<story><title>Steve Jobs’ Email Debate With Gawker Blogger</title><url>http://erictric.com/2010/05/15/steve-jobs-email-debate-with-gawker-blogger/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>IdeaHamster</author><text>Key line:
&lt;i&gt;Gosh, why are you so bitter over a technical issue such as this? Its not about freedom, its about Apple trying to do the right thing for its users. Users, developers and publishers can do whatever they like - they don&apos;t have to buy or develop or publish on iPads if they don&apos;t want to&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I have this theory. You see, Apple (mostly) tends to not engage in the all-too-common tricks to try and con you out of your money. Store staff is typically honest and straight-forward, very little pushing and no hidden fees. Apple Care is probably a better value than most extended warrantees, and at least you know you&apos;re going to get Apple&apos;s level of customer service. Yes, there are lock-ins, but they&apos;ve always been a trade-off in order to provide a better experience for their customers (i.e. DRM on iTunes sucks, but it was the only way to get the majors to play ball).&lt;p&gt;In general, Apple believes that you should give them money only if you believe their products are worth it. I think it&apos;s just that we&apos;ve gotten so used to capitalism being such a &lt;i&gt;hostile&lt;/i&gt; activity between producer and consumer that we forget that there was a time when you would&apos;ve &lt;i&gt;wanted&lt;/i&gt; to pay for something. So, it&apos;s no wonder that people want to think that Apple is somehow conning them into giving up their freedom or being locked-down unnecessarily.&lt;p&gt;Really...trust me...you don&apos;t &lt;i&gt;have&lt;/i&gt; to buy an Apple product. No, seriously, you &lt;i&gt;don&apos;t&lt;/i&gt;! So why don&apos;t you take your &quot;freedom&quot; and &quot;open platform&quot; rant and turn it into a &lt;i&gt;why isn&apos;t anyone even close to competing on Apple&apos;s level&lt;/i&gt; missive.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>blehn</author><text>I think that line clarifies what people in the tech industry seem to be missing in this whole controversy: &lt;i&gt;It&apos;s not about developers.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&apos;s about &lt;i&gt;users&lt;/i&gt;, and creating a great experience for them.  Developers getting upset about flash not running on the device, apps getting rejected, etc--that&apos;s just an unintentional side-effect of putting the user first.</text></comment>
<story><title>Steve Jobs’ Email Debate With Gawker Blogger</title><url>http://erictric.com/2010/05/15/steve-jobs-email-debate-with-gawker-blogger/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>IdeaHamster</author><text>Key line:
&lt;i&gt;Gosh, why are you so bitter over a technical issue such as this? Its not about freedom, its about Apple trying to do the right thing for its users. Users, developers and publishers can do whatever they like - they don&apos;t have to buy or develop or publish on iPads if they don&apos;t want to&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I have this theory. You see, Apple (mostly) tends to not engage in the all-too-common tricks to try and con you out of your money. Store staff is typically honest and straight-forward, very little pushing and no hidden fees. Apple Care is probably a better value than most extended warrantees, and at least you know you&apos;re going to get Apple&apos;s level of customer service. Yes, there are lock-ins, but they&apos;ve always been a trade-off in order to provide a better experience for their customers (i.e. DRM on iTunes sucks, but it was the only way to get the majors to play ball).&lt;p&gt;In general, Apple believes that you should give them money only if you believe their products are worth it. I think it&apos;s just that we&apos;ve gotten so used to capitalism being such a &lt;i&gt;hostile&lt;/i&gt; activity between producer and consumer that we forget that there was a time when you would&apos;ve &lt;i&gt;wanted&lt;/i&gt; to pay for something. So, it&apos;s no wonder that people want to think that Apple is somehow conning them into giving up their freedom or being locked-down unnecessarily.&lt;p&gt;Really...trust me...you don&apos;t &lt;i&gt;have&lt;/i&gt; to buy an Apple product. No, seriously, you &lt;i&gt;don&apos;t&lt;/i&gt;! So why don&apos;t you take your &quot;freedom&quot; and &quot;open platform&quot; rant and turn it into a &lt;i&gt;why isn&apos;t anyone even close to competing on Apple&apos;s level&lt;/i&gt; missive.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Osmose</author><text>It makes me angry that a company that appears to go against my ideals is so popular and successful, because I believe my ideals are better. It&apos;s not in any way a good argument, but I might as well admit it rather than claiming otherwise.</text></comment>