want to be like Yahoo, with 500 different properties, none of them integrated very well. We want our stuff to work together more seamlessly. After all, if you are trying to organize the world's information, that means aggregation.
You may cynically think this is bullshit, but us poor naive, deluded, employees actually believe that is what we're working on. So somewhere along the line, we will have to learn the evil truth that we're actually been building a weapon for world domination.
I guess it would be like working on nuclear energy and being told enriching uranium was only for peaceful purposes, and not for bombs. I suppose it's possible.
But do try to remember, this company has a reasonably flat management structure, that it has tens of thousands of people who care a lot about doing the right think because it is part of company culture.
That counts for something, at least, a check and balance.
Tim implies that Apple knowingly ordered the switch to n-hexane in "their factories" (actually Wintek's) to improve production numbers, with no regard for the safety of the workers. Evil indeed!
Sorry, I'm gonna need to see some proof before I believe that version. Everything I've read points to Wintek management (who have a long history of reported labor abuses) cutting corners left and right to make more profit.
Large, publicly-traded corporations are highly incentivized towards sociopathy, with the only counteracting force being reputation and public opinion, which in practice still leaves a wide berth for bad behavior. The question shouldn't be why Apple and Google are evil, but why they aren't more evil. (Give it time.)
I believe that iBooks also count as a publisher minus all the 'good' things a publisher would give you. So I wouldn't say that publishers are going to become obsolete, I'd just say if iBooks really does pick up we'll have 1 publisher instead of several.
Whether iBooks is a good thing or a bad thing is beside the point. All I'm trying to do is point out the possibility that O'Reilly be could biased against Apple due to his business concerns as a book publisher.
There is a reason why Google's mantra is Don't Be Evil rather than Be Good. Very few companies are Good. Most are neutral. Google might have some diseased bits near its heart, but evil? No. Certainly not Good though.
> There are many things that Google does that I consider as violations of its "Don't be evil" mantram (including profiting from ads from content farms, spammers, IP thieves, et al), but collecting and analyzing user data isn't one of them
Collecting this much personal data across this many domains of the users' lives means you will never know if Google has done something evil with your data or not.
By removing the walls between the silos, Google's centralized data has become immensely more valuable for them and a huge vulnerability for its users.
Evil is perhaps too strong a word, but their cynical and disingenuous defense of their real names policy on G+ made it impossible for me to trust them to do the right thing with my information in the long term.
An important difference is that one cannot effectively opt out of Google's data collection when using the internet, while one can avoid using Apple's products.
Google is high-fructose corn syrup, Apple is McDonald's.
It's pretty easy to opt out of being tracked. Install noscript and adblock, and don't load anything from Google's servers. Done.
(Not to mention the standard "do not track" support. But you might not want trackers to track the fact that you don't want to be tracked. So cut them out of the loop and avoid their content completely.)
Noscript leaves many websites unavailable because they do not load without google-APIs. Some sites even will not load without allowing google-analytics.
As for googles opt out policies, they only apply in so far as one is already logged into a Google account - hardly more effective than simply not logging in to Google.
[Edit] How practical are your recommended solutions for the 13 year old children Google is now seeking to track? Never mind trying to apply noscript and adblock on a mobile device.
Google, Apple, Microsoft. All of them are evil. Of course they are. Once you accept that, well you can choose with which one to do business. Because you're going to HAVE to sooner or later. And in ways you didn't even imagine or didn't suspect they were involved with.
I do hope Google Plus is not the future of blogging. Much better to have stylized, distributed hosting with distributed syndicated commenting than the monotonous (and Safari on iPhone crashing) Google Plus.
This is a cultural, social and political issue first. economics is secondary.
As a foreign-owned corporation Microsoft, Amazon, Dell, HP, Sony, Samsung, HTC, Motorola, Apple do not have the authority, leverage or government support to change something that is so fundamental to China's culture and politics. This is the responsibility of Foxconn and the Chinese Government.
Are we forgetting something? This is China we're talking about. Foreigners do not have any say in this.
Foreigners were the lever used to end the Apartheid regime in South Africa due to the divestment movement which cut off economic support to the South African government, effectively forcing it to change.
This happened not only against the wishes of the South African government but also against the wishes of much of the then-American government (under Reagan).
Of course foreigners have a say in this, if they have the will to act upon their principles.
> This happened not only against the wishes of the South African government but also against the wishes of much of the then-American government (under Reagan).
This is a somewhat idealistic view. South Africa only really came under serious pain when _countries_ embargoed them, particularly the UK and then the US (Desmond Tutu went to Washington and guilted the US government into producing a veto-proof majority for the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act; Reagan having vetoed it first timed round).
That's not true - foreigners do have a say in that we can refuse to purchase products from companies that enable this behavior (which includes Apple, Google, Dell, HP, etc etc).
But we don't, because we'd rather have cheap stuff.
unless you can convince millions of people and companies to stop using laptops, iPads, desktops, servers, routers, switches, Xbox, PS3, Wii, iPhone, Android phones, Blackberries, TVs, DVD/BluRay Players, heck even Ovens, Washing Machines, Refrigerators, Freezers, etc.
Pressuring Apple to do something about working conditions seems like a good strategy to me that is already working.
Apple is a big, juicy and rich target and their Supplier Reports show great promise. It might not be fair on some absurd abstract level (I don’t think Apple is evil but I have no problem when Apple is attacked for the working conditions) but it seems like a strategy that is very likely to succeed.
Apple can force suppliers to make laptops out of aluminium. Why shouldn’t they be able to force them to better working conditions.
I guess Tim doesn't really comprehend the definitively Orwellian future that Google has in store for their users, and anyone who accesses any of their services. Centralized sharing and data storage, centralized application servers, centralized everything. All your data, email, communications, everything flowing through Google, and no hope of ever escaping their ads and related data analysis systems.
Google appears to really believe that people are going to sit around like sheep and let them rape every aspect of their online lives, and I can guarantee you this is not how it will play out. This is not the future I want. And Google will one day find out the hard way how wrong they are about their vision.
Yes Google is figuratively raping its users. Google is using dystopian fiction like 1984 as its blueprint for control and survellience its users, and the modification and manipulation of information.
You either understand this or you're the sheep that put money in its pockets.
The problem with your opinion is people not only will sit back and allow this they are activally enabling this. Do you think facebook doesn't keep track of people _view_ their Like™ button. Do you think apple doesn't track specifics of app usage and amazon is just enabling cloud rendering for a nifty tech demo ? The world is connected. Google can adapt to the market place stay relevent and continue to push the industry towards better pratices like they have a history doing, or they can watch their markets be moved towards more nefarious companies and slowly fade into irrelevance.
Like Tim said its not evil what they are doing , but your are expressing that one day it _might_ be easier to be really evil. Its a risk you take living in a world where you can get free search , Email and Social Networks.
Truth is that the majority of people are in fact sheep when it comes to online privacy, and aren't really concerned enough to the point that they would stop using Google's services.
Honestly, it's in the media's best interest for fanboys on each side to be at war with each other, not anyone else's. If you like an Android phone, use Android, if you prefer an iPhone, use an iPhone. It doesn't need to be a point of contention.
Both companies have made mistakes, but we needn't go "Oh, you think Google is evil? Well, let me tell you about Apple". The truth is, it's hard to not be "evil" and have the insane amount of revenue's that these companies both share. Of course, this all depends on how you interpret "evil".
Steve Jobs famously said: "We have to let go of this notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose. We have to embrace a notion that for Apple to win, Apple has to do a really good job".