Apple made a choice to operate there - and would have still been the world's most valued company regardless.
So, Apple's choice was to sell-out their privacy and security credentials to make more money - counting on their other large markets (ie. the US) not paying close enough attention to see the blatant hypocrisy.
"Security and privacy are great - unless we can make more money selling off your security and privacy to oppressive government regimes!"
Somehow that just doesn't have a catchy marketing ring to it...
So now there's precedent that Apple will violate everything they stand for if a large enough market demands it. What happens when the US government decides to place Apple in the crosshairs for not "helping catch terrorists" or something? Will Apple sell out too? Why not?
Without China, there is no iPhone, and there is no Apple. Apple, presently, needs to operate in China. They have them by the balls.
Compliance with CCP demands is non-optional.
This may change in the future. Today it is 100% true.
That seems incredibly dubious.
Who forced Apple to manufacturer iPhones in China?
Nobody.
It will take about five years optimistically to build that capability.
It's the effect of the monetary system squeezing the masses hard which forces everyone to buy the cheapest things and it created a kind of technological shrinkflationary race to the bottom.
In my mind, and definitely informed by my attraction to medieval Catholic philosophy, the problem isn’t really debt but rather usury.
I actually think that if it's one's own money, they should be allowed to loan it at any interest rate since they're taking the risk upon themselves. If they can find a willing borrower at such high rates, then good for them. If the borrower agrees to a bad deal, then it's the borrower's own fault.
What I most strongly oppose is the idea of public institutions loaning citizens' money through the issuance of new currency (which dilutes the value of previously issued money). It's especially harmful when the interest rate is low.
For example, if the interest rate is 0%, then it's unjust for a government institution to dilute citizen's currency and shift the risk of borrower default onto currency-holding citizens (savers) without offering any upside to those savers; in that case, the central banks turn regular citizens (savers) into suckers by loaning out their money for free for the benefit of reckless borrowers who borrow it for free.
Manufacturing consumer goods in the west was never unaffordable, just that insane corporates profits weren't possible while keeping manufacturing in the west, as they were in China.
A lot of consumer electronics were made in the west before the mass exodus to China. Nokia phones was made in Finland and Germany, Siemens phones were made in Germany, Ericsson phones were made in Sweden, etc.
It was all possible and they also didn't cost an rm and a leg, but companies saw the allure of ultracheap labor and loose environmental regulations in China to jack up their profits.
Check out the global battery supply chain
That's not dubious, that's obvious.
> Nobody
Ironically correct: the absence of alternatives — nobody else could do it — is what forced them in the first place.
The recent pressure from the US government to "bring it home" is because the US government finally started to realise that was both true and bad (doesn't matter if Huawei was really spying, Washington believed they were); similarly for equivalent EU pressure.
We have examples of this from previous attempts to weaken encryption. The FBI’s San Bernardino case being the most memorable one for me.
Apple could simultaneously backdoor their devices while also keep them secure from anyone but the government with a warrant. These things are not mutually exclusive.
The China precedent is troubling - to say the least.
Yes.
China is much further from the Western world than the UK. Capitulation there isn’t a step onto the slippery slope. Doing the same thing in the UK would lead very quickly to EU and US demands to do the same.
By exiting such a small market, Apple defends the much larger markets against creeping surveillance.
Remember how fierce the backlash was to their CSAM scanning proposal? They walked that back. Some people might think it was for moral reasons, but I’m pretty sure they realized it would harm their bottom line.
The way things work in China is not the same as the UK. They either play by CCP rules or they don’t play at all. Apple’s calculus here seems to be that not playing in the UK market is worth it, whereas missing out on the Chinese market is not worth it.