08-25-2020, 03:28 PM
(08-08-2020, 05:25 PM)pfeerick Wrote: Haven't read through *all* of this thread, but the first page gives me pause for thought. If people only look as far as...
Quote:We don't need China, and China doesn't need us.
... then we have a big problem in failing to think everything through. This COVID19 crisis should have woken people up to just exactly how dependent the world is on China. There were shortages of goods (not food) in Australia within only a couple of months of China's lockdowns, due to manufacturing slowdowns, or container ship quarantining. We were able to go into local retailers to purchase something, and they would say "none of our stores have any stock at the moment".
If people want to kid themselves, no skin off my nose. But that is all they are doing. Being as stupid as sourcing the raw components or parts from China, and then assembling it somewhere else so it doesn't have 'Made in China' would simply be an insult (to the Chinese, no less!) If however, the idea was to develop (from raw materials, not sourced from China) all the components, manufacture the PCBs, IC chips, and then assemble them, whilst paying what is considered a reasonable wage, then I would go along with that. However, I won't be paying the $1000 per board that would probably end up costing!
So what we should be doing is taking into account what another country/culture considers good working conditions. Not what *we* think are good working conditions (in our country/culture). Because it is not our right to dictate to others how they should treat their people. But it *is* our right (as individuals) to not support people being mistreated in accordance to that countries/cultures working conditions. If you want to change the country's working conditions, become a diplomat. Keep it in perspective, not through the rose tinted glasses!
FWIU regarding economics, boycotting isn't really all that effective anyway. Besides, I think that's going way too far. (Note that companies sometimes respond to boycotts from a PR/fire extinguishing perspective due to the social pressure.)
However, from an individual point of view, choosing Pine's competitors to reduce--even ever-so-slightly--Chinese import consumption is fine and ethical given the said dependence alone. Local production and consumption of goods wherever you're from is always ideal but much more difficult for complex items like electronics that require complicated logistics and expected volume sales, support, etc., etc. The ultimate complicated "gadgets" are automobiles where parts are made all over the place and Lego'ed together ideally within the country/locale of sale, e.g., Honda Fits assembled in Mexico and sold in North America at large.)
I'd say that wrt moving assembly out of China is a net positive even if components are produced there. Either way, I think Jed up at the top of the replies is right. I imagine Pine64 moving production out of China only out of absolute necessity or convenience. And while I don't think a simple PCB would cost a hyperbolic $1000+ outside of China, it would likely incur higher overall costs esp. in the short term. For instance, mining "rare" earth elements is really a high-cost, dirty process to obtain as is typical in the mining industry. And China hasn't been too concerned of environmental costs, which all industrialized counties have evolved through; so the West just pushes these negative externalizations out of their countries.
It will be interesting to see what happens when Apple moves assembly of much of their mobile devices outside of China sans the locally ones sold. I wouldn't be surprised if China wholly bans Apple products if things get bad enough given that even lower-end chip makers such as MediaTek are apparently getting banned doing business w/ China. The CCP is probably waiting for the outcome of the US Presidential election before threatening anything really drastic like that.
Lastly, my total guess is that a potential Biden administration wouldn't be able to put the Trump genie back in the bottle especially after this COVID-19 economic disaster; things have just been accelerated by 10 years or whatever. Perhaps he'd be open to reducing the tariffs and bans, but who knows, he could be a pushover. Biden is a effectively a moderate Republican that mostly represents corporations (like most American pols) and emblematic of the current powers in the Democratic party esp. since the Clinton administration. After all, the USA is a center-right country from an economic perspective. Overall, both political parties really only differ on social issues and use cultural "wedge issues" as a marketing differentiation strategy in a two-party system. (Yay, for obvious game theoretical conclusions!)
Anyway, this is my last post here and I'll be keeping an eye of Pine64's developments from a distance. In particular, the Pinephone and Pinebook are certainly very interesting ARM devices. As always, good luck to all of the awesome designers and developers donating their time and work on these sorts of projects. Even if I don't use Pine64 products in the future, I'm sure others will benefit from them including competitors and myself.