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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.

You have to crush some grapes to make some wine?

  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.

http://www.myspace.com/scroobiuspip/blog/161467332

Heard here @15:15: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01b8zvx/Poetry_Please_...

Foxconn is exploiting its workers. not Apple.

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.

YOU surely can't be this naive.

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.

Apple does not care about marketshare as much as Google.

Google is playing the monopoly game and Apple is playing the King of its backyard garden game.

The annoying part of Apple is it sees a rather large chunk of the world as its backyard.

I find Google a lot more threatening to my digital existence than Apple could ever be.

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.

MG has said a few times that he does not own stock in Apple.

Gruber makes a lot of money from RSS ads($6500/ad), thus the more he plays to his fan base, the more money he makes.

http://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/

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