In ‘What is Apple up to?’ long-time tech pioneer and general industry curmudgeon, Dave Winer (RSS, Weblogs, Scripting, Web Content Management), opines that Apple and many, if not all, of the tech companies want to get the control back from the users, adding that, “To Apple, a perfect world is one where every moment a user is reading, listening or watching causes cash to flow back to Apple.”
Ooh, evil Apple, controlling Apple, bad Apple. Add to the mush, Apple’s unfortunate decision to sue HTC, the Nexus One-creating Google Android proxy, for patent infringement (thereby turning frienemy Google to outright foe), and for an open systems purist like Dave, it’s conspiracy!
Well, I think that if we tried to pin-point the 'nexus' between building great products, growing great businesses and supporting open systems, we would see, unsurprisingly, that the 'answer' is paradoxical by nature.
In other words, Apple doesn't inherently suck or isn't evil because they have a unified vision that includes: A) being profitable; B) exercising a bit of a 'control drama' around pursuing/realizing their vision; and C) being outcome-driven when it comes to embracing open standards.
No, Apple doesn't suck any more than Dave doesn’t suck or isn’t evil for having a different vision, albeit one that ignores the fundamental truth that most people aren't hackers and tinkerers (and don’t want to be), and more importantly, that the alternative industry computing models haven't been materially better to date.
Think about it. The IBM Era? Hardly democratizing or empowering to the masses. The Microsoft Era? Democratizing yes, but truly great products? No. And ultimately, a zero-sum outcome player.
Google, the Great Open-ish? Yeah, everything is free, loosely coupled and ad-supported, but has it rendered great products, and what about the industries that, poof, have simply blown up and gone away? (NOTHING is free.)
And, relative to the 'Open equals Good' quotient, if any company wants to get rid of the hard drive, push your personals to The Cloud, and own The Index and Data Store, it's Google (Just 'Trust Us').
In that regard, Apple is best analogous to US-style democracy. It sucks until compared to all other forms of industry governance, an aphorism that sagely old Winston Churchill can get behind:
"Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
The grass is always greener...in the abstract.
Related Posts:
- Some thoughts on Apple's patent infringement suit against HTC
- The Chess Masters: Apple v. Google
- Android vs. iPhone: Why Openness May Not Be Best
- Open "ish": The meaning of open, according to Google
- Ruminations on Apple Q1, 2010 Earnings Call and Investor “Dead Zones”
