Wait…Apple’s still doing business with/in Russia?
It’s a shame but it seems most companies only pretended to cut ties.
Pretty much every brand, that was doing business there before, does it the exact same way, but under a shell company name. Capitalism doesn’t give a fuck who’s doing what, and how wrong it is
I remember an article from last year or so that German washing machines ended up being sold to Russia through Kazakhstan and other places where they stripped the microchips to repurpose them in their missiles.
Lots of western companies are. Not everything is subject to sanctions — the U.S. government still buys uranium from Russia and there’s cooperation on space launches — but even the companies that tried to divest for moral reasons found it challenging, to say the least. The ones who tried often had their assets essentially stolen or sold for pennies on the dollar to a Putin loyalist oligarch.
I’m not sure what Apple is doing there besides having the App Store. They did stop all exports so any new Apple products there are smuggled and probably way more expensive. On balance, I think it’s better keeping the App Store and software updates available to Russians. Some dissidents and journalists use Apple products too and you don’t want their devices left insecure.
probably way more expensive
Nope. iPhone 15 pro max 128 gb could be bought in Moscow for 109490 руб, which is $15 higher than in the US.
Before the war Apple had a weird price policy in Russia when they just multiplied the official US price by the factor of 100 to get the price in roubles. It resulted in a +30-60% increase in prices.
So… the war has actually dropped the price for the Apple products dramatically for regular russians. The only problem with the Apple products the war has introduced is that you can’t pay in AppStore
See how iPhone sales peak in Kazakhstan and Georgia after the war and sanctions. Does apple work in Russia? No, they just ship their shit to Georgia and don’t ask why every Georgian needs 2 iphones and one MacBook every year.
Well of course it does when pretty dumb and easily visible schemes to do that do not lead to prison sentences and huge fines.
All those government regulation supporter types look right at this and don’t realize that this is the answer to “why people of more libertarian views on economics don’t want everyone to be happy”. Because government regulation just gives someone power to collect bribes when there’s a power difference involved.
What? You thought this conflict was actually real?
Well, just a month ago they couldn’t pay out a bounty to Kaspersky for a 0day exploit they found due to the sanctions, so this seems a little off.
Can Russians still buy stuff from the App Store?
Yes, but payment options are limited
Only via complicated shady schemes. The simplest option is to go to another country, open a bank account and buy a sim.
Interesting. Thanks for the info.
Can’t they block ip addresses or gps coords?
Apple? They probably are able to geoblock Russia, but it will cut sales in neighboring countries like Georgia and Kazakhstan. Why would they perform such a reckless move?
God forbid Apple take a 0.01% hit to their profits to allow the flow of factual information to people stuck in Russia under a monstrous dictator.
The vast majority of russians support imperialism and a majority hold genocidal views (they would never openly agree to this, but on an outcome basis they do support eradication of Ukrainian culture and not only).
Even to this day, every russian with a smartphone has access to uncensored youtube available within 10 secs on their phone.
Not saying what apple did was right, just pointing out the “lack of factual information” narrative is largely incorrect. It’s more a lack of respect for the rights others, nihilism and overwhelming supremacism; no VPN or technology is going to solve this.
I’m not talking about the people happily living in self-delusion. We have plenty of those in the US too. Free information channels are still important and can be a crushing loss to the people who do care about reality.
There is different people in different countries. No question about that. And free information channels are definitely very important. My argument is that in the case of russia, this factors don’t really come into play in a meaningful way.
Information channels even after the full scale invasion are available and easy to access, it was less restrictive before Feb 24 2022, but the difference is somewhat marginal. Access to information isn’t going to magically change the imperialist, supremacist mindset of the overwhelming majority of russians.
It’s not an access to information problem, it’s a social and cultural problem. I’ve lived there for 10 years (in addition to living a decade in north america and many years in asia), the imperialist/genocidal mindset has survived 3 regimes (Tsarism, USSR, authoritarian capitalism) with very different technological currents and economic structure profiles. It’s not going away just like that.
Full disclosure: I am Ukrainian, but I would argue you can come to the same conclusions by taking a critical look at their history, current attitudes (even among the “liberal” opposition) and broad worldview.
