This is running afield. My fundamental point has never been that Apple hasn't violated, or potentially violated some section of Norwegian law. My contention is that what Apple is doing is not actually harmful to consumers. It may be inconvenient in some cases, but that's not the same thing as harm. There's a fundamental difference.
If you'll recall, my original reply to you said that Apple's likely action will be to simply shutter the iTunes Store in Norway.
I don't challenge the notion that Norway can declare anything it wants to illegal. I challenge the deeper, and wrong, assumption that that's evidence of harm on its face.
When consumers in Norway suss out the implications of this action on the part of the CO, they're likely to realize that moving forward on this will likely end in one result: a loss of consumer choices for Norway, and the end of the iTunes business there. If or when that happens, I suspect most of the bluster coming from the CO will quiet down, and I said as much originally.
Your basic failure to understand the facts at hand is the problem. The office of the Consumer Ombudsman isn't empowered to declare anything illegal with no recourse to the challenged party. Regurgitating blog posts which themselves don't actually have all the facts aren't actual evidence in support of your position.
In the future, if you expect your opinions to be taken seriously, resorting to ad hominem when the rest of your argument is running out of gas is a poor strategy.
Let me spoon feed you (fair warning, I won't just be regurgitating a blog post here).
"The Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman enforces the Marketing Control Act as well as certain parts of the regulatory framework governing advertising in broadcasting. The CO is an independent administrative body with the responsibility of supervising measures in the market and seeking to influence traders to observe the regulatory framework. The CO considers cases upon complaints from consumers, traders and upon his own initiative.
Through negotiations with traders the CO tries to arrive at voluntary arrangements. Upon failure to do so, the CO may submit the case to the Market Council which is a court of law in that field. The CO and the Market Council have the authority to issue decisions banning unlawful marketing and contract terms and conditions in standard contracts when deemed necessary in the interests of consumers in Norway."
(http://www.econsumer.gov/english/contentfiles/cou ntry/norway/handle.html)
The Ombudsman isn't empowered to "declare" anything illegal and that's the end of it, despite your apparent misunderstanding to that effect. The office of the Ombudsman is a regulatory body that can, at its option file a legal proceeding in the absence of a voluntary agreement. That proceeding will ultimately determine the outcome of a given case, if a voluntary agreement cannot be reached.
The article's poor assumptions are the meat of the matter, aren't they?
Apple will be taken to court, a court decision will be rendered, and Apple will follow through with whatever appeals processes are allowed under Norweigian law. This isn't simply one person with an opinion declaring Apple's DRM scheme illegal. Rather than lambasting me on the (false) assumption that I didn't read the article, you'd do better to realize that the article in question is a bit of sensationalist crap.
The ombudsman has set a deadline for Apple to change its EULA before they'll file a court case. The outcome of the case itself will determine the legality or illegality of the matter.
Maybe you should go back to trying to insult me, given that that's the only thing I haven't been able to rebut with facts. You still have no real argument.
The money issue was yours originally. You claim that time spent is money lost for consumers looking to switch platforms, and indeed, it is, but in the real world we recognize that Apple is a business, not a charitable organization and that any time I spend doing anything at all could be equated to money...
It's also well known that the reason Apple makes iTunes and the iPod a symbiosis is because the iTunes store is at or near breakeven for Apple. They make money selling iPods. That's their business model, which is what I said originally. It sounds like you don't like that model, and that's fine, but it's selfish for you to demand that I shouldn't like that business model simply because you don't.
If you're going to bring up money lost on the part of consumers, Apple's potential losses in its iPod and iTunes businesses become relevant.
"What's this "money-losing" BS... do you really think Apple will be unable to make a profit now that their scheme has been recognized as illegal? That their products have to be tied together because they can't compete on their own merits?"
That's the problem: you refuse to acknowledge that the iPod is doing exactly that.
It has yet to be determined that iTunes DRM is illegal anywhere. Calling it illegal now is just more evidence of anti-Apple bias.
