[cmurf]

Well if I wait to see what happens, it's no longer necessary to assume, is it? These are for profit companies, and in theory they're amoral. So any sense of morality of giving up user keys on demand is very plausibly demoted in comparison to profits.

If profits from the rest of the world would increase for any company saying no to China, then companies might do so. But if it'll obviously cost them more, then they'll roll over.

Credit Suisse this year determined China has a bigger middle class than America, and it's growing faster. So I think Apple, Google, etc will roll over. If China actually thought these tech companies would say no, they wouldn't have actually enacted this law, they'd have continued to have conversations. The conversation is basically over.

[zaphar]

It's silly to disregard a companies previous actions when determining what they might do. In theory Google may be amoral but in reality they have shown themselves to act morally in certain situations. Disregarding that historical data means your assumptions are poor.