Google ended up losing the entire Chinese market to Baidu, who are going to end up being a global competitor, and the general population didn't even care that Google left. Apple learned from this that you could be a big deal in the West, but a nobody in the East.
Google lost nothing. China never had any intention of allowing Google to become dominant in China. That was apparent from day one and comports perfectly with their explicitly stated and demonstrated agenda.
>who are going to end up being a global competitor
They already demonstrated they cannot compete without help from the government. It's an inferior product that can only succeed because the better competitors are banned. Kind of like iPhone default browser.
China was never going to be Google's to win in the first place based on their refusal to censor searches. In 2010 Google had 36% of the search market in China[1], so I imagine that "the general population" did care.
Also I'm pretty that Google isn't a nobody in "The East", The East is much more than just mainland China.
I don't understand what you're saying. The alternative is not doing business in China at all, how would they sell more phones in China by getting out of the Chinese market, vs staying in China and complying with the government's demands? I'm very curious about what your market research indicates, because it sounds like a contradiction.
I think what xbmcuser is saying is that Apple is screwed either way: don't pull the apps and be kicked out of China altogether, or pull the apps and lose a competitive advantage. Not that Apple would lose _more_ this way, simply that they still lose.
Yeah that's what I meant either way Apple is going to loose it stays in China or not. They already stopped weechat Payments etc now they are stopping vpn apps so another reason for people in china not to use Apple. I bet in a few years or so China will make using foreign phones about national pride once that happens all other phone manufacturers including Apple will be sidelined.
They could stop operating in Saudi Arabia to show their support for gay rights. But again, there's money to be made. Much easier to just slam Trump or whoever.
Saudi Arabia isn't demanding they cripple their products, so selling their products in Saudi Arabia isn't ethically fraught. And Apple isn't spending their time slamming Trump. They're a tech company, not a politician.
These days, ANYONE with a platform, of ANY kind -- cable TV show, massive Twitter following, corporate officer of a Fortune 500, et. al., is a politician.
That's what cable TV wants you to think, sure. But even if that's true, all of those people and organizations you mentioned should be resisting getting sucked into political vortices whenever it is remotely possible to do so. It's a sad commentary on the state of the world today, not something to be embraced.
Google was aspirational in China when it left: they weren't making much money there...they hoped to in the future.
Apple is not aspirational in China today: they are already making a lot of money there. Leaving China would cause an immediate shock to its stock price as well as a huge cut in actual profits.
> Google was aspirational in China when it left: they weren't making much money there...they hoped to in the future.
I was an engineer on Google's web search indexing system for 4 years (including the Aurora attack), leaving shortly before Google's China exit. I listened to several talks by the head of Google China, who came from Baidu.
Even before the Aurora attack, as a matter of national pride, we knew the very best Google could hope for was 30% or 40% market share in China. Even France funded one or two attempts at a Francophone Google killer. I can't imagine the U.S. looking at a dominant search company based out of anywhere except North America (or perhaps the Anglophone Five Eyes) and not butting up significant nationalistic barriers.
Google was hoping to make profits, but they knew they would never be dominant. This made their exit much easier.
If Google was serious about China, they would have had a more obscure non-Google-branded name for their Chinese joint venture and would have branded their front page much differently. The reasons would take a large post, but Chinese web pages tend to be much more "busy", and Chinese language searches have a much higher percentage of "navigational searches". (If you search for [Facebook], you're almost certainly just trying to just get a link to facebook.com, and are basically using the search engine like a bookmark page.) I understand Google's need for a consistent U.I., but they really should have had a non-Google-branded U.I. that was better suited to the Chinese market.
When you say "Chinese market" you mean mainland Chinese market. Google does just fine in Hong Kong and Taiwan, while Baidu is completely MIA outside of mainland China even in markets with significant Chinese populations.
This is something I never understood. Google has this "do no evil" value and because staying in China involved compromising this value they left. The result is that the Chinese people are short one search engine as well as _any_ good that Google could have done. This seems ultimately more evil to me. It's good for Google because they can say they upheld their values, and it's good for the Chinese government because now they have one less external factor to manage in their control of information. Perhaps there is more to this picture than I am seeing but that has always been my view.
