The United States has such a complicated relationship with Capitalism. Like – we feel as if the market should solve all of our problems, and then we get litigious if something’s not perfect because somehow that’s better than regulation, or better than looking at a better system overall. It’s absurd how we let “market pressures” rule our Lives and laws, pretending like it’s a moral force.
Whether it’s watching America reach a tipping point with cigarettes: acknowledging that billion-dollar corporations hid information about cancer risks, produced an actively addictive product, marketed to children, and still apparently never did anything truly “against the law” so that these things were settled with fines and penalties, never jail time or real punitive regulations, resulting in us saying “it’s cool if it’s addictive and slowly kills you and those around you, just write THIS on your packaging and send us big checks”… all in the name of freedom? If I’m murdering millions of people by lying to them and fleecing them and letting them get on with it – that should be ILLEGAL, not simply something that gets taxed higher!
Or perhaps the example of the oil industry – again – cognizantly aware of it’s ills, actively hiding evidence and lying about their data – undermining politics and public education with lobbying and false narratives – literally being complicit with the potential environmental catastrophe that could be the end of human civilization as we know it – but we’ll let it slide until Market Pressures change their tune.
Big Data, social media, pharmaceuticals, things attacked with lawsuits, bought off by massive windfalls and out-of-sight / out-of-mind non-consequences. The cash grab frenzy of attacking politically-unpopular deep-pocketed “big pharma” for opioid addiction rather than revamping how we market such drugs to people, actually facing the crass capital commercialism that drives the sales push in the first place.
And now there’s a lawsuit against Apple that smells like another cash grab. Imagined ills at the corporate level for playing the game well.
I’ve used Apple products and am now a Windows-user. I acknowledge the awesomeness of the iPhone but have been an-anything-but phone user moving through the Blackberry, Windows and now Android OSes – all of which have done battle with Apple and have either been found wanting, or risen to the challenge. Apple’s been more integral to the spectacular growth of Android than perhaps even Google, inspiring effectively “the generic” to get better, faster, bigger, sturdier, in an attempt to keep up.
Do any of these lawmakers remember what a “smart phone” WAS before the iPhone came along and changed the world? I remember my T9 texting, and I remember the camera built into my Windows phone. I remember the struggle to keep a Love of my built-in fold-out chicklet keyboards as the flat-glass virtual keyboard of the iPhone got better and better – watching my wife’s phone with envy as Android FINALLY put out something even vaguely comparable…
Apple’s an enclosed ecosystem, and thanks to that they DESERVE to command a higher, premium price point. There are benefits and sacrifices that come with that closed system : lack of third-party support and access and apps and components may read as “monopoly” to those who lack intelligent context – but it’s what assures a certain level of quality and guarantees a lack of third-party problems.
I Love my Android, but it’s not nearly as vetted and secured and problem-free as an iPhone. I Love my PC. I Love pulling it apart, putting it back together, I Love the price point at half the price of a Mac. Is it as clean and pretty? No. Do I have to do more maintenance and put more effort into making sure all those third-party components actually WORK together? Hell yes I do. But all of that goes to show that Apple has, by NO MEANS a monopoly on phones or computers… and beyond that that the closed-garden is both a pro and a con, depending on what the consumer wants. Hell, 40% of America HAS decided it’s a con – and chose something else. Hardly a monopoly.
The argument about the app store is similarly absurd. It’s an intelligently walled-off environment for very good reasons. Apple absolutely maintains a higher standard of quality and security than other app stores. And their 30% surcharge for it? It’s their store, they can charge what they like. No-one seems to be threatening Wegmans with a monopoly lawsuit just because I can buy pasta at Safeway for a third the price. We’re part of that 40% who went and bought something ELSE.
People absolutely will pay extra for cachet, name, convenience and nice packaging – and if we claim that we Love all these market forces and free market, let Apple get along with its bad self and don’t ask it to dumb itself down to allow for some mythical disenfranchised competitor to catch up. That competition is alive and well and doing JUST fine.
And I swear my opinion has NOTHING to do with the amount of APL stock in my portfolio!