If Apple, at some future point, removes the option of burning iTunes purchases to a standard, unprotected Audio CD, then I'll agree with you that that's a legitimate case for lock-in.
But that hasn't happened, and you've got to evidence that it's going to.
Look at it this way: it's up to the market to come up with a player that's so much better than the iPod that I'll want it enough to justify the time spent re-encoding my music for it...
...because that's precisely what Apple did when they launched the iPod itself. The product was so good -- so much better than the alternatives on the market at the time -- that it was worth buying it and going to the trouble of ripping my CD collection in order to have content to play on it.
The market's failure to come up with a better product than Apple's current offerings is not a legitimate case for regulating Apple into a money-losing position.
Show me evidence, please, for the case you're making (that Apple's actions make it deserving of market regulation): show me where Apple has prevented iTunes purchases from being converted to a non-DRM format (they haven't). Show me where Apple has abused its position in the market to prevent other music stores from launching (they haven't). Show me where Apple has abused its market position to prevent competing hardware players from entering the market -- say it with me: they haven't.
Nothing Apple has done to date fits any reasonable definition of consumer harm. It may not meet your standard of an ideal set of end-user options, but that's simply not the same thing. Apple has no obligation to satisfy your specific needs.
"Sorry. The harm is obvious to any rational observer: iPod customers with a large library of iTMS music are forced to choose between giving up their music libraries, converting them at great expense, or continuing to buy iPods"
You've made that argument several times. You've yet to demonstrate that that constitutes harm. That's the point you keep trying gloss over. It isn't harm just because it may present an inconvenience to me at an unspecified future time.
If I choose to buy Apple's DRMmed music, it's up to me to make my own choices about what to buy next, and whether or not the features of the next player justify the time and effort involved in ripping my iTunes purchases to Audio CD and re-encoding them for my next player.
That's not lock-in, no matter how many times you make a claim that it is. It may be inconvenient, and none of the other players or music stores currently on the market may justify the time and effort on my part to re-rip my library, but that's a personal decision for me to make, not a compelling argument for Apple to be forced into a money-losing business position. It's simply not a legitimate case for market regulation. Claiming that it is is not evidence. Show me some evidence and we'll be getting somewhere.
Again, you're confusing the idea that Apple must be legally compelled to provide you with your idealized set of choices (major label music using Apple's in-house developed DRM, on non-Apple music players) with something that can be legitimately claimed to be HARMFUL. Come up with an example of actual harm and I'll likely agree with you. So far, your claims rest on the following:
1. Customers are too stupid to know better, so...
2. Apple should be compelled to lose money.
If Apple held a monopoly position in the digital music market, your criticism might be valid, but they don't.
You can choose a different player, and you can choose a different DRM scheme (or none at all) if you shop around. The myth you keep promoting here is that iTunes is the only game in town -- they're not, either in the US, or in Europe. The most popular one, perhaps, but not the only possible choice. Your entire argument rests on sticking it to Apple and proving how evil they are, and given the actual state of the market, that's silly, no matter how many Apple products you claim you own.
"Let's just get rid of all the trade regulations while we're at it - who cares about monopolies? So what if you have to pay more for stuff? I now realize that as long as you aren't physically poisoned, it's OK. Thanks for enlightening me."
You can backpedal now, if you like, and try to pretend that wasn't an attempt to class Apple as a monopoly.
"How can they be "competing openly" while at the same time locking their customers in? Open competition would be "here's our music player, use it"
...because customers aren't "locked in" to anything. If the only format the iPod played was protected AAC, you might have a point, but of course the iPod plays a half a dozen audio formats, only one of which employs DRM.
Further, you either choose to agree with Apple's business model, or you don't. If you don't, buy a different DAP, and patronize a different music retailer. The difference you're refusing to acknowledge here is that there's a huge difference between the notion of harm and the (vastly different) notion that Apple should be compelled to provide you with your ideal set of options. The market will provide you with different choices, if Apple's model doesn't satisfy you.
"Please, you're embarrassing yourself with these fantasies. I own an iPod and I'm typing this on a PowerBook."
