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Comment by ceilingcorner | Hacker News Reader

I think people would have far less problems with tech companies selling to anyone if they didn’t push moral crusades themselves. Apple is clearly interested in pushing its own ethical views, but only when they don’t risk serious profits for it. It’s a special kind of self-serving hypocrisy; paint yourself as noble when nothing is on the line, but keep mum when you might lose something.

If they stopped acting like moral crusaders and simply said, “We sell computers to anyone with money,” there would be much less of an issue.

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There are zero companies going to war with China. It is simply outside the sphere of their influence. I know you haven’t used the word war but the general and unwarranted disappointment with Apple for doing business with the people of China is deeply rooted in an unrealistic understanding of geopolitics. I think it would be great for Apple to openly denounce the PRC and defy them utterly but I also think it would be great if they would gift each citizen of the world a brand new iphone.

Apple is trying to disentangle itself from China slowly, as are all the smart companies with labour investments in the country. Is Apppe supposed to be the only company willing to take a massive hit to their business by defying China? Almost all of their manufacturing is being held hostage in the country.

I hate the PRC, extremely counter cultural, hate wealth disparity, all that but I can’t fault Apple for playing ball here.

I would rather Apple cease being a moral arbiter entirely. I don’t need a computer company in California telling me what I’m allowed to do, say, think, or read. That is the business of governments and individuals.

Apple is not a moral arbiter of anything lol you remain free to do, say, think, read whatever you want, even beyond the Apple ecosystem. Whatever you can’t do within theirs, however, is well within their right to constrain because businesses also have the right to design their platforms the way they want to. Anything else beyond their willful design is within the territory of government intervention, and strong proponents of free-market capitalism who want Apple to do something else should really rethink their philosophy on how the state and the economy should be designed.

>Apple is not a moral arbiter of anything lol you remain free to do, say, think, read whatever you want, even beyond the Apple ecosystem.

Do you really though? There are a handful of major competitors and they're all acting in coercion with similar ideology. So, no you're really not free to say or read what you want without shunning big tech entirely and hoping you find some other platform they haven't stomped out yet.

Maybe you missed the "I would rather" part, offering an alternative.

The question is not Apple's right to control speech on their platform. It is their hypocrisy in wanting to control speech in free countries and at the same time cozying up and doing the bidding of authoritarian states. You cannot have it both ways with out looking the fool. Impose ethical standards in all cases or none.

But you can have it both ways. If I can reasonably control what happens on my platform in country A, I will. If I cannot do so in country B, then I won’t.

Another country could be fully authoritarian. If I can’t do X in China but I can do it within the legal framework in the US, how is that hypocrisy?

I don’t need a computer company in California telling me what I’m allowed to do, say, think, or read.

Where does this line of thinking come from? Why do you think Apple has this power over you? Does anyone else feel this way?

I do. They shut down the Parler app.

It's specially annoying when your're not american, but I feel it way more with Google and Social Media. It feels like having anglo political frame pushed down the throat, it gets boring pretty quick.

The worst is that it is successful with newer generations, and they divert their attention to anglo issues instead of local ones.

It's pretty annoying when you are an American too.

I don’t see Apple pushing their web moral views. They sell to a particular audience. In the US, they cater to a specific audience and want to be careful with how that segment views Apple on particular social or political issues.

You or I don’t have to agree with Apples policies or public statements on these matters, and we certainly don’t have to buy their products.

Companies or their founders pushing certain policies is nothing new. In my opinion, there’s an unreasonable standard tech companies are held to. At the end of the day, their job is to make money for their stakeholders, for better or worse.

You said it perfectly. It is surprising to see so many people coming to the defense of poor pitifual Apple, the richest company in the world. They have little reservation over doing business with vile regimes to squeeze a few more pennies per unit out of an iPhone. Then they buck dance for every social cause under the sun back home. Hypocrites.

> If they stopped acting like moral crusaders and simply said, “We sell computers to anyone with money,” there would be much less of an issue.

I'm not so sure. There are (a loud minority?) of "woke" software developers now that will try to drum up pressure on your company from within and without if you sell to "anyone with money" (see: GitHub selling to ICE). Google frequently has to deal with this, I'm sure Apple does too.

Maybe mitigating/ignoring woke outrage is preferable to the corporate ethical schizophrenia you described (it's certainly simpler), but I don't think the issue would go away.

woke developers are acting as moral crusaders just like Apple is. renaming "master branch" to "main branch" doesn't solve anything. posting the latest Twitter slacktivism hashtag doesn't solve anything. it's just for show, to appear virtuous while still collecting big tech paychecks.

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