Although practically I am interested in running Linux on an appleM1, my conscious will no longer allow me to fund the company producing it, so I can never own one.
Unfortunately not. Buying used Apple products benefits Apple indirectly by helping sustain resell value, which affects consumers willingness to part with more money for new products... I'd merely be indirectly funding Apple.
Perhaps it's over principled, I know I'm an insignificant spec in the market. However I cannot tolerate the idea of them obtaining monetary support from me - because then i'd be complicit in their immoral behaviour.
What would be wonderful is if the M1 was an effort independent of Apple. But the capitalist world is moving in a direction of more merging and vertical integration which makes it difficult to vote with your money when it gets redistributed into one enormous corporation... so the only remaining option is to not vote.
I think the GP didn’t mean “in non-new condition”, but rather “from the secondary market, so that you aren’t giving Apple your money.” Getting a refurbished Mac from Apple still involves giving Apple money.
To add to your torment, sustaining the used market provides additional incentive to those buying new since they know the hardware will preserve its value longer. You'll still be indirectly supporting the company by justifying the value of their products.
Having thought through this extensively in my trip off Apple products:
- They have doubled down on "build it in China" for everything, including labor practices that are... not ideal, at a minimum. "Dying for an iPhone" details their last decade or so of labor abuses, or at least "looking the other way while China abuses labor for them."
- As a result of that, and their desire to sell into the Chinese market, they have bowed before the CCP regarding data storage, encryption, etc. For a company that has held a hard line regarding privacy of user information, to see them bow to a rather hostile government like that is very concerning.
- The on-device CSAM scanning, similarly, reflects what can most reasonably be described as "bowing to another government." I know the tech news has abandoned that bit of bad news, forgotten, and moved on to satellite phone stuff, but I consider it turning my own device and resources against me in ways I cannot support.
In the past year or so, Apple has demonstrated that they say one thing out one side of their mouth ("Privacy! Your data is your data! Ethical labor!") while doing other things in practice. So, I'm no longer comfortable supporting them, and am trying not to.
I'm aware that most of this can be applied to the bulk of the consumer tech industry at large, which is another problem, and one I'm certainly trying to ponder through. The main conclusion, I think, is that one ought not buy any new/recent hardware, and figure out ways to work with less. I've been moving over to small ARM computers as I try to find less-hostile devices, but the supply chains upstream there are less-known and a bit of a mystery, so I'm not sure I can make strong claims one way or another. However, I know at this point that Apple hasn't gone about really improving things, instead just looking the other way as Foxconn continues the same tricks.
It's perfectly fine to not care about any of that, and prefer the shiny integrated computer, and I've certainly done that for the past 18 years of my life. But I'm no longer OK with that, and am trying to get clear of it.
There aren't any anymore. Everything is out of China.
I've been using some cheaper ARM stuff, but I can't verify Pine's supply chains either, beyond "Erratic." So unlikely to be as close to forced labor as Apple's are, especially during new product season.
This is the height of silliness. You don't want to use Apple products because they get their products assembled in China by Foxconn (a Taiwanese company). However, your solution is to buy "cheaper ARM stuff" such as Pine products, because you assume their factory conditions will be less dickensian despite also being manufactured in China.
You know about the bad conditions in the Foxconn factory because of the notoriety of the companies (Apple and Google) that get their products assembled there. However, it's likely that the conditions at Foxconn are better than those at the fly-by-night operators employed by Pine, which are subject to less scrutiny. Companies like Pine also have less ability (and incentive) to press for better conditions.
If you really wanted to use products with the least manufacturing footprint in China, you'd be looking at Samsung and Sony devices, but I guess they're not edgy enough for you.