Just wanted to share my thoughts. Re-reading my posts, I think I come off a bit more pushy than I wanted to.
I’m not advocating for free information because i think it’ll make a significant difference in current geopolitics or change how things would have gone. I simply view it as a human right. But I do think it is particularly important in a country that is in the process of violently suppressing increasingly important information (e.g. who the terrorist attackers were so Russia isnt in a blind rage against Ukrainian “butchers”). These small drips of reality into the information space do temper the level of dishonesty Russia can get away with. They aren’t quite yet to North Korean levels of mass delusion and if a tiny portion of Apple’s profit help spare people from that misery then it is a small price to pay for what little seed of hope that can sow for the future. Other countries have been expected to endure much more to deal with trade restrictions etc. so it’s a bit much that Apple can’t even do this tiny thing.
Agreed regarding access to information being a human right.
I was also surprised that Apple went with this and didn’t just ignore them. This is not China after all.
Full disclosure: I am Ukrainian
So your country is butt friends with Azerbaijan yet you are moralizing on genocides. Fuck off. Being invaded by Russia is not an indulgence paper for other crimes.
The vast majority of russians support imperialism and a majority hold genocidal views (they would never openly agree to this, but on an outcome basis they do support eradication of Ukrainian culture and not only).
That’s a major simplification. The fact that russians do not stand against a genocidal war doesn’t mean that the vast majority do support it.
I disagree. While my statement did not include any kind of elaboration. This is not a simplification.
At the very least a strong majority (and I am being conservative) support the annexation of Ukrainian territories and elimination of Ukrainian culture and language in areas under occupation. On the quantitative side this is confirmed by various polling initiatives that use different methodologies (including in-direct polling with attempts to estimate preference falsification).
On the qualitative side, you can look at genocides committed in the last ~100 years by the russians (and there are several, includes less well known ones) and review the attitudes towards these crimes among various socio-political groups (not necessarily in a purely quantitative manner).
I have one interesting anecdote. Currently among the “liberal” russian opposition there is a big debate around a 3 hour YT series about the 90s in russia.
One bit topic that was completely excluded was the actions of russians in Chechnya; the creators (Navalniy’s organization) said it was out of scope.
During their intervention in Chechnya in the 90s, they killed approximately 5% of the civilian population; it would be like if 7.5 million russian civilians were killed.
Don’t get me wrong, a relatively small % of russians would openly admit to that they support extermination of Ukrainian identity (still 10s of millions). But even among the reminder, there is a strong undercurrent of supremacism, a desire of expansion that de facto is support for genocide.
I’ve been recently banned for putting links that lead to russian sites, so I’ll reference the sources by name in italic.
On the quantitative side this is confirmed by various polling initiatives that use different methodologies (including in-direct polling with attempts to estimate preference falsification).
AFAIK it is neither confirmed nor refuted. I don’t know how one would interpret results where 91-93% just refuse to talk to a sociologist and 4-5% more abort the interview when asked about something related to the war. That’s the results by Russian Field, one of a few agencies that publish these numbers. They do interpretation of these results, but they differ from month to month: you can numbers from Feb 2024 to prove your point, I can put numbers from May 2024 to prove mine.
On the qualitative side, you can look at genocides committed in the last ~100 years by the russians (and there are several, includes less well known ones) and review the attitudes towards these crimes among various socio-political groups
That’s a bold point implying that history defines the attitudes for a whole nation for decades. There were a lot of atrocities made in the name of Russia in the Baltic states, Belarus, Ukraine, towards Circassians, Germans, Tatar and Georgians (probably forgot something). But for some reasons, russians want to exterminate only Ukrainian identity, conquer Baltics and befriend Georgia and Germany. That’s a political/propaganda surface, not a historical one.
Talking about qualitative research, there’s a publicsociologylab group that conducts interesting narrative research. Their last project is concerned with the view on the war from a non-central city. They conclude that people do ignore the atrocities and view them as something that is alien to them. The only question they ask is whether it is worth it to go to war for $10k + $3k/mo.
