Zuckerberg Fires Back at Cook

[DrMacintosh]

17 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

You'd have to not be paying attention lately,plenty of other laptops out there that have better screens,touchscreens,hardware, and more ports.

Thats not innovation......

 

[LAwLz]

8 hours ago, Razor01 said:

Look I can see what Cook is saying but people that put their personal shit online, should only blame themselves.  Everyone that uses facebook is an adult or close to it.  Use it responsibly and to what the user feels its OK to share. 

I disagree. Most people aren't aware of what is actually going on and how it can affect them. And yes that goes for the majority of people on this forum too. I mean, just look at all the ignorance surrounding all the data harvesting Microsoft does, which is probably more than Facebook does. Most people probably don't realize how much data Google has on them either.

 

8 hours ago, Razor01 said:

Its stupid to put things online that people don't want others to use that info. 

It's more complex than that. Info that seems trivial can be used for a lot of different purposes. The picture of your food can tell a lot more about you than you might think, especially when it is used with other small and seemingly non-trivial data.

 

7 hours ago, Razor01 said:

I don't even understand how people can spend more than 10 minutes a day on it!  Does it give a person anything meaningful?

Well, people seem to enjoy it so, yes. Doing something you like is meaningful.

Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted.

 

 

7 hours ago, mr moose said:

It's funny tim cook saying he wouldn't be in that situation,  that is moot.  He would be in exactly that position if Steven jobs hadn't made apple what it is.   He's literally been flying of the back other peoples work while zukerberg has built his billions from a service that people don't even pay for.    As much as I despise FB I find Tim cooks rhetoric to be a cheap grab and maybe even a bit jealous that Zuk's self built worth is $62Bn while Tim is only worth $400M.   

 

And before anyone says it, giving up personal information is not the same as handing over cash. 

I think Tim's point is that he fundamentally disagrees with that business practice. Pointing how much more money Zuckerberg and going "Tim is so jealous" is not exactly a solid argument either.

Everyone just going "Tim is so jealous" in this thread reminds me of the Justin Beiber fangirls going "you're just jealous of Bieber" when you say you don't like his music.

Not all criticism stems from jealousy, and even if it did it's kind of irrelevant assuming the criticism is valid (which it in this case is).

 

7 hours ago, mr moose said:

You can't blame companies for not paying taxes a country doesn't ask for.  

You can however blame them for deliberately setting up a system exploiting loopholes, which Apple clearly has done.

It's morally and ethically wrong.

[mr moose]

37 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

 

I think Tim's point is that he fundamentally disagrees with that business practice. Pointing how much more money Zuckerberg and going "Tim is so jealous" is not exactly a solid argument either.

Everyone just going "Tim is so jealous" in this thread reminds me of the Justin Beiber fangirls going "you're just jealous of Bieber" when you say you don't like his music.

Not all criticism stems from jealousy, and even if it did it's kind of irrelevant assuming the criticism is valid (which it in this case is).

 

You can however blame them for deliberately setting up a system exploiting loopholes, which Apple clearly has done.

It's morally and ethically wrong.

I don't have a problem saying I think he has envy issues,    I blame the tax agencies and thee governments for leaving the loopholes in.   If I find away to legally avoid paying more tax than I have to it's not ethically wrong, just smart business. 

[mr moose]

3 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

Your comment was unintelligible 

Again, if you don't understand something,  how does that automatically make it that I don't?

[LAwLz]

8 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I don't have a problem saying I think he has envy issues

Well, that's an assumption you are making, but even if he is envious it is irrelevant to the points he is making. It's nothing more than an ad hominem attack from you.

 

 

10 minutes ago, mr moose said:

If I find away to legally avoid paying more tax than I have to it's not ethically wrong, just smart business. 

If you don't think that is ethically wrong then I don't think you know what ethics are.

Please remember that legal != ethical.

Just because something is legal does not mean it is the right thing to do. Some examples of this would be:

Babies are aborted in China based on gender (usually, the family wants a boy and will abort the baby if they discover it's a girl).