...and some of your best friends are Jewish? You own a Mac and an iPod? So what? Singling out Apple for special ire here is silly, and doesn't have a legitimate defense.
You've already tried to describe Apple as a monopoly, here. Given that, you seem to be operating under the assumption that large market share equals monopoly - it doesn't. Monopolies are defined by their ability to prevent competitors from entering a given market. Apple - regardless of iPod or iTunes market share at present - is unable to do this.
If Apple becomes a monopolist in the digital music market, they'll deserve to be regulated. This is just as hyperbolic as your last set of complaints.
Really, what this boils down to, I think, is less an altruistic desire to see consumers protected from mean old Apple (because it has yet to be demonstrated by anybody that Apple is harming consumers), and more a desire to put Apple back in its place. That's fine, as long as you're honest about it. But to dress up your Apple-specific issues as some kind of altruistic campaign in defense of consumers (whom you've already described as too stupid to know better) isn't a winning strategy in the long term.
A large portion of the market that's interested in buying digital music chooses Apple's product. A large portion of the market that's interested in using a digital music player also chooses Apple's product. They've made those products successful by competing openly in the market (unlike Microsoft) and giving (most) people what they want. To dress up your complaint as some kind of defense of consumer choice ignores the crucial fact that you just don't like the choice most of the market has already made.
Will something come along that will change the market and unseat Apple as the dominant player in the digital music space? Probably. No product is a hit forever. But attacking Apple for its success in this instance isn't about defending your poor dumb consumers too stupid to buy something else.
The point you're avoiding is that purchasing a luxury item, like an iPod, or non-essentials like entertainment media just isn't the same thing. You KNOW it isn't, which is why you're trying to muddy the waters with silly and exaggerated comparisons that (of course) don't wash.
And when buying DRM music in iTunes causes measurable *human harm* in the same way that working for poverty wages, taking dangrous medicines or eating poisoned meat do, then Apple will deserve to be regulaed.
It's not really that difficult to suss out the difference here, is it? The *best* you can come up with is hyperbole?
Next.
Yes, iTunes and the iPod have a symbiotic relationship. Yes, Apple has a business model that promotes the two. Yes, it's not in Apple's model to allow competing players to have access to iTunes content, but...
To pretend that Apple is engaging in something harmful to consumers, here, is utterly silly.
Consumers make the choice to buy an iPod, or not.
Consumers make the choice to buy iTunes DRM tracks, nor not.
If this is going to turn into a comparison with Microsoft, it's worth remembering that most people *didn't* choose to purchase Windows; Microsoft got into trouble at least partly for abusing its monopoly to force OEM's to *bundle* Windows.
Given the success of the iPod over the last several years, for anybody to pretend they don't understand Apple's business model is just dishonest.
Apple made the best deal they could with the labels that still allowed them to actually make some money - by selling iPods. The iTunes store is, as most people understand, breakeven at best.
Given that, I suspect most of the saber-rattling here will quiet down when Apple makes it clear that the combined revenues from Norway, France and Germany's iTunes Stores are microscopic when compared to the iPod business. They'll simply shutter the iTunes stores in those countries, and the consumers complaining about lock in will be free to use something else...which, of course, they already are, but the markets overwhelmingly choose not to because those options largely suck.
The anti-fanboys are taking what they think is Apple's implied marketing position to new levels.
Apple doesn't represent the Nano as being indestructible. Apple doesn't claim that it'll survive in your pocket scratch-free. They say it'll FIT in your pocket. Utterly different idea.
No, they're pretty big endorsements of the fact that the Nano is really, really small. Nowhere does Apple say "durable enough to stand up to keys, crumbs, coins and your 14-threadcount cotton pocket lining." They say, "it's really, REALLY freakin' small. Here, watch Steve pull it from his change pocket. It's THAT small."
The pocket-marketing is about size.
