Why should they be forced to deal with Trump's nonsense? That's giving Trump agency over you and giving him the attention he craves. The best way to deal with a narcissist like Trump is to ignore him. Only an idiot believes Trump's incessant lies and neither I, nor presumably Tim Cook, gives a rat's ass what idiots think of us.
> The best way to deal with a narcissist like Trump is to ignore him.
Not if you want something from the narcissist. Instead you chuff the narcissist up. It's gross, but we've seen them all do it reactively after he was elected in 2016, so why not be proactive this time? None of them (Big tech) are going to lose customers over it, so there's no risk.
> Only an idiot believes Trump's incessant lies and neither I, nor presumably Tim Cook, gives a rat's ass what idiots think of us.
Whatever his cognitive abilities, if elected president, he will have nearly absolute power over foreign trade policy. He could try to use it to exert leverage over the EU to weaken their antitrust enforcement.
As I said previously, Trump only has that power if he becomes president. There's no need to suck up to him now.
If you think Big Tech can't be replaced, then you haven't been paying attention. Google is facing irrelevancy in the age of AI. Netflix subscriptions have been tanking as the world's largest content creators have moved into the streaming space. Facebook's growth is anemic and people are actively trying to use their service less.
Apple's customers trend liberal and Apple already has the challenge of convincing them they need a better camera than the one they bought two years ago, when the one they bought two years ago works just fine and does everything they need. That's why iPhone sales are down - significantly. Same with Mac sales. Good enough is good enough. Facing those challenges, do you really want to go and piss off your customers over something like politics?
Amazon is about the only one that's looking like it has a bright future. That's why Bezos wisely chose not to endorse Harris last week - why would he want to piss off half his customers over politics? Especially heading into the holiday season where he's expecting major sales? Look what politics did to Bud Light.
So no, Big Tech is not safe. They're big because they're smart, and by being smart they know there's no need to kiss Trump's ass before he's president and there's a business need requiring them to do so.
> If you think Big Tech can't be replaced, then you haven't been paying attention.
I never said that. They are not safe. Specifically they are not safe from anti-trust enforcement and the threat that the corporate tax rate will rise to what it was before the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, and those are strong motivators for them to get ahead of the political ball.
Big tech is probably also talking to the Harris campaign before the election, to try to negotiate the de-fanging of the FTC and preserving their tax cuts to the extent they can if she wins. Some of Harris wealthy tech donors specifically want Lina Khan removed.
They are smart (and cynical) by covering all their bases. Trump talks about it because he feels (not incorrectly) that name-dropping those conversations helps him.
There is little long-term risk of these corporations losing business over this stuff. Consumers have demonstrated for a long time that they don't care much about the unethical behavior of corporations, especially if changing their consuming behavior affects their lifestyle in any way.
Between now and the election or holiday season, what are Apple, Google and Amazon's customers going to do to boycott? Delay an iPhone purchase? Stop advertising on Google (conceding attention space to competitors)? Shop instead at ... Walmart?
Getting back around to the original topic - none of this substantiates Trump's lie that Tim Cook called him. There is zero reason to believe such a conversation ever took place. Sorry. Trump lies incessantly. At this point the correct approach is to assume what Trump says is a lie and see if there's any reason that wouldn't be the case. In this case, there's no reason at all to believe Trump isn't lying.
As far as what customers may be willing to do, do you think Bud Light drinkers stopped drinking beer? I'm not confident we can rely on past customer behavior to predict future customer behavior in today's political climate. That's the very essence of chaos.
> Sorry. Trump lies incessantly. At this point the correct approach is to assume what Trump says is a lie and see
I agree that most of his statements are lies, but his claim that big corporation CEOs called him is far more plausible than his lie about Haitians eating cats and dogs.
Again, why haven't the CEOs debunked his claims? If anyone else with a similar megaphone to Trump made such false claims, they would immediately release a statement to the contrary. Their lack of rebuttal of his supposedly false claim is incredible telling of how much they hope to gain from him if elected.
> As far as what customers may be willing to do, do you think Bud Light drinkers stopped drinking beer?
Please explain what is the serious non Bigtech option for your next smartphone, or the serious retail alternative to Amazon or Walmart (without trading off convenience - which most consumers will not do).
In contrast, there are a ton of cheap beer alternatives to Bud Light, like Coors, Pabst, etc.
I suspect we largely agree with each other, per your other posts, that corporations will willingly go along with demagogic nationalist authoritarians, as evidenced from Nazi era German corporations through to Russian oligarchs, and possibly in the US going forward.
What we seen to disagree about and are arguing about are the subtleties of the posturing and timing rather than the intent.
