You severely misunderstand the concept of "lock-in." It's not that there are no costs to switching, it's that the costs are *prohibitive.* Granted, what's prohibitive for one person may not be for another, but I think we can all agree that anyone who can afford an iPod would not find $22 (the average cost of iTunes music on an iPod) prohibitive.
I don't know what makes your post "insightful" when the parent you are responding to doesn't disagree with you. He's not advocating for DRM, only for the legal purchase of music. I'd be interested in reading an insightful rebuttal to that.
Since when is 7% (Jobs's share of Disney) a majority? And how does the power of someone who owns 7% of a company equal that of the CEO? Laura, George is on the computer again!
The difference between Gates's and Jobs's statements is motivation. Gates was pushing DRM before the iPod even existed as another way to lock customers into Windows and as a way for Microsoft to ultimately control digital media. After years of having his clock cleaned by Apple in the sale of digital media, Gates has decided DRM isn't so great after all. Huh.
Jobs, on the other hand, is the king of the digital media hill. I don't think he's a saint, and Apple has certainly benefited some from DRM lock-in (mostly, ironically, in negotiations with the record labels), but for Jobs to advocate ending DRM from a position of strength is quite a bit different from Gates's advocacy from a position of weakness.
I agree with most everything you say except your conclusion. Protecting the Mac from unfair competition with Windows is not greed, it is Jobs's responsibility as CEO of Apple.
Thank you for your explanation, though for the record, I was not attempting humor at all.
People understandably rail against "grammar Nazis" who point out spelling or grammar errors when the meaning of a post is clear. However, "sic" (as another poster noted) is meant to be used in reference to quoted material. I wasn't aware of any quoted material in your post, so I truly did not know what you meant by using it. Since the use of "sic" with non-quoted material is becoming quite popular on the Internet, I was hoping to discover what people meant when they used it. Now I have at least one answer, from which I infer that the new meaning is "I meant to do that" -- which is kind of ironic, actually.
Does anyone know what the poster meant by using "(sic)"? (I'm not asking what "sic" traditionally means. I'm asking what people think it means when they use it on the Internet, because I want to understand this new usage that is becoming prevalent.)
Apple Corps has a valuable library, true. That's not quite the same as the Apple label's value, though, which I would say in 2007 is negligible. Apple Corps more or less equals The Beatles, but it's the Beatles "brand" that has all the value (and gave Apple Corps its latest hit).
When FairPlay was created, I would say the purposes were, in descending order:
1 - Appease the RIAA.
2 - Prevent Microsoft from controlling all media and further tying users to Windows with Windows Media.
3 - (Once iPods became so popular) Use newly-gained leverage against the RIAA to maintain a successful pricing model.
4 - Encourage lock-in.
I think 1 and 2 were intentional, whereas 3 and 4 were accidental and due to the unexpectedly overwhelming success of the iPod. I also think that besides promoting lock-in, not licensing FairPlay also promotes the seamless experience Apple has routinely striven for (and largely achieved) with the Mac -- and will likely strive for with the iPhone.
Funny how the market didn't care so much the first time (Mac) but did the second (iPod).
This is the crux of the argument. Should a company be forced to do what some customers want them to do?
Theoretically, a company's success depends on them satisfying their customers. Apple's success with the iPod and iTunes indicates they are doing so. Maybe Apple would get more customers by licensing FairPlay or OS X, but should it be illegal *not* to do so?
The only legal recourse I see that makes sense is if consumers could convincingly claim that they purchased music from the iTunes Store without ample information about the music's portability to other devices.
This issue is fraught with irony. On the one hand, I think Steve Jobs saw how Microsoft was treated after being convicted of antitrust violations and decided that if no one was willing to punish Microsoft for its behavior, there was no point in trying to play fair.
On the other hand, I see little grounds for accusing Apple of not playing fair in this case. The iPod and iTunes assumed dominance in tandem; one monopoly was not leveraged to create another. (Unless, of course, you want to claim that the Mac-only monopoly on the original iPod brought Windows users to their knees.)
If AppleTV takes over home media distribution, then perhaps an antitrust claim would be warranted, but not now.
I think you're missing the point regarding iTunes. It's not just (or mainly) the iTunes Music Store, it's the application "iTunes" itself, which (along with the iPod) works fine with MP3s. Others may prefer a different way of doing things, but from the get-go, the iTunes software has made it very easy to rip music from CDs, organize it, and transfer it to an iPod. After all, the "way overpriced" iPod was surprisingly successful (albeit not a cultural phenomenon) when it was Mac-only with no iTMS.