The balance of power is, unfortunately, overwhelmingly in the labels' favor, not Apple's. Apple isn't quite the same thing as a retailer that the labels (think they) need to move their product. From their view, I think they still view Apple as a niche player, and the iTunes Music Store as an experiment, a way to get their feet wet doing digital music, until the "real" business model emerges, preferably a model that strongly favors their interests -- i.e. fat, fat, superfat profit margins, with artists footing most or all of the promotional costs (hello, recoupables). They seem to strongly favor subscriptions over even tiered pricing, so they can essentially rent the same content, over and over again. Protecting the fiefdom at all costs...
Hell, with digital distribution even packaging costs are going away...
Sure, this isn't about record company greed at all...
Please note: I'm not a Mac user who's looking for Linux to fail.
I'm a Mac user looking for Linux to succeed.
You're just not going to succeed with what you're currently offering. Could there be a magical tipping point where Linux on the desktop may take off? Sure. But there's more to success than raw sales numbers.
It's not enough to merely reproduce the Windows user experience.
Linux has an opportunity to be better than Windows. So far, all folks seem to be targeting is "as good as Windows, when or if we get around to it."
That's a shame. Linux could be a real alternative to Windows, instead of just cheaper than Windows. It would be a huge missed opportunity if the Linux community thinks that "cheaper" should trump "better."
That's why desktop-targeting Linux distros won't sway current Mac users, and why the possibilty of cheaper x86 Macs represents a significant potential threat to Linux on the low to middle range of the consumer market. Apple doesn't need to license OS X to all and sundry to make this happen. They just need to make x86 Macs a bit cheaper than they are currently, at the low end of their product line.
I think the fairly obvious muddy waters through all of this fails to recognize that there's a fairly significant difference between desktop-targeting Linux distros like Linspire, which is at least trying to break out of the hacker market, and and Linux as a whole.
It's not about OS X displacing Redhat or whatever in the server room. It's about OS X displacing Linspire and Xandros from the market they're trying to establish.
As I said, it's far from sure that x86 Macs will be vastly cheaper than PPC Macs are now -- I think it's unlikely that we'll see Macs hitting the price points Dell manages on the low end -- but even a small downward shift on the low end of Apple's price points should be a reason for Linspire and Xandros (not Linux as a whole) to at least pay attention.
The hardware lockdown scenario goes back to my first point: Apple doesn't need to make it impossible to install OS X on a Whitebox PC, just troublesome. The consumer market that Apple targets isn't going to deal with installation and configuration hassles of the sort that your average geek might consider trivial.
Unless or until using Linux is as consistent and easy as OS X (or even Windows XP), Linux will continue to face an uphill battle to move outside of the hobbyist/Linux evangelist core user base. The idea that Linux is going to have to adapt to actually compete in the consumer space is apt, and nobody's yet come up with a good argument against that idea. The whole of this seems to hinge on the idea that Apple won't be competing against "free." That's utterly beside the point.
The Linux commmunity's steadfast refusal to recognize these facts is key to why Linux hasn't caught on fire in the desktop/consumer markets.
Of course, your average PC user won't go through the hassle of installing a small Linux system to run OS X, but your average Linux user will, which is the subject of this current topic.
...which is, of course, central to the point at hand. Apple doesn't have to make it impossible to install OS X on a whitebox PC, just enough of a hassle that 95% of the market won't care to deal with it. Whatever hoops hackbeings may be able to jump through to get OS X to boot on a commodity PC is largely beside the point. The relevant issue is what will Apple support, and what will most of the market be interested in using?
That's also not coincidentally why Apple on x86 should at least be on the radar of Linux distros targeting the desktop. It's a big "what-if" that x86 Macs will be vastly cheaper (they probably won't be), but if the price differential shifts down even a little (which is at least possible, I think), that could make a real difference to folks considering Windows alternatives. Sure, for the folks who want the cheapest possible useful desktop PC, an x86 Mac running Mac OS X won't be an option, but that's already the case for those folks.
But there's more to consider than just the absolute bottom end of the market.