Child brothels in countries with weak or no laws against sexual exploitation of children.

 

I refuse to believe that you think these things are ethically and morally right just because "it's smart to find loopholes in the law".

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, LAwLz said:

Well, that's an assumption you are making, but even if he is envious it is irrelevant to the points he is making. It's nothing more than an ad hominem attack from you.

And?

 

1 minute ago, LAwLz said:

 

If you don't think that is ethically wrong then I don't think you know what ethics are.

Please remember that legal != ethical.

Just because something is legal does not mean it is the right thing to do. Some examples of this would be:

Babies are aborted in China based on gender (usually, the family wants a boy and will abort the baby if they discover it's a girl).

Child brothels in countries with weak or no laws against sexual exploitation of children.

 

I refuse to believe that you think these things are ethically and morally right just because "it's smart to find loopholes in the law".

I know what ethics are.  Don't why you think aborting babies in china equals a company only paying the tax a country asks for.  Some governments choose not to close loopholes for what ever reason best known to them.  It has nothing to do with ethics. 

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, VegetableStu said:

TIIIM TÄÄÄM!!!!

 

dammit I craaaaaaave. I know what I'm getting the next round of groceries

Coles has them on special at the moment. I stocked the pantry.

[LAwLz]

25 minutes ago, mr moose said:

And?

I don't get why you brought it up to begin with.

Again, it's the same argumentative tactics used by 12 year old girls to try and invalidate criticism against their idol, even though it might be perfectly valid criticism.

 

25 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I know what ethics are.  Don't why you think aborting babies in china equals a company only paying the tax a country asks for.  Some governments choose not to close loopholes for what ever reason best known to them.  It has nothing to do with ethics. 

The way I read your post was that you believe things aren't unethical if they are lawful, and that is the impression I get from this post too.

Just because something is legal to do, does not mean it is the right thing to do.

To recap, this is how the conversation has gone:

You: You can't blame a company for not paying taxes.

Me: I can blame them for being unethical and exploiting legal loopholes.

You: It's not ethically wrong to exploit legal loopholes. It's smart business.

Me: Just because something is legal does not mean it is the right and ethical thing to do.

You: This has nothing to do with ethics.

 

This has everything to do with ethics, because nobody here is debating the legal aspects of it.

Neither Tim nor I have said anything about Facebook or Apple breaking any laws. What both of us have said however (at least the way I read Tim's statements) is that we believe what is happening is unethical.

You seem very focused on what is legal and "smart business", but that is not the arguments being made against Apple or Facebook here. The arguments are purely about ethics.

 

You can't defend "this is unethical" with "it's legal". There is a logical disconnect there.

 

Also, I never said aborting babies were equal to not paying taxes properly. I was making a point that some things that are legal are also unethical. I was making that analogy not because I believe they are the same, but because it highlights how absurd the idea that "legal = ethical" is.

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, LAwLz said:

I don't get why you brought it up to begin with.

Again, it's the same argumentative tactics used by 12 year old girls to try and invalidate criticism against their idol, even though it might be perfectly valid criticism.

Because that is my opinion on the matter.  I believe tim cook had nothing to gain from saying anything.  The worlds turns, people are dumb and he's most likely just jealous.

 

1 minute ago, LAwLz said:

The way I read your post was that you believe things aren't unethical if they are lawful, and that is the impression I get from this post too.

Just because something is legal to do, does not mean it is the right thing to do.

To recap, this is how the conversation has gone:

You: You can't blame a company for not paying taxes.

Me: I can blame them for being unethical and exploiting legal loopholes.

You: It's not ethically wrong to exploit legal loopholes. It's smart business.

Me: Just because something is legal does not mean it is the right and ethical thing to do.

You: This has nothing to do with ethics.

 

This has everything to do with ethics, because nobody here is debating the legal aspects of it.

Neither Tim nor I have said anything about Facebook or Apple breaking any laws. What both of us have said however (at least the way I read Tim's statements) is that we believe what is happening is unethical.

You seem very focused on what is legal and "smart business", but that is not the arguments being made against Apple or Facebook here. The arguments are purely about ethics.

