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How come Apple get a pass on the “Evil Empire” tag.
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[Michael Hadley] “That said, anyone who “hates” corporations in general is silly. That’s like hating highways or airplanes. Each is unique and should be liked or not on its own merits.”
You’ve got to face it, there are plenty of people who hate large corporations and their view is that if billions are made then something shady is going on (though this generally doesn’t keep them from shopping at Target if they can save a few bucks).
Frankly corps in America aren’t doing much to abrogate that image with government bailouts and crazy income inequality between CEOs and the rest of us.
I have to admit my own inclinations (backed by history) is not to trust the rich. Corporations are necessary, but I feel if they had their way we would be working 7-day; 120-hour work weeks for peanuts and spending more than we made each week at the company store.
But my own pinko sentiments aside, I just find it odd that so many that hate big business give Apple a pass.
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[Paul Jay] “Its so funny that Apple is the first one to be critized while Google openly is in bed with CIA/NSA.
Using Apple products is still a choice but Google is in your face everywhere.”I don’t know anybody that openly defends Google the way they do Apple.
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Well, look. Google’s main line of biz is selling ads. On the list of cool things that make life better, that ain’t one of them.
The free stuff–search, maps,–are great. But we all pay for it by receiving those ads. I’m cool with that but it doesn’t get me excited.
A new tower with lots of options–now that would get me excited.
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People protect what they have. The more they have the more fierce the protection.
Tim
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[Paul Jay] “All companies that become too big end up evil.
Its inevitable in a democratic capitalist system where everything is for sale.”And what happens with these companies in non-democratic capitalist systems?
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Apple was the upstart that struggled against the mighty Microsoft for many years. In general, it made a more stable OS run on UNIX while Microsoft was plagued with virus and registry issues. Apple has had some bombs but under Steve Jobs, its made pretty good products. I don’t think anyone minds a corporation making billions as long as they don’t make crap. Personally, I see apple declining under Tim Cook. He just doesn’t have the vision and I predict their products will start to look more and more “normal” (aka boring) as time goes on. But until one of us runs a billion dollar company, I guess we can’t judge…
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Certainly, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
These are all multinational, multibillion dollar companies who answer to no one but the all-mighty shareholder, and the I.P. lawyers.
Unless you are not buying or using any electronics, all of this is lip service.
My guess is that the cheaper you get, the worse those little manufacturing plants are in the remote and smoky China manufacturing towns. Switching to Windows and the machines that run them for political purpose is not a good trade off, or a noble trade off, in my opinion. Since Apple is a giant target at this point in history due to their massive amount of global success, their story has been most recently brought to the forefront, and they actually have the cash and influence to do something about it if they want to. Their stance thus far has been they won’t “do shit, unless…”, and it seems that Foxxconn reacted with wage increases and Apple says they’ll try and do more.
This is not a problem unique to Apple, this is the way of the global economy.
I understand that Apple’s image is fading in certain parts of this community. The shine may be wearing off, but it’s not rainbows and unicorns out there, we need to be honest about this.
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Most of this stuff only matters to old people like us. Facebook and Google messing with your privacy? I’ve never heard anybody as old as their 30s complain about this. The head of one of those companies said, paraphrasing, “there’s no such thing as privacy when people are giving us their information almost more quickly than we can collect it.”
Guess which one? I actually don’t remember. It really was one of ’em, but coulda been either.
iPhone 4 antenna? The issue is still there in the phones people are buying today.
I’m not trying to wave aside the idea that there aren’t evil companies, but even in our business, among the Mac partisans who first called Microsoft the Evil Empire, haven’t they descended to little more than hapless boobs?
The companies I think of as evil are (in my eyes) cutting wide swaths of greed, corruption and death, and Foxconn notwithstanding, I don’t see Apple fitting the bill. Neither do Google, Facebook, or even LinkedIn, whose business model is built on charging you money to see the information that you’ve given them.
To the point that someone made in another thread about politics, Steve said in an interview I’ve linked to before, “I don’t owe anybody anything because people like my stuff.” It’s no coincidence that the two rounds of dividends happened when Steve wasn’t around -but was his way evil? I don’t think so.
(I do find it interesting that Bill’s wife said, okay, you’re the richest man in the history of the world, now be the guy who has given away the most money in the history of the world, and he’s arguably there, and nowhere near through.I don’t think he thinks he OWES anybody anything. He also didn’t do it while he was working at msft. I think he and Steve rightly felt that their primary responsibility as corporate dudes was to create wealth for investors, the end. The question that Bill’s wife posed is, yeah, you’ve fulfilled your OBLIGATION, but wouldn’t it be cool to take advantage of this OPPORTUNITY?)
The more interesting question to me is, is ANYBODY considered evil anymore by anybody but geezers and pundits? And politicians – but something something punchline here.
As much as I’ve spent over half my life in nearly constant outrage over something, things are close enough to okay for me to give dough to my favorite causes and let the rest go.
Does that make me evil?
But I certainly think that for the pups, big equaling evil is long gone, if it was ever there. I’d love for them to pick up where I left of on the outrage thing….but only if they agree with me. LOL Otherwise they can stfu and keep their white earplugs plugged in. LOL
But there’s no way that Apple can do anything that’s actually feasible and even get mentioned in the fine print on the list of evil companies, is there? Asked with a rising intonation to suggest that the question isn’t entirely rhetorical….
Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou -
Nothing haappens, These companies feel at ease because the non democratic government does the dirty work for them. Hence capitalism and communisim like each other. Strange bedfellows but very productive these days.
Richard
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[Richard Cardonna] “These companies feel at ease because the non democratic government does the dirty work for them”
Funny how certain people don’t seem to get this. Or act like there are no rich people in other economic systems.
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