I hope that I was able to draw a picture where Russia is not a country of pests that should be exterminated. It’s a complex evil system that could be built anywhere in the world, even in Ukraine or the US.
I of course didn’t mean to imply that a strong majority of russians are interested in the destruction of only Ukrainians. The russians hate the Baltic nations with a passion (particularly “liberal opposition-mind” emigre russians) and others nations too of course. There is enough hate to go around.
Regarding, the quantitative side, I have read several Russian Field reports, for the latest one that I can access (May 23 to June 2) the results speak for themselves. Regarding non-response, there are methodologies such as list-based polling that can at least partially address this issue. The results once again align with what I mentioned earlier, albeit with a relatively small estimate for preference falsification (~10%) that moves the spectrum from an overwhelming majority (70-80%) to a strong majority (60-70%). To be honest I’ve given up using quantitative results as an argument, I find that any and all polling (no matter what methodology, topical focus) will always be dismissed unless it portrays russians in an innocent light.
History does not define a group of people. But there is also the matter of the timescales. 100 years? Sure, but almost everyone alive today is likely going to be dead by then. 30 years? 50 years? I have a life to live. Historical essentialism is the domain of professors living in NATO countries who do not have to deal with russians outside of sociological research, conferences and the academic equivalent of shitposting online.
A complex evil can indeed happen anywhere; there is nothing unique about russia in that sense. It can and has happened in Ukraine too (and not only in the 20th century). However, there are also practical consideration; reality if I may call it so. Uruguay is not going to land its marines in southern India and force locals to eat their steaks and send them to a torture basement if they refuse. Botswana is not going to send its navy to blockade Malaysia in order to strangle their economy.
And with respect to russia, the reality is that the non-central city that you reference will always (in our “collective” lifetimes, not necessarily for the next trillion years) choose the path of evil. Some might do it because they need money, other might do it due to conformism, another group might be very excited about seeing their country expand and exterminate the local language and culture. Some might simply not really care, they have their own things to worry about, right? But the practical, on-the-ground outcome will be that this town (just like all russian towns/cities/villages) will always be a source of evil for the countries that have the misfortune having russians as their neighbours.
And if you think I am being emotional or whatever (I’ve held these views since 2014, many Ukrainians were uncomfortable with my argumentation; all before Feb 24th of course), I will ask you to answer the following question:
Since my argumentation is allegedly based on historical essentialism, a misinterpretation of quantitative data, a biased view of qualitative data, a lack of empathy for russians (perhaps even understandable in your view), how and when will russia change from its current state?
With respect to the “when?” question, I will literally take anything other than “sometime in the future”, next 10 years? next 50 years? next million years?
The “how?” is the more impactful question. If a strong majority of russians are not genocidal imperialists, then it would make logical sense that russia would stop with its genocidal invasions, no? So how will we get to that point?
Let me first address the accusations of me accusing you being emotional and whatever. We’re having a respectful conversation I hadn’t hoped to have it in the first place. I don’t like your views, I may only sympathize with you. Thanks for that.
The hate you are talking about is not inherently inside Russia’s population. This hate is channeled by propaganda. As with Georgians and Turks: there were periods where everyone hated them, now they are friends. Fingers crossed the same will happen with ukranians soon, but I lost any hope that it will be reciprocal. Still, it is and will remain for decades a problem for the world.
how and when will russia change from its current state?
The current state is perpetual but silent war that exists, but somewhere far from themselves. The government finds this state to be the most favorable to them, but it draws a line between the government and the economic elites. I’d give it five to twenty years to resolve. No more than Putin’s lifespan, but also it should be resolved by the upcoming Third World War.
But the question itself contains a subtle implication. You think that Russia is a threat to the world or neighbors because how easy it starts the war with its neighbors and how violent its rhetoric. While I agree, I would also add to this the efficiency of Russian government, if by efficiency we define the government’s capability to save and multiply the resources of the very rich. My biggest fear is that other countries will implement the similar approaches.
Apologies for bringing that up, it was indeed uncalled for. You were being tactful and respectful.
I strongly disagree with the notion that hate is not inherently inside russia’s population. I would even go as far saying russia, as conceptualized by the overwhelming majority of the population, cannot exist without imperialism, chauvinism and genocide (i.e. extermination of local culture/language in any occupied territory as well as physically killing and torturing those who disagree).