 

You can't defend "this is unethical" with "it's legal". There is a logical disconnect there.

 

You have the problem with this being about ethics.  It is not an ethical situation to me.   It really is quite simple: if a government wants a company to pay more tax then they change their laws in order to force that company to pay more tax.  Other wise that company will continue to pay the tax asked of them.  In order for this to be about ethics you would have to demonstrate some sort of moral decision is being made that disadvantages another party against their will or beyond their power to mitigate.   

 

It is no different that when you go shopping and shop A sells you an item for $5 while shop B sells the same item for $6.  Is it unethical to buy from shop A because they are choosing to make less revenue? 

[Hellion]

8 hours ago, RorzNZ said:

It means Tim knows the difference between a good decision and a bad one - and certainly more qualified for the job. If it weren't for FaceBook, Zuckerberg could well be working at McDonalds. Tim has worked hard for his wealth and that means a lot more. 

The education fallacy is an old and tired argument. In North America specifically post secondary is a big business that could care less about the content that they preach falling back on out dated theory based classes that don't actually contain practical use cases. In reality most that graduate with a degree have to settle in a line of work they didn't actually study for while also being burdened with several thousand dollars of debt.

 

How is this person any better off then someone else? 

 

I personally give zero fucks about facebook or apple but claiming that the opinion of someone with a fraction of the net worth of another should be considered superior simply because they hold a degree is ignorant and short sighted. Both corporations turn a profit based on scams. Facebook sells user data to third parties. Apple charges double the price for hardware you can buy off the shelf yourself.

 

What difference does a degree make when tim cook essentially inherited the success of another on the back of a diploma his parents likely footed the bill for?

[LAwLz]

26 minutes ago, mr moose said:

You have the problem with this being about ethics. 

What problem? This is about ethics, because that was my argument against it. Again, you can't dismiss "this is unethical" with "this is lawful". You said that Apple could not be criticized, and I said I could criticize them for being unethical. I agree that they are not breaking any law, but I don't agree with their actions.

How is this so hard for you to understand? The laws or politics are completely irrelevant to this because my argument was that they are unethical. Again, lawful != ethical.

 

26 minutes ago, mr moose said:

In order for this to be about ethics you would have to demonstrate some sort of moral decision is being made that disadvantages another party against their will or beyond their power to mitigate.   

Nope, that is not what ethics are.

Again, ethics are not laws, they are moral principles.

 

You are missing the point completely and I really question if you know what moral and ethics are, because you certainly don't seem to know it since you keep bringing up what is legal or "smart business moves".

 

 

 

26 minutes ago, mr moose said:

It is no different that when you go shopping and shop A sells you an item for $5 while shop B sells the same item for $6.  Is it unethical to buy from shop A because they are choosing to make less revenue? 

They are completely different scenarios.

This conversation really is mind boggling to me. Do you legitimately not understand what ethics and morals are? Can you please describe to me what you think it is? Because I am genuinely trying to understand your though process here but I just can't.

Do you really not see how something can be an ethical issue without it being unlawful?

[mr moose]

5 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

What problem? This is about ethics, because that was my argument against it. Again, you can't dismiss "this is unethical" with "this is lawful". You said that Apple could not be criticized, and I said I could criticize them for being unethical. I agree that they are not breaking any law, but I don't agree with their actions.

How is this so hard for you to understand? The laws or politics are completely irrelevant to this because my argument was that they are unethical. Again, lawful != ethical.

Why are you so hell bent on it being unethical. Is it just because I don't see it being an ethical issue?

5 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Nope, that is not what ethics are.

Again, ethics are not laws, they are moral principles.

That's exactly how ethical decisions effect real world situations.   Again you keep talking about law as if it proves something about ethics. Please explain how an action that does not adversely effect anyone else can be unethical?

 

5 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

You are missing the point completely and I really question if you know what moral and ethics are, because you certainly don't seem to know it since you keep bringing up what is legal or "smart business moves".

