Let's look at world history here as an example. The few that were in power (the royalty of Europe and Asia between 1000 and 1700 AD) were actually a very small number of people. The czars, emperors, and kings all had a very limited perspective and an inflated sense of self worth. In essense they had a monopoly on power. They all thought they had more to offer and were smarter than the masses.
In every case the masses overcame the gentry and have long since moved on. Yes there are still some royals around but are any of them in power? From Japan and China in the East, through the czars in Russia, and on to the kings of Prussia, France and England. Arguably none of them are in power even though some still maintain a token existance. They all had a vested interest in keeping down the masses. Whether they (the rulers) like it or not, FUD or not, people tend to overthrow the rulers they don't like.
If I were one of these big companies I would seriously consider what the masses really want. They should try and become part of the solution before the masses realize how to overthrow the problem. Democracy is Open Source.
I would love to buy an ipod but honestly, would it lead me to buying an apple computer? I doubt it. I tried really really hard to justify buying their hardware (a 15" powerbook) but in the end, it was just too expensive. I ended up getting an HP laptop (yeah yeah, no slot load dvdrw) for about $1000 less and all of the other features. It use both WinXP and Linux on it.
If it costs that much to manufacture a powerbook that they can justify asking for an extra $1k they need to re-examine their manufacturing process. If it doesn't, hey, they're gouging the guts out of their customers and won't have as many as they could. From my window it looks like the later. I'd have gone through with buying the PB but, the cost just wasn't reasonble. As a matter of fact, I was in the market for 5 laptops for people that work for me. In the end we have 5 HP's now due to cost and performance.
Sorry Apple, you missed the boat. I hope you stay around but I for one can't afford you.
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Let's look at world history here as an example. The few that were in power (the royalty of Europe and Asia between 1000 and 1700 AD) were actually a very small number of people. The czars, emperors, and kings all had a very limited perspective and an inflated sense of self worth. In essense they had a monopoly on power. They all thought they had more to offer and were smarter than the masses.
In every case the masses overcame the gentry and have long since moved on. Yes there are still some royals around but are any of them in power? From Japan and China in the East, through the czars in Russia, and on to the kings of Prussia, France and England. Arguably none of them are in power even though some still maintain a token existance. They all had a vested interest in keeping down the masses. Whether they (the rulers) like it or not, FUD or not, people tend to overthrow the rulers they don't like.
If I were one of these big companies I would seriously consider what the masses really want. They should try and become part of the solution before the masses realize how to overthrow the problem. Democracy is Open Source.
I would love to buy an ipod but honestly, would it lead me to buying an apple computer? I doubt it. I tried really really hard to justify buying their hardware (a 15" powerbook) but in the end, it was just too expensive. I ended up getting an HP laptop (yeah yeah, no slot load dvdrw) for about $1000 less and all of the other features. It use both WinXP and Linux on it.
If it costs that much to manufacture a powerbook that they can justify asking for an extra $1k they need to re-examine their manufacturing process. If it doesn't, hey, they're gouging the guts out of their customers and won't have as many as they could. From my window it looks like the later. I'd have gone through with buying the PB but, the cost just wasn't reasonble. As a matter of fact, I was in the market for 5 laptops for people that work for me. In the end we have 5 HP's now due to cost and performance.
Sorry Apple, you missed the boat. I hope you stay around but I for one can't afford you.