Earlier in our thread you brought up a sociological report on a small town (on the eastern side of the Urals?), I read a preview article (in russian) about this report. The findings in the preview are damning for russian society. Even those who are not committed supporters of the invasion still believe the invasion should continue and they support “their boys” as a matter of patriotism and national pride. They also don’t think the full scale invasion was a mistake (let alone the annexation of Crimea and invasion of Donbas - although this my speculation). Furthermore, they also support making the war effort more efficient.
And this is supposed to be the more moderate wing of russians society. Something like 1.1 million russian men have directly taken part in the invasion of Ukraine (since 2014). Maybe 1.5-1.7 million civilians have personally taken part in the occupation of Ukrainian territories (I am excluding say “tourists” visiting occupied Crimea for the sake of argument). You also have 10s of million of russians who hold openly genocidal views (I believe 30% of russian think Ukraine should be nuked).
Russians will be hated in Ukraine for at least two generations (if not for far longer) because russian society as it is today is largely supportive of their government’s imperialist and genocidal aims. More so, there is no reason to believe this will change (even on the basis of a conceptual model).
How exactly would there be any political change in “five to twenty years”? What specifically can happen (on a purely theoretical level)? Why would it happen? What are the roots of this change?
And why do you say no longer than putin’s lifetime? What would stop someone similar (or worse) from taking over after putin dies? The russian people aren’t going to do anything and they show no interest in changing anything. You might say this is because of threats to their livelihood (fair, but who is responsible for this state of affairs?) or propaganda. I would say it’s because fundamentally the overwhelming majority of the russian population are aligned with imperialist and openly genocidal goals of the government.
What of the russian opposition? Have they started a campaign to develop a military strike force consisting of russian nationals? Sabotage programs? Assassination campaigns against senior enablers and admin of the regime? Of course not, instead they make stupid youtube videos trying to scapegoat the current situation on some people in the 90s. Why would the average russian choose what is essentially “putinism lite” (I will note that the “liberal” opposition largely supported the annexation of Crimea, even if they tried to put a spin on it for western audiences) when they can choose the real thing?
I will go back to my original OP. The qualitative and quantitative evidence very much supports the notion that the overwhelming majority of russians are authoritarian, chauvinistic and support imperialism and to some degree genocide too. This is not because of historical essentialism or some of “bad gene”; these are bunk theories best left for crude jokes (fully justified considering the situation). It is because as things stand now (and I will speculate this won’t change in the next ~50 years), the vast majority of russians have a made a choice; they believe invading neighbouring countries and genociding the local population (both direct violence and to turn them into “russians”) is a good thing.
So what exactly do you think a russian citizen can do to opose the war? Are you aware of the people protesting with blank peaces of paper being taken away? Or even high ranking people “falling from the balcony”
Do you also think that North Koreans support and enjoy their way of living?
There is a long way from not having much choice in oposing something to actually supporting it…
Outside of the political sphere, life in russia is nothing like in NK.
I am aware of the such protests and of public condemnations that result in jail sentences and even acts for sobotage.
Realistically, there are three options 1. Do nothing (understandable) 2. Leave the country (not available to all) 3. Join rebel forces and/or engage in sabotage (this takes a lot of bravery, and people have dependents). [1] is the only realistic option for most.
That being said, I never claimed that the situation for those russians who oppose the full scale invasion (and genocidal imperialism in general) is not dire. Nor did I claim that every single russian is a genocidal imperialism.
I did claim that at least a strong majority (if not an overwhelming majority) are genocidal imperialist and provided some high level points with respect to quantitative and qualitative approaches.
I strongly disagree that my statement is a simplification and I tried to explain why.
Your welcome to say I am wrong or claim that the current situation is influencing my thinking (don’t forget, in my OP I did mention that I lived in russia for 10 years, this was before the invasion of Georgia) but you can’t say this is just a quick simplification; “a stereotype driven by a stressful situation” or something like that.
The vast majority of russians support imperialism and a majority hold genocidal views (they would never openly agree to this, but on an outcome basis they do support eradication of Ukrainian culture and not only).
