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Comment by maximusprime | Hacker News Reader

I don't think attacking the companies is productive though. Lobby the government to change the law.

You can always expose and boycott the companies who do deals you morally object to. You can always call others to do the same.

Has that ever worked for a large multinational?

It's not the local grocery shop around the corner with the rotten produce...

It worked against Home Depot, "the world’s largest buyer of construction material" [1]. As a result of consumer pressure [2], they turned over a new "green" leaf, and are now lobbying to keep forests sustainable[3].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_depot [2] http://salt.claretianpubs.org/shake/1999/09/ss9909.html [3] http://www.mongabay.com/external/wsj-home_depot.htm

You really think a very small number of hackers who know what they're talking about, boycotting companies is going to have an effect?

Most of the people buying smartphones can'e even spell "patent".

Yes. If the really good people won't work for you because you're evil, that makes a huge difference.

Here, if you're old enough to remember, try this one:

"Of course Microsoft didn't care that a lot of the top talent wouldn't work for it for decades."

Doesn't sound very convincing, does it? Microsoft was badly hurt by that, and knew it. It eventually reined them in noticeably, and made them act more subtly or covertly a lot more often.

Apple will take time to see the damage, just as Microsoft did. But it will see it, just as Microsoft did.

Microsoft didn't become an evil monopoly by having the top talent. If anything it was the reverse. Maybe if they'd have some talented hackers working for them, they wouldn't have sucked quite so badly at making software.

Success isn't related to having top talent.

telling all your friends and explaining why apple sucks like that does help.

Yeah, that would be productive, right...

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