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Comment by hyko | Hacker News Reader

Apple enjoys all the privileges of being based in a western liberal democracy, but it’s starting to feel like they don’t really believe in those values. All that guff about privacy, the environment, minority rights etc, yet when faced with real tyranny they will do literally anything in return for market access. The lesson is clear: don’t expect soft power alone to topple the autocrats of the 21st Century.

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Get over yourself. The USA overthrew and annexed Hawaii a little more than 100 years ago. Not to mention Texas, Puerto Rico, etc.

When we start talking about giving back those territories, I'll start taking everyone's opinion on Crimea seriously.

Giving them back to whom, exactly? Texas voted to join the US, Puerto Rico has repeatedly had independence referenda, and Hawaii is... complicated, but you certainly couldn’t argue that the unelected Hawaiian monarchy was a more legitimate government than the elected US government (also Hawaiian independence polls at around 6%).

And Crimea used to belong to the Ottomans (and the Greeks, and the Italians). Should we give it back to them? I think you made my point for me.

You expect Apple to do something that the US government isn't even capable of?

>they will do literally anything in return for market access.

I don't really see the issue in this case because borders are legal fictions and thus for contested borders between major factions there is no single source of truth, so the most accurate thing is indeed simply to display to Russian users the state of the map as understood by Russians and to other parties the way they see it.

Yes, leave it as a locale customization, like how you write your dates.

Show me a single corporation that has values beyond making a profit.

Show me a mammal who has values beyond continuing to oxidize food.

Survival is an overriding value for everyone, but acting in accordance with other values can be a part of how that's achieved--ideally corporations are rewarded with profitability when they act in accordance with society's values. How best to achieve this, though, is a matter of some disagreement.

A nonprofit corporation is one answer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonprofit_corporation

But if you’re not being literal when you ask about values beyond profit, then as an easy example: Valve. They believe in promoting PC gaming and moving it forward. I think their service (and products) represents that value fairly well, and sometimes at the expense of profit.

Tell that to the CSGO community with the new game-breaking changes (you can buy camoflaged player skins) in the name of profit

Despite this, I find it quite difficult to say that Valve values profits and nothing else. Why? Values are not binary, and they are not applied equally in all situations. And like any company, they’ve made their share of bad moves. Yet a profit-first Valve would be far different than the company we see today.

Still, I’m sorry to hear of that situation.

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