Don’t pretend there’s any difference to yourself in this though. Just different allowed targets.
Even to this day, every russian with a smartphone has access to uncensored youtube available within 10 secs on their phone.
You have access to whole ass uncensored Web yet I’m certain you don’t know shit about siege and ethnic cleansing of Artsakh, while the 3 mediators there were (and formally still are) USA, France and Russia.
And the USA representative publicly said they won’t allow ethnic cleansing days before it happened. And, say, in case of Ukraine they well knew months before and were very loud with warnings. And after said ethnic cleansing they immediately started talking the way it became clear that they supported it. And no sanctions have been put on Azerbaijan (which is also a big proxy for Russian strategic exports and imports, but that’s unimportant, of course).
So being Armenian I say shut up.
Also no, vast majority of Russians don’t support anything such, they are just in apathy because kinda big protests were not successful in changing the government.
I’ll add that when those protests were happening, “the West” mostly supported Putin by recognizing his stolen elections, just like they did during Chechen wars and, of course, with opposition to Yeltsin’s fascist tendencies. Cause there were lots of money to be made in Russia for politicians making those decisions.
Any such moralizing westerner should go to the frontline and replace some Ukrainian life in the total number of the dead.
Just different allowed targets.
I’m sorry, I can’t get past that first paragraph. What “targets” do you think most people are okay with genociding? The fact that you think everyone has a group they’d be fine with wiping off the face of the earth completely is extremely concerning.
I dunno, any of more than a dozen happening right now on this planet with no notable protests or anything in democratic countries and with their governments just doing business as usual with governments perpetrating those.
Where I live it’s been 20+ years since a protest changed anything, and now those kinda may get you jailed for an arbitrary amount of years or sent southwest as cannon fodder.
Where you live it’s likely different. So.
Why did you say “everyone has a target they are fine with genocide about” then justify it with a lack of protests, and protests not going anything?
You clearly stated something as fact, then went beyond moving the goalpost, playing a completely different game with your justification.
I can’t think of anyone in my communication circle that would ever shrug off genocide. Virtually everyone not taking part in genocide agrees it’s wrong, and anyone trying to justify it or saying “everyone is fine with it to some degree” is extremely suspect.
“Everyone” in natural languages is very close to “the majority”.
then justify it with a lack of protests, and protests not going anything?
This was incomprehensible for me and requires clarification.
You clearly stated something as fact, then went beyond moving the goalpost, playing a completely different game with your justification.
No, I don’t think so. Also don’t do that “strict” tone, your logic is not strict and you don’t have the authority.
I can’t think of anyone in my communication circle that would ever shrug off genocide.
That’s usually done by ignoring those you don’t care about. How many genocides you and your circle are not shrugging off? You do realize that a 2-digit number of non-sanctioned UN member countries are doing it right now and you are not protesting?
Virtually everyone not taking part in genocide agrees it’s wrong, and anyone trying to justify it or saying “everyone is fine with it to some degree” is extremely suspect.
Everyone taking part in one agrees it’s wrong as well, and says they are not.
Fascinating assumptions on your part!
You’ve made an even more fascinating blanket statement against Russians, and it so happens most decent people I know are Russian, living, well, in Russia.
So if it’s fine, I’m doing mine.
I never said all russians. That’s ridiculous, I personally know several who are good, reasonable people.
Your statements about Ukrainians’ thinking on NK/Artsakh seems knowingly provocative and exaggerated.
I think you’re trying to stir the pot a bit, because you don’t really have anything else to say.
Your comment read differently.
seems knowingly provocative and exaggerated.
There’s nothing exaggerated in it, Ukraine’s government is complicit in genocide.
I haven’t said anything on Ukrainians in general thinking about it. I mean, plenty of supposed Ukrainians in the Interwebs are complete ghouls on this particular subject, but they are likely bots.
How is Ukraine’s government complicit in genocide?
What country do I want to invade and destroy their culture/language/society?
What are you on about?
I am Ukrainian, I live in Ukraine. I’ve also lived in the russia for 10 years and even to this day have a few russian friends.