There was something in Owen Linzmayer's book, if I'm remembering correctly...personell wouldn't actually process anybody's termination unless they'd been fired by Jobs multiple times. He was fond of tossing off "you're all FIRED!" as a general purpose expression of displeasure.
Rendezvous/Bonjour makes TCP/IP as automatic as AppleTalk was; that's what they "copied," if anything. Mac users were used to automatic service discovery, printer sharing and so on, without worrying about whether or not TCP/IP was manually configured, using DHCP, and so on... (and on...)
Bonjour does for TCP/IP what AppleTalk did for Mac networking years ago.
Hot-button fallacies aside, this is about how much time Apple should devote to making the lives of KHTML developers easier.
If those developers absolutely want stuff like CVS histories and changelogs provided, they need to make sure it ends up in whatever license they're releasing under. Apple is a big company with about three thousand other things that need to take priority. Making the lives of open source developers easier may be warm and fuzzy, but it's not important.
The flaw is in the GPL, if it doesn't provide KHTML developers with what they want.
Apple are "giving back" what they're required to under the license for which they obtained KHTML source. The complaint here is that Apple isn't doing more than is required of them by that license.
Slashdot Mirror
Check the original URL. See the "blogs.pcworld.com" bit at the beginning? That's a blog post.
This is running afield. My fundamental point has never been that Apple hasn't violated, or potentially violated some section of Norwegian law. My contention is that what Apple is doing is not actually harmful to consumers. It may be inconvenient in some cases, but that's not the same thing as harm. There's a fundamental difference. If you'll recall, my original reply to you said that Apple's likely action will be to simply shutter the iTunes Store in Norway. I don't challenge the notion that Norway can declare anything it wants to illegal. I challenge the deeper, and wrong, assumption that that's evidence of harm on its face. When consumers in Norway suss out the implications of this action on the part of the CO, they're likely to realize that moving forward on this will likely end in one result: a loss of consumer choices for Norway, and the end of the iTunes business there. If or when that happens, I suspect most of the bluster coming from the CO will quiet down, and I said as much originally.
Your basic failure to understand the facts at hand is the problem. The office of the Consumer Ombudsman isn't empowered to declare anything illegal with no recourse to the challenged party. Regurgitating blog posts which themselves don't actually have all the facts aren't actual evidence in support of your position. In the future, if you expect your opinions to be taken seriously, resorting to ad hominem when the rest of your argument is running out of gas is a poor strategy.
"The Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman enforces the Marketing Control Act as well as certain parts of the regulatory framework governing advertising in broadcasting. The CO is an independent administrative body with the responsibility of supervising measures in the market and seeking to influence traders to observe the regulatory framework. The CO considers cases upon complaints from consumers, traders and upon his own initiative.
Through negotiations with traders the CO tries to arrive at voluntary arrangements. Upon failure to do so, the CO may submit the case to the Market Council which is a court of law in that field. The CO and the Market Council have the authority to issue decisions banning unlawful marketing and contract terms and conditions in standard contracts when deemed necessary in the interests of consumers in Norway." (http://www.econsumer.gov/english/contentfiles/cou ntry/norway/handle.html)
The Ombudsman isn't empowered to "declare" anything illegal and that's the end of it, despite your apparent misunderstanding to that effect. The office of the Ombudsman is a regulatory body that can, at its option file a legal proceeding in the absence of a voluntary agreement. That proceeding will ultimately determine the outcome of a given case, if a voluntary agreement cannot be reached.
The article's poor assumptions are the meat of the matter, aren't they? Apple will be taken to court, a court decision will be rendered, and Apple will follow through with whatever appeals processes are allowed under Norweigian law. This isn't simply one person with an opinion declaring Apple's DRM scheme illegal. Rather than lambasting me on the (false) assumption that I didn't read the article, you'd do better to realize that the article in question is a bit of sensationalist crap. The ombudsman has set a deadline for Apple to change its EULA before they'll file a court case. The outcome of the case itself will determine the legality or illegality of the matter. Maybe you should go back to trying to insult me, given that that's the only thing I haven't been able to rebut with facts. You still have no real argument.
