Is Apple The New Microsoft?

Varg Vikernes writes "Even if you don't count Apple's actions this week as a potential threat to first amendment rights (Apple's crackdown on Web sites that love the company), they do nothing to bolster Apple's public image. In fact the company's success of late has yielded accusations of bullying and potentially unlawful business tactics, along with complaints about the fact that songs purchased from its iTunes music service don't work with music players other than its own. According to Forbes, to some these tactics sound like something Apple's neighbor to the North might employ. They wonder aloud Is Apple the New Microsoft?

Comments

Forbes trolling

[eo]

I see that Varg Vikernes was snagged by Forbes' trolling for readership... Oh well. :-/

Is...

[Who_else_but_me]

...Cornwall the new Soho? - Private Eye

Re:No iTunes for Linux

[IamTheRealMike]

then over few days you'll get modded down with 'overrated'. why? because apple zealots read the stories even when they're old, normal people that would agree with your valid points don't read old apple stories.

A few days? I should be so lucky. That post went from +5 Insightful to +0 Redundant in about 20 minutes. That sort of thing does not make these discussions more interesting.

I'd like to say that's unusual, but it's not. I've had "-1 Insightful" posts on Apple stories before (but nothing else). If people are going to moderate, they should read the moderation guidelines: mod up the good posts, don't mod down unless it's clearly noise (GNAA posts etc).

Re:Yikes

[northcat]

How am I overrated? No one ever even states my point. This is just anothe case of "Mod silencing" - mods modding down registered users simply because they disagree with them, so that the users will get bad karma and have low initial scores and are therefore silenced.

Re:No iTunes for Linux

[UnrefinedLayman]

It is useful to be able to have a way for moderators who know more to come along and mod something back down because it really isn't as good as its current mod bonus claims.

And it's very detrimental to have a way for moderators who know far less come along and undo what was fair with which to begin. That's the reason why the moderation system is broken. The rules of the system enable the system's failure, and the editors seem content to ride it all the way down.

Re:No iTunes for Linux

[Ohreally_factor]

I've had posts modded "overrated" when it hadn't even been modded up in the first place. Clearly abuse, whether intentional or unintentional (in the case of a moderator not understanding the use of the overrated mod).