 

Then you explain to me how any company obeying the law and paying all the taxes requested of it is unethical. Because it seems to me you are the one who does not understand ethics.

 

5 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

 

They are completely different scenarios.

Actually it is an exact although simplified version of tax.  

5 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

This conversation really is mind boggling to me. Do you legitimately not understand what ethics and morals are? Can you please describe to me what you think it is? Because I am genuinely trying to understand your though process here but I just can't.

Do you really not see how something can be an ethical issue without it being unlawful?

 

Because the only rules that are enforced on a corporation in regard to the tax it pays are done so outside of that company.   The government chooses what taxes are to be enforced and which are not.  It is not unethical to understand the law and only pay what is requested of you.  You really can't see how this works can you?  You are so stuck at law != ethical that you have missed the fact that simply paying only what is requested of you does make you an unethical person/company. 

[mr moose]

@LAwLz  by your reckoning, I am being unethical because when I do my tax I seek to apply as many deductions as I am legitimately allowed to claim under current taxation law.

 

If you genuinely believe this then you don't understand ethics or tax law.

[LAwLz]

4 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Why are you so hell bent on it being unethical.

Because it is?

 

4 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Is it just because I don't see it being an ethical issue?

No, I genuinely did not believe you wouldn't see how this isn't related to ethics. It was actually a bit of a shock to me because I thought your response would be "fair enough" to my first response.

 

4 minutes ago, mr moose said:

That's exactly how ethical decisions effect real world situations.   Again you keep talking about law as if it proves something about ethics.

I actually keep trying to get away from the entire law discussion because laws are unrelated to ethics. That has been my point in all of my replies.

Again, just because something is lawful does not mean it is ethical.

 

5 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Please explain how an action that does not adversely effect anyone else can be unethical?

Well first of all, avoiding taxes most certainly has an adversely effect on people.

Secondly, things can be unethical even without such effect. One example would be copying something for school work and taking credit for it. It is not against any law (at least not outside of possibly uni), it does not have an adversely effect on someone else because they might not be aware of it, or maybe they are even allowing it, but it is still unethical to cheat.

 

Another example would be a teacher dating a student. It is legal in a lot of areas, but it is still unethical because there might be a conflict of interest. It does not have an adversely effect on anyone either. If anything, it might be beneficial to the people involved.

 

 

11 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Then you explain to me how any company obeying the law and paying all the taxes requested of it is unethical. Because it seems to me you are the one who does not understand ethics.

It is unethical because it takes advantage of loopholes in the system. Our entire economy would collapse if everyone took advantage of these loopholes, and because of that, Apple are leeching off the work of everyone else without contributing their share.

Here is a research paper from George Washington university about it. Here is an quote from it:

Quote

By employing the Utilitarianism approach, tax avoidance ethics will depend on the expected quality of the government. The arrangement will be considered ethical if the revenue that the State did not collect would not be used in a good and responsible way. On the other hand, if this revenue that the State did not collect was expected to be used wisely by the government, the use of tax avoidance arrangement by taxpayers will be unethical, morally reprehensive.

 

If you want even more reading, I recommend this article from Philippa Foster Back, who is he director of the institute of business ethics.

 

 

23 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Actually it is an exact although simplified version of tax.  

No, because it does not rely on legal loopholes, and the scale is also massively different.

[asus killer]

For me Tim has the right to his own opinion and to say it out loud, and Zuckerberg has to just deal with it.

 

But i'm with Tim on this one, there are no free lunches and the real cost of Facebook is too damn high. And the argument that it's either paid or we have this sh*t for me makes no sense, it could certainly work with sensible advertising, no need for all the rest.

[Razor01]

9 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

Apple Watch, AirPods, HomePod

were they successful?  Havn't seen them doing much for them.

[Razor01]

9 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

I can’t help but feel like you two are being jealous for Tim Cook  

 

 

 

I don't see them as jealous, they are saying what I was saying, He is not capable of being the next Steve Jobs, nor is Apple moving anywhere since he took over.  Sorry but the truth is, in 5 to 10 years, we will see Apple loose more ground.  Every time Steve jobs was head of Apple, Apple succeeded, every time he wasn't Apple had a slowly decline.  This time its slower because of the success of the Iphone.