Trolling? Pot, meet kettle. You have no real argument, so your only option is to try and insult me. Grow up.
The money issue was yours originally. You claim that time spent is money lost for consumers looking to switch platforms, and indeed, it is, but in the real world we recognize that Apple is a business, not a charitable organization and that any time I spend doing anything at all could be equated to money... It's also well known that the reason Apple makes iTunes and the iPod a symbiosis is because the iTunes store is at or near breakeven for Apple. They make money selling iPods. That's their business model, which is what I said originally. It sounds like you don't like that model, and that's fine, but it's selfish for you to demand that I shouldn't like that business model simply because you don't. If you're going to bring up money lost on the part of consumers, Apple's potential losses in its iPod and iTunes businesses become relevant.
"What's this "money-losing" BS... do you really think Apple will be unable to make a profit now that their scheme has been recognized as illegal? That their products have to be tied together because they can't compete on their own merits?" That's the problem: you refuse to acknowledge that the iPod is doing exactly that. It has yet to be determined that iTunes DRM is illegal anywhere. Calling it illegal now is just more evidence of anti-Apple bias.
But that hasn't happened, and you've got to evidence that it's going to.
Look at it this way: it's up to the market to come up with a player that's so much better than the iPod that I'll want it enough to justify the time spent re-encoding my music for it...
The market's failure to come up with a better product than Apple's current offerings is not a legitimate case for regulating Apple into a money-losing position.
Show me evidence, please, for the case you're making (that Apple's actions make it deserving of market regulation): show me where Apple has prevented iTunes purchases from being converted to a non-DRM format (they haven't). Show me where Apple has abused its position in the market to prevent other music stores from launching (they haven't). Show me where Apple has abused its market position to prevent competing hardware players from entering the market -- say it with me: they haven't.
Nothing Apple has done to date fits any reasonable definition of consumer harm. It may not meet your standard of an ideal set of end-user options, but that's simply not the same thing. Apple has no obligation to satisfy your specific needs.
You've made that argument several times. You've yet to demonstrate that that constitutes harm. That's the point you keep trying gloss over. It isn't harm just because it may present an inconvenience to me at an unspecified future time.
If I choose to buy Apple's DRMmed music, it's up to me to make my own choices about what to buy next, and whether or not the features of the next player justify the time and effort involved in ripping my iTunes purchases to Audio CD and re-encoding them for my next player.
That's not lock-in, no matter how many times you make a claim that it is. It may be inconvenient, and none of the other players or music stores currently on the market may justify the time and effort on my part to re-rip my library, but that's a personal decision for me to make, not a compelling argument for Apple to be forced into a money-losing business position. It's simply not a legitimate case for market regulation. Claiming that it is is not evidence. Show me some evidence and we'll be getting somewhere.
Again, you're confusing the idea that Apple must be legally compelled to provide you with your idealized set of choices (major label music using Apple's in-house developed DRM, on non-Apple music players) with something that can be legitimately claimed to be HARMFUL. Come up with an example of actual harm and I'll likely agree with you. So far, your claims rest on the following: 1. Customers are too stupid to know better, so... 2. Apple should be compelled to lose money. If Apple held a monopoly position in the digital music market, your criticism might be valid, but they don't. You can choose a different player, and you can choose a different DRM scheme (or none at all) if you shop around. The myth you keep promoting here is that iTunes is the only game in town -- they're not, either in the US, or in Europe. The most popular one, perhaps, but not the only possible choice. Your entire argument rests on sticking it to Apple and proving how evil they are, and given the actual state of the market, that's silly, no matter how many Apple products you claim you own.
"Let's just get rid of all the trade regulations while we're at it - who cares about monopolies? So what if you have to pay more for stuff? I now realize that as long as you aren't physically poisoned, it's OK. Thanks for enlightening me."
You can backpedal now, if you like, and try to pretend that wasn't an attempt to class Apple as a monopoly.