Another argument for alternative appstores
Another argument for Android.
Weak. Pathetic apple
More like greedy and nihilistic, like all corporations.
I’m of the opinion that Apple services ought to be geofenced out of Russia entirely.
Google too.
C’mon, google works with China
As a result, anyone wanting to access blocked sites from Russia is forced to use a VPN, a protective tunnel that encrypts internet traffic and changes a user’s IP address.
I hate how media describes VPN. It doesn’t “change your IP address” but rather makes your traffic appear to come from a remote endpoint when configured to do so.
I use VPNs all the time that don’t “change my IP address” at all.
They do change the source IP from the perspective of the host receiving your connection.
But there’s an important difference here. Sometimes you want the IP address to look like it’s coming from a different location because of region locking. Eg Netflix.
Other times you want the origin IP hiding along the data stream to stop snoopers. eg the government.
So changing your IP from the perspective of the receiver isn’t much use if you’re trying to hide from the government. People who are not very tech savvy may not necessarily realize this important distinction until it’s too late. So it’s best to explain the difference.
If you’re routing internet traffic via the VPN tunnel then yes of course that’s true.
But you can be connected to a VPN and only direct specific subnets (like the traditional office network example) to it. You’re not always forced to use it as a default route (using the term loosely here).
That’s pedantry that serves zero purpose to the story. It’s an article for layman, and the only reason to even bring up a VPN is to mention Apple listening to the Kremlin. It serves little to no narrative purpose.
And the VPNs that people use for these purposes usually tunnel all traffic unless individual programs have been explicitly added to a list.
Maybe it is pedantry, but people writing for the general public should explain things well. Why didn’t they just write:
As a result, anyone wanting to access blocked sites from Russia is forced to use a VPN that encrypts internet traffic and makes it appear to come from outside Russia.
This way you’re not lying and saying a VPN “changes your IP address” which is both not accurate nor easily digestible for the general public. That part specifically is what gets me.
I don’t get it, why else would you use VPN if not to spoof your IP address?
To access a different LAN, e.g. a network at work, or your NAS at home. You configure it so your internet traffic still goes over your normal connection but only the LAN requests to the specific subnet goes over the VPN. This was the original use case they were built for (roadwarrior businessmen logging into their corporate portal from a hotel or whatever)
This is the right answer.
when you want to be on a different local network?
You won’t be “on a different local network,” you’ll be accessing specific networks (or subnets) via the VPN tunnel rather than some other network interface on your machine.
So if you’re at home with a 192.168.0.0/24 network and you want to access an office resource on the 192.168.141.0/24 network, likely what will happen is your machine with have a route to 192.168.131.0/24 via the network the VPN provides (let’s just say 10.0.0.1).
Depending on how everything’s configured, the server you’re accessing might see it coming from the VPN server (masquerade) or it could very well be passed on as-is (which would only work if the server has a routing table back to you via the VPN).
Typically when people use VPNs for internet access, the traffic is sent out masqueraded so that it appears to come from the VPN’s WAN IP address.
To ensure your unecrypted data(which is rare these days) is not clear-text in an untrusted network such as public wifi.
Yes but this isn’t the point I’m getting at — VPN doesn’t always mean you’re sending all your Internet traffic down the tunnel. You can choose to configure only specific networks to use the VPN tunnel.
To not disclose to your internet provider the sites you are visiting.
Yes but this isn’t the point I’m getting at — VPN doesn’t always mean you’re sending all your Internet traffic down the tunnel. You can choose to configure only specific networks to use the VPN tunnel.
That’s the case of corporate VPN I believe
It’s the case of every VPN, it’s just that typically people choose to send all their traffic through it rather than that destined to specific networks.
Are you talking about split tunneling?
Because last I heard it was considered bad as it was haibg a hard time deciding what traffic to tunnel and what traffic to not
It’s only bad if you’re splitting it incorrectly lol
Thanks Cpt. Obvious.
It doesn’t seem obvious to you who claims it’s “bad” because it “has a hard time deciding.” It can decide, guess how? Configuration
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Yeah, Russia doesn’t arrest Apple employees in Russia
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Ooof