[handymanshandle]

15 hours ago, The Viking said:

best tax evasion policy too. 

eh they're just gaming broken taxing systems

Which just shows why I wouldn't want to trust the government with my health care or a lot of things really.

But I kinda like to think that with the US cutting its corporate tax rate to something more competitive that Apple may be willing to pay their taxes

[handymanshandle]

3 minutes ago, Razor01 said:

 

I don't see them as jealous, they are saying what I was saying, He is not capable of being the next Steve Jobs, nor is Apple moving anywhere since he took over.  Sorry but the truth is, in 5 to 10 years, we will see Apple loose more ground.  Every time Steve jobs was head of Apple, Apple succeeded, every time he wasn't Apple had a slowly decline.  This time its slower because of the success of the Iphone.

What ground are they losing? I hate to be a devils advocate because there are somethings that bother me about them like pricing and customization but misinformation bothers me more.

[XenosTech]

First cople pages of this thread was just absolute useless nonsense... Since when does a degree equal common sense ? I've worked at places where the most qualified person couldn't even get something as simple as a password reset done in AD heck they couldn't even find a syntax error in their own code. A degree is just a piece of paper that says you went to X school and spent 3-5 years doing a degree and passed, doesn't say you understand jack about the content of that course.

3 hours ago, Razor01 said:

were they successful?  Havn't seen them doing much for them.

Fact I see more android watches than the apple ones here. Even people with iphones have the bloody droid watches

[Razor01]

44 minutes ago, pinksnowbirdie said:

What ground are they losing? I hate to be a devils advocate because there are somethings that bother me about them like pricing and customization but misinformation bothers me more.

Depends on where they go those numbers from, because there are two companies that do these, IDC and Gartner.   Those numbers are IDC and oddly enough IDC numbers have always favored Apple. 

 

Apple is at around 10% marketshare right now in the pc space, Which is all of its other products outside of iphone, from last quarter it increased, but its been pretty much flat

 

 

Ipad sales has dropped off, where they were once 50% of the marketshare for those types of devices, they are lower than 30% now.

 

It doesn't matter how you slice it or dice it, markets where they were in the lead before or were doing better they have lost ground. 

 

Profits are up yeah but profits there is so much to them we can't even evaluate them from what we know.  Since we know how gross margins can change based on B2B conditions.

 

Without the iPhone, Apple would be no where.  not only that if it wasn't for the iPhone they wouldn't have been able to come back into the PC space.

 

Lets look at some quarterly numbers

 

Q1 12 - 5.20M Macs, $6.60B Revenue
Q1 13 - 4.06M Macs, $5.52B Revenue
Q1 14 - 4.84M Macs, $6.34B Revenue
Q1 15 - 5.52M Macs, $6.94B Revenue
Q1 16 - 5.31M Macs, $6.75B Revenue
Q1 17 - 5.37M Macs, $7.24B Revenue
Q1 18 - 5.11M Macs, $6.90B Revenue

 

 

They aren't moving anywhere.

[Cole5]

14 hours ago, mr moose said:

You can't blame companies for not paying taxes a country doesn't ask for.  

Can and Do

[Razor01]

1 minute ago, Cole5 said:

Can and Do

Can't do that if the money is not in a certain jurisdiction there is nothing a country can do.

 

Also if they pay taxes over seas and show that they did, its completely legit.  That is in our tax codes.  which is probably what they are doing.  So if you are going to blame someone blame IRS

[RagnarokDel]

Apple of all people pretending to care about privacy...

[Guest The Viking]

2 hours ago, pinksnowbirdie said:

eh they're just gaming broken taxing systems

Which just shows why I wouldn't want to trust the government with my health care or a lot of things really.

But I kinda like to think that with the US cutting its corporate tax rate to something more competitive that Apple may be willing to pay their taxes

they've been forced (finally). Ireland started collecting the 15 billions owed.