There's an ancient Chinese story where a farmer criticizes an official who exiled himself because the government is corrupt. As the fisherman departs he sings: "when the water of the river is clean I wash my hat in the river, when the waters are dirty I wash my feet in the river". What good can the virtuous official do living out in the mountains? Instead you should adapt your participation to the conditions of the playing field.
It's good for Google because they can say they upheld their values, and it's good for the Chinese government because now they have one less external factor to manage in their control of information. Perhaps there is more to this picture than I am seeing but that has always been my view
I don't see how they could have stayed in China and not been involved in things that are truly evil. When the government phones you up and tells you to hide search results related to babies dying from diluted baby formula (yes, this happened), could you in good conscience tell one of your engineers to add that filter? How could a company like Google possibly retain good people when they have to ask them to do the bidding of such an evil government?
Yes I agree, this is an angle that actually came to my mind after posting my original comment. At the end of the day there had to be Google engineers in China doing the job, real people actually implementing censorship. So if Google being in China meant that employees had to be involved in inhumane acts, I'm not surprised they would leave.
It's always about what one considers valuable. The Chinese government will block Google if Google didn't give them access and censorship.
Google could spend eternity fighting this until the government changes (ha), or pull our and upload their value of organizing the world's information without* censorship.
In your eyes, they are more evil for not bringing their products to China, in their eyes, they are more noble for making their anti-censorship* stance loud and clear.
Apple in this case can be viewed as doing good (assuming having an iPhone and access to Apple's stuff is good for people) or as putting money over censorship values. It's all about which angle to look from.
The world isn't hurting for search engines, mail providers or luxury smartphones. Maybe Google decided that fighting the Chinese government is not the right battle and allowing direct censorship is not a value they are willing to compromise on even if it means losing access to several millions of users
*Yeah, filter bubbles exist and Google controlling search results and ads can be viewed as evil but that's a different conversation.
You have articulated the conundrum of all "social justice" boycotts. I first encountered these arguments in the 1980s when universities and big corps were deciding how to engage with the apartheid regime in South Africa. The specifics are different, but the issues are the same. (I'm NOT equating the two cases. )
Here's some factors that could be a guide: What do the citizens themselves want? Is the boycott merely symbolic, or is it linked to other boycotts and pressure across a wide front, so that it is liable to have the desired outcome? Are the boycotters committed to long term pressure, publicity, and engagement with stakeholders in the other country?
Former Google engineer here. There's a subtle but significant semantic difference between "Don't be evil" (the real motto) and "Do no evil" (a confusion between the Hippocratic oath and the Google motto).
Can you explain the semantic difference between being and doing in this context?
What I'm mostly interested in is how you can rationalize doing evil while not considering yourself as being evil. Is it based on the idea that you might do evil unintentionally or that you could be coerced into it? Are there other reasons for the distinction?
If Google has determined that censorship is evil, but an open society is a noble goal, then "Do no evil" would prevent Google from collaborating with censors under any circumstances. "Don't be evil" would allow collaborating with censors if Google believed that collaborating with censors was the fastest way to inducing a closed society to open up (or some other greater good).
Do no evil = "No, we are not going to torture these prisoners of war, period."
Don't be evil = "It's OK to waterboard them a little if they deserve it. Remember, we are the good guys, we're here to help."
(See also: rationale for the My Lai Massacre. Very similar thinking, it's possible to excuse awful things when you're the hero(es) of your own (indoctrinated) narrative.)
Other reasons are because people are really good at rationalization and at cognitive dissonance. Google does plenty of borderline-evil stuff, but as long as they can shrug their shoulders and say "well, it's not like we're evil, just some of the stuff we do is" then apparently it's ok.
> The result is that the Chinese people are short one search engine as well as _any_ good that Google could have done.
One question: do they - Chinese people - even care? It's not exactly "good" - whatever Google could have done in such an environment - if you try to force it on an unwilling crowd.