Everyone knows the average iPod owner buys very few songs from iTMS, yet it's what everyone -- from the music industry to governments -- obsesses over. I'm not saying people are wrong to obsess about future implications, but this causes them to overlook what's happening now. Of course, Microsoft may have figured this out by making Windows Media Player 11 comparable to iTunes as software as well.
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You severely misunderstand the concept of "lock-in." It's not that there are no costs to switching, it's that the costs are *prohibitive.* Granted, what's prohibitive for one person may not be for another, but I think we can all agree that anyone who can afford an iPod would not find $22 (the average cost of iTunes music on an iPod) prohibitive.
I don't know what makes your post "insightful" when the parent you are responding to doesn't disagree with you. He's not advocating for DRM, only for the legal purchase of music. I'd be interested in reading an insightful rebuttal to that.
Since when is 7% (Jobs's share of Disney) a majority? And how does the power of someone who owns 7% of a company equal that of the CEO? Laura, George is on the computer again!
The difference between Gates's and Jobs's statements is motivation. Gates was pushing DRM before the iPod even existed as another way to lock customers into Windows and as a way for Microsoft to ultimately control digital media. After years of having his clock cleaned by Apple in the sale of digital media, Gates has decided DRM isn't so great after all. Huh.
Jobs, on the other hand, is the king of the digital media hill. I don't think he's a saint, and Apple has certainly benefited some from DRM lock-in (mostly, ironically, in negotiations with the record labels), but for Jobs to advocate ending DRM from a position of strength is quite a bit different from Gates's advocacy from a position of weakness.
I agree with most everything you say except your conclusion. Protecting the Mac from unfair competition with Windows is not greed, it is Jobs's responsibility as CEO of Apple.
Thank you for your explanation, though for the record, I was not attempting humor at all.
People understandably rail against "grammar Nazis" who point out spelling or grammar errors when the meaning of a post is clear. However, "sic" (as another poster noted) is meant to be used in reference to quoted material. I wasn't aware of any quoted material in your post, so I truly did not know what you meant by using it. Since the use of "sic" with non-quoted material is becoming quite popular on the Internet, I was hoping to discover what people meant when they used it. Now I have at least one answer, from which I infer that the new meaning is "I meant to do that" -- which is kind of ironic, actually.
Does anyone know what the poster meant by using "(sic)"? (I'm not asking what "sic" traditionally means. I'm asking what people think it means when they use it on the Internet, because I want to understand this new usage that is becoming prevalent.)
Apple Corps has a valuable library, true. That's not quite the same as the Apple label's value, though, which I would say in 2007 is negligible. Apple Corps more or less equals The Beatles, but it's the Beatles "brand" that has all the value (and gave Apple Corps its latest hit).
1 - Appease the RIAA.
2 - Prevent Microsoft from controlling all media and further tying users to Windows with Windows Media.
3 - (Once iPods became so popular) Use newly-gained leverage against the RIAA to maintain a successful pricing model.
4 - Encourage lock-in.
I think 1 and 2 were intentional, whereas 3 and 4 were accidental and due to the unexpectedly overwhelming success of the iPod. I also think that besides promoting lock-in, not licensing FairPlay also promotes the seamless experience Apple has routinely striven for (and largely achieved) with the Mac -- and will likely strive for with the iPhone.
Funny how the market didn't care so much the first time (Mac) but did the second (iPod).
Theoretically, a company's success depends on them satisfying their customers. Apple's success with the iPod and iTunes indicates they are doing so. Maybe Apple would get more customers by licensing FairPlay or OS X, but should it be illegal *not* to do so?
The only legal recourse I see that makes sense is if consumers could convincingly claim that they purchased music from the iTunes Store without ample information about the music's portability to other devices.
This issue is fraught with irony. On the one hand, I think Steve Jobs saw how Microsoft was treated after being convicted of antitrust violations and decided that if no one was willing to punish Microsoft for its behavior, there was no point in trying to play fair.
On the other hand, I see little grounds for accusing Apple of not playing fair in this case. The iPod and iTunes assumed dominance in tandem; one monopoly was not leveraged to create another. (Unless, of course, you want to claim that the Mac-only monopoly on the original iPod brought Windows users to their knees.)
If AppleTV takes over home media distribution, then perhaps an antitrust claim would be warranted, but not now.
Everyone knows the average iPod owner buys very few songs from iTMS, yet it's what everyone -- from the music industry to governments -- obsesses over. I'm not saying people are wrong to obsess about future implications, but this causes them to overlook what's happening now. Of course, Microsoft may have figured this out by making Windows Media Player 11 comparable to iTunes as software as well.