The Dilemma of Cheap Electronics

Commentary by David Pogue on the cost of cheap electronics.
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/the-dilemma-of-cheap-electronics/#

February 13, 2012 by Uncategorized 4

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4 Responses

  1. Anonymous says:
    February 13, 2012 at 2:24 pm

    Maybe…
    people should be complaining to the Chinese authorities whose job it is to monitor and legislate over working conditions in their countries factories, just as we would expect our authorities to do the same.
    These aren’t backstreet sweatshops, these are major factories.

    Reply
  2. Anonymous says:
    February 13, 2012 at 3:26 pm

    no, we don’t care
    it’s simple. we don’t care how we get our toys. I asked a similar question back in the 1990s on an “alt.” group about working conditions for toy manufacturers, child labor, safety, etc., and the overwhelming response was that we want stuff to be cheap and we don’t care how we get it.

    so can we get our government to force companies who sell products here to adopt safe working standards?

    oops, I guess I said a bad word. Americans don’t seem to want the government to do anything anymore. Except all the stuff they want the government to do to help them personally.

    also, if these companies make too many demands in China, what do you think will happen? do you think China needs Apple? or any of those others? they already have our manufacturing plans and they produce much of the metals necessary for the manufacturing, so they don’t even need us… except they need our ideas for future products…

    the only answer is some form of U.S. government intervention, but that won’t happen and we consumers aren’t going to do on our own it without a pretty strong push from someone.

    -effinglibrarian

    Reply
    • Bibliofuture says:
      February 13, 2012 at 7:07 pm

      alt groups in the 90s
      >>I asked a similar question back in the 1990s on an “alt.” group about working conditions for toy manufacturers, child labor, safety, etc., and the overwhelming response was that we want stuff to be cheap and we don’t care how we get it.

      So we should base our decisions on what was said in alt groups in the 90’s?? People that had access to alt groups in the 90’s was a narrow subset of the total population. A very narrow subset. I bet 30% of people reading this now do not even know what an alt group from the 90’s is.

      Reply
  3. Anonymous says:
    February 14, 2012 at 4:36 pm

    Way, WAY more than 30%
    Way, WAY more than 30% surely!
    I’d say the minority of people would even know what Usenet was (or is).

    Do China need Apple? Um yes they do. Think things are bad with people having bad jobs, see what it’s like when there are no jobs atall (still waiting for the uprising when China’s population snaps and everything collapses). Yes they can make products, but you need to have a market to sell to. And if Apple et al go to another country to start production there will be many people exceptionally happy to work for them.

    We don’t care where we get things from. We only care when we can’t get them or they become too expensive. Ethics are fine until it impacts on your life. Of course we wouldn’t like to be working for so little pay and in bad conditions but that’s life. Who said life was fair?

    Reply

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