"How can they be "competing openly" while at the same time locking their customers in? Open competition would be "here's our music player, use it"
Further, you either choose to agree with Apple's business model, or you don't. If you don't, buy a different DAP, and patronize a different music retailer. The difference you're refusing to acknowledge here is that there's a huge difference between the notion of harm and the (vastly different) notion that Apple should be compelled to provide you with your ideal set of options. The market will provide you with different choices, if Apple's model doesn't satisfy you.
"Please, you're embarrassing yourself with these fantasies. I own an iPod and I'm typing this on a PowerBook."
You've already tried to describe Apple as a monopoly, here. Given that, you seem to be operating under the assumption that large market share equals monopoly - it doesn't. Monopolies are defined by their ability to prevent competitors from entering a given market. Apple - regardless of iPod or iTunes market share at present - is unable to do this.
If Apple becomes a monopolist in the digital music market, they'll deserve to be regulated. This is just as hyperbolic as your last set of complaints.
Really, what this boils down to, I think, is less an altruistic desire to see consumers protected from mean old Apple (because it has yet to be demonstrated by anybody that Apple is harming consumers), and more a desire to put Apple back in its place. That's fine, as long as you're honest about it. But to dress up your Apple-specific issues as some kind of altruistic campaign in defense of consumers (whom you've already described as too stupid to know better) isn't a winning strategy in the long term.
A large portion of the market that's interested in buying digital music chooses Apple's product. A large portion of the market that's interested in using a digital music player also chooses Apple's product. They've made those products successful by competing openly in the market (unlike Microsoft) and giving (most) people what they want. To dress up your complaint as some kind of defense of consumer choice ignores the crucial fact that you just don't like the choice most of the market has already made.
Will something come along that will change the market and unseat Apple as the dominant player in the digital music space? Probably. No product is a hit forever. But attacking Apple for its success in this instance isn't about defending your poor dumb consumers too stupid to buy something else.
The point you're avoiding is that purchasing a luxury item, like an iPod, or non-essentials like entertainment media just isn't the same thing. You KNOW it isn't, which is why you're trying to muddy the waters with silly and exaggerated comparisons that (of course) don't wash.
And when buying DRM music in iTunes causes measurable *human harm* in the same way that working for poverty wages, taking dangrous medicines or eating poisoned meat do, then Apple will deserve to be regulaed. It's not really that difficult to suss out the difference here, is it? The *best* you can come up with is hyperbole? Next.
Yes, iTunes and the iPod have a symbiotic relationship. Yes, Apple has a business model that promotes the two. Yes, it's not in Apple's model to allow competing players to have access to iTunes content, but...
To pretend that Apple is engaging in something harmful to consumers, here, is utterly silly.
Consumers make the choice to buy an iPod, or not.
Consumers make the choice to buy iTunes DRM tracks, nor not.
If this is going to turn into a comparison with Microsoft, it's worth remembering that most people *didn't* choose to purchase Windows; Microsoft got into trouble at least partly for abusing its monopoly to force OEM's to *bundle* Windows.
Given the success of the iPod over the last several years, for anybody to pretend they don't understand Apple's business model is just dishonest.
Apple made the best deal they could with the labels that still allowed them to actually make some money - by selling iPods. The iTunes store is, as most people understand, breakeven at best.
Given that, I suspect most of the saber-rattling here will quiet down when Apple makes it clear that the combined revenues from Norway, France and Germany's iTunes Stores are microscopic when compared to the iPod business. They'll simply shutter the iTunes stores in those countries, and the consumers complaining about lock in will be free to use something else...which, of course, they already are, but the markets overwhelmingly choose not to because those options largely suck.
Apple doesn't represent the Nano as being indestructible. Apple doesn't claim that it'll survive in your pocket scratch-free. They say it'll FIT in your pocket. Utterly different idea.
No, they're pretty big endorsements of the fact that the Nano is really, really small. Nowhere does Apple say "durable enough to stand up to keys, crumbs, coins and your 14-threadcount cotton pocket lining." They say, "it's really, REALLY freakin' small. Here, watch Steve pull it from his change pocket. It's THAT small." The pocket-marketing is about size.
