Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Except for the fact that Apple has NEVER been benevolent. My first brush with Apple was choosing to buy a Creative mp3 player (despite literally everyone I know having an iPod as their player) because of the absolutely ridiculous restrictions that Apple put on copying files from the device to a computer. This wasn't a "hacker" problem that "typical" users didn't face; I've lost count of the number of people who asked me how to do exactly that with their iPods over the following few years. I've always been baffled at the characterization of Apple as focused on the user; user satisfaction has always seemed like a side effect of their main goal, which is profitability. Obviously in the ideal case, these two goals should be one and the same, but it's pretty obvious that very, very often, they are not. There are always things a company can do to help their market position that hurt their users, and Apple is practically a pioneer in coming up with and implementing them.



Join us for AI Startup School this June 16-17 in San Francisco!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: