This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
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.
Ooof
Apple is a shit-hole company, if you support them, you deserve all the wrath headed your way.
I’m of the opinion that Apple services ought to be geofenced out of Russia entirely.
Google too.
C'mon, google works with China
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.
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'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.
Wait....Apple's still doing business with/in Russia?
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.
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
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
Another argument for alternative appstores
Another argument for Android.