The balance of power is, unfortunately, overwhelmingly in the labels' favor, not Apple's. Apple isn't quite the same thing as a retailer that the labels (think they) need to move their product. From their view, I think they still view Apple as a niche player, and the iTunes Music Store as an experiment, a way to get their feet wet doing digital music, until the "real" business model emerges, preferably a model that strongly favors their interests -- i.e. fat, fat, superfat profit margins, with artists footing most or all of the promotional costs (hello, recoupables). They seem to strongly favor subscriptions over even tiered pricing, so they can essentially rent the same content, over and over again. Protecting the fiefdom at all costs... Hell, with digital distribution even packaging costs are going away... Sure, this isn't about record company greed at all...
I'm a Mac user looking for Linux to succeed.
You're just not going to succeed with what you're currently offering. Could there be a magical tipping point where Linux on the desktop may take off? Sure. But there's more to success than raw sales numbers.
It's not enough to merely reproduce the Windows user experience.
Linux has an opportunity to be better than Windows. So far, all folks seem to be targeting is "as good as Windows, when or if we get around to it."
That's a shame. Linux could be a real alternative to Windows, instead of just cheaper than Windows. It would be a huge missed opportunity if the Linux community thinks that "cheaper" should trump "better."
That's why desktop-targeting Linux distros won't sway current Mac users, and why the possibilty of cheaper x86 Macs represents a significant potential threat to Linux on the low to middle range of the consumer market. Apple doesn't need to license OS X to all and sundry to make this happen. They just need to make x86 Macs a bit cheaper than they are currently, at the low end of their product line.
It's not about OS X displacing Redhat or whatever in the server room. It's about OS X displacing Linspire and Xandros from the market they're trying to establish.
As I said, it's far from sure that x86 Macs will be vastly cheaper than PPC Macs are now -- I think it's unlikely that we'll see Macs hitting the price points Dell manages on the low end -- but even a small downward shift on the low end of Apple's price points should be a reason for Linspire and Xandros (not Linux as a whole) to at least pay attention.
The hardware lockdown scenario goes back to my first point: Apple doesn't need to make it impossible to install OS X on a Whitebox PC, just troublesome. The consumer market that Apple targets isn't going to deal with installation and configuration hassles of the sort that your average geek might consider trivial.
Unless or until using Linux is as consistent and easy as OS X (or even Windows XP), Linux will continue to face an uphill battle to move outside of the hobbyist/Linux evangelist core user base. The idea that Linux is going to have to adapt to actually compete in the consumer space is apt, and nobody's yet come up with a good argument against that idea. The whole of this seems to hinge on the idea that Apple won't be competing against "free." That's utterly beside the point.
The Linux commmunity's steadfast refusal to recognize these facts is key to why Linux hasn't caught on fire in the desktop/consumer markets.
There was something in Owen Linzmayer's book, if I'm remembering correctly...personell wouldn't actually process anybody's termination unless they'd been fired by Jobs multiple times. He was fond of tossing off "you're all FIRED!" as a general purpose expression of displeasure.
Rendezvous/Bonjour makes TCP/IP as automatic as AppleTalk was; that's what they "copied," if anything. Mac users were used to automatic service discovery, printer sharing and so on, without worrying about whether or not TCP/IP was manually configured, using DHCP, and so on... (and on...)
Bonjour does for TCP/IP what AppleTalk did for Mac networking years ago.
If those developers absolutely want stuff like CVS histories and changelogs provided, they need to make sure it ends up in whatever license they're releasing under. Apple is a big company with about three thousand other things that need to take priority. Making the lives of open source developers easier may be warm and fuzzy, but it's not important.
The flaw is in the GPL, if it doesn't provide KHTML developers with what they want.
Apple are "giving back" what they're required to under the license for which they obtained KHTML source. The complaint here is that Apple isn't doing more than is required of them by that license.