<story><title>Apple Computers Used to Be Built in the U.S. It Was a Mess</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/business/apple-california-manufacturing-history.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>inieves</author><text>This was a disappointing article on a few levels.&lt;p&gt;1) it doesn’t make a clear logical case for why manufacturing isn’t done by Apple (or many other companies) in the US, right now&lt;p&gt;2) it doesn’t give reasoning about why sotuation is unlikely to change, or if it does change, how it will not look anything like industrial-era factory labor manufacturing&lt;p&gt;3) it doesn’t explain that these realities have nothing to do with Apple, except that Apple finds these economic realities faster than other companies&lt;p&gt;4) it ends completey abruptly without drawing any real conclusion or thesis or adding any insight (based on solid reasoning)&lt;p&gt;===&lt;p&gt;The fact that Jean Louis Gassed can’t use a screwdriver has nothing to do with anything...
Manufacturing of complex computer systems is complex, therefore requires many different competencies, said competencies must communicate to resolve challenges, and that in and of itself is hard.  This hardness requires (literally) an ecosystem of skilled workers to address.  Could Apple (or any other company) build such an ecosystem?  Yes, if they did it from scratch early on, when the cost to build it was low because the ecosystem was relatively simple.  But now, its not a simple ecosystem, and it would be painfully expensive to replicate.&lt;p&gt;It should be noted that there is probably a strong difference in the complexity (therefore difficulty) of manufacturing high tech products versus other consumer products like cars&amp;#x2F;trucks, general electronics.  That difference is the velocity&amp;#x2F;pace of new features going to market, required to drive sales.  Tech products literally compete on feature sets.  Sales of cars and toasters and espresso makers can depend on many factors and so they are not constantly racing to update the product every 6-12 months.  I could be wrong here, but I believe the conclusion that tech manufacturing is like all other kinds of manufacturing is baseless.  And in fact, the fact that so much has moved to China is the strongest evidence that it can’t simply exist anywhere.</text></comment>
<story><title>Apple Computers Used to Be Built in the U.S. It Was a Mess</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/business/apple-california-manufacturing-history.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>pinewurst</author><text>This is a very stupid article. It describes* the lack of economic success of two somewhat automated factories built to produce large numbers of computers during an interval when neither&amp;#x27;s products were popular enough to justify their scale.  It&amp;#x27;s like judging the economics of the Edsel factory in 1959 and generalizing that large scale US auto production was a stupid idea.&lt;p&gt;*Fixed - bad wording choice</text></comment>