Thread: Steve Jobs dead at age 56

Originally Posted by Neo1

So Apple is exploiting the fact that most people have no idea that what they're doing is limiting to both customers and developers, yet their sales are through the roof. Hence, shady business model AND high profits, which is the very thing that Yarin argued wasn't possible, since, as we all know, <sarcasm> capitalism is fool proof and any company with an immoral business model will decay and eventually perish because their customers will find a moral alternative. </sarcasm>

Define shady and immoral business practice. I really want to know. Those words carry a weight and define more than what you may seem to think.

I honestly think you folks are behaving in the exact same way, but on opposite ends, of the very Apple users you claim to be dumb, by simply rejecting any form of deliberate thinking in the name of an irrational passion (them) or hate (you).

Boy, will you hear me complain about Apple products and Steve's business practices! Make no mistake. But where you see shadiness and immorality, I see a valid, legal and successful business. Albeit one that is too strung up on a single market that is still too embryonic (and not much competitive yet) to give Apple any security for the future as the time approaches where feature full and highly competitive devices start to appear by other manufacturers.

My dislike for Apple products and services is not much different from yours. My biggest complain is the price, my second biggest complain is the closed platform that has been stifling innovation and competitiveness (see Apple lawsuits). So I don't buy Apple. Nothing, nada, zilch. Not even an iPod I ever owned from Apple. The last thing I ever touched that had Steve Jobs hand in it was three NeXT computers at university back in the late 80s. But I don't claim that my dislike for Apple business choices immediately translate into them being a shady and immoral business practice. I just don't try to justify my dislike behind a false veil of moral concerns I've never give much of a though about, but still spout like some indisputable truth. I reserve passionate and irrational prejudice for the things that really matter in my life. Not some faceless corporation and its hipster products. Who's being dumb?

.......

Meanwhile, about how close Apple platform is. It is very close. And very controlled. It's the antithesis of all that I defend on the computing business world. But that doesn't for one moment make me forget why it is so. In a mass market, highly commoditized (sp?), as is that of smart phones and is becoming that of tabled devices, if suppliers don't control distribution they risk a market crash like that which nearly destroyed the video gaming industry in the USA in the 80s and forever reshaped the business landscape over there. The truth is that the biggest enemy of companies like Apple, Google or Microsoft in these type of markets are people like you, me, and millions of other developers out there, possibly eager to take a piece of the pie and develop for the platform, selling crappy, useless, applications for 1 USD. Make no mistake, we'd saturate the market in no time, eclipsing from view high production levels and quality products, like a cancer.

Many lessons were learned from that incident 30 years ago. Want to complain about these business practices? Look no further than modern console manufacturers like Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft with their perfect gatekeeping approach to their markets. But if they don't do it, you and I will put them out of business in no time. Because the truth is this: put it in the end of The People and we'll make sure we screw it up faster than you can say "shady and immoral business practices".