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Comment by whalesalad | Hacker News Reader

I think people are confusing corporations succeeding in a capitalist market with "evil". This is AMERICA, where we compete for everything and anyone can do anything, as long as they can do it better than someone else. Apple is not evil. They're a company that likes to make money, and likes to make devices that people blow their loads over.

I worked at apple for a while... they gave me some cool things like a free bus pas ($50 in Hawaii) every month to encourage use of public transit. They're certainly not evil, not any more evil than Google, Microsoft, HP, IBM, the list goes on...

They're just the most successful. And it always sucks at the top, because everyone is trying to bring you down. Imagine all the companies that are trying to get at Apple's trade secrets, it's no wonder they have such intense security.

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Who said anything about secrecy or getting at their trade secrets? Aaron is sad that Apple’s long-term strategy, as far as he can tell, is to build locked-down platforms where they take control away from device owners. This makes those of us who like to tinker – who believe in constructivist education and free culture and open systems and decentralized power – sad, because the more successful these devices are, the more they threaten to undermine those values.

Our lives are full of devices that could be general purpose, but were made more specialized for ease of use, maintenance, battery life, or w/e.

I don't understand why so many people are getting their panties in a knot because somebody is selling another non-general-use device with a processor.

And I know that hyperbolic rhetoric is fun, but let's be realistic. This is not undermining constructivist education, free culture, decentralized power or open systems in any meaningful way. If you really think it's accomplishing all that, go take your medication.

I don't understand why so many people are getting their panties in a knot because somebody is selling another non-general-use device with a processor.

They actually are general-purpose devices, just deliberately limited by Apple. And I'm sort of ok with that; I'm not ok with them actively trying to stop you from removing those limitations on your own device, and calling you a criminal if you do. A seller trying to control how you use a product after you've bought it is an attack on your property rights.

This is not undermining constructivist education, free culture, decentralized power or open systems in any meaningful way.

Not by itself. But if closed devices like the iPad marginalize open devices, it becomes much easier to enforce user-hostile laws like CBDTPA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Broadband_and_Digital_...).

1) You've attacked "general-purpose" computers that are turned into controlled platforms.

Without moving from my chair, I can see the following "general-purpose" computers that have been turned into controlled platforms.

A Directv HD DVR. A Sony Playstation. A Nintendo Wii. A TomTom GPS. A Samsung Television. A Treadmill. A BlackBerry. An iPod Touch. A Logitech Remote Control.

Precisely when should I be outraged that a device's capabilities aren't as general-purpose as you'd prefer? Heck, some of those devices (the television, GPS, and treadmill) even run Linux, yet are "crippled" by their manufacturers.

2) I'm not ok with them actively trying to stop you from removing those limitations on your own device,

Every trade has two sides. If a seller says "I will sell this to you for X if you agree not to do Y", that's a trade that you can either accept or reject. I fail to see why you, as a buyer, should have a right to demand that all rights transfer for a particular price if the seller doesn't want to transfer them all for that price.

So long as it's reasonably clear, and disclosed, I fail to see the problem.

3) "calling you a criminal" ... "easier to enforce user-hostile laws like CBDTPA"

Blaming a specific, unreleased non-general computer for laws you don't like is almost comic. I say 'almost' because it's really kind of annoying that you want to strip the rights of innovators to make what they want, in the name of 'freedom'.

If I want to wrap a processor, input method and display up in a manner that precludes using it for general purpose computing, as a means to solve a problem, I should have every right to do it and sell it. And you can buy it or not buy it.

But claiming it's responsible for every law you don't like, that it's an assault on property rights, and that it's an attack on constructivist education, free culture or decentralized power is utter and complete rubbish.

No, the device itself is not an attack, and it is perfectly reasonable that all kinds of devices exist. The fear, however, is that this device, and others like it, will someday vastly reduce the market for general-purpose devices.

There is no particular person in the wrong, and I wouldn’t call it “evil,” exactly, that all of our devices are now impossible to repair for the average person, or even the enthusiastic hobbyist: clocks, cameras, radios, automobiles, telephones ... everything we use is becoming too complex for people to understand, except in a rough, schematic way.

This has tremendous benefits, as we can make more sophisticated devices, with useful features, and our lives become more comfortable. But you must admit it also has a down-side: we lose the ability to repair, to tinker, to reverse-engineer, to understand our surroundings, to personally implement incremental improvements, etc. Each user sacrifices a little bit of control for a little bit of comfort, incrementally.

The bit of knowledge we do have about science ends up coming from top-down mandated curricula, purely theoretical understanding learned through books, rather than from practical experience cooking our own meals, tending our own gardens, crafting our own furniture, fixing our own appliances.

I believe that computers are amazingly useful and powerful general-purpose devices, and understanding how to program them can be extremely empowering, because it allows people to solve their own problems. If all you have is an iPad and a DVR and a built-in car GPS and a cell phone, you can only use them on the problems that other people already solved, and if your problem is different, you’re shit out of luck.

if all I have is an iPad, I can write lots of potentially interesting software for it. They are still programmable, after all.

That said, the fact that you seem to think that cooking meals, gardening, woodworking, and appliance repair are also impossible indicates to me that you're not really railing about the iPad.

These are great days to tinker. Just a slightly different kind of tinkering, is all.

> if all I have is an iPad, I can write lots of potentially interesting software for it. They are still programmable, after all.

There is only 2 way such a thing is possible.

(1) By default, the iPad let you write, compile and run programs in it without requiring any external device (like a iMac with XCode). That would mean it is easy to distribute such programs without going through the App Store, just like with a plain old desktop computer. I don't believe it for a second.

(2) You had jailbroken it.

Therefore, it is safe to say that by default, the iPad is not programmable.

If you're afraid that general purpose computers are going to be destroyed by the iPad, you have far more faith in the level of success it can achieve than I do.

If you're not, jacobulous's ridiculous hypothetical scenario isn't worth treating seriously. And I treated it with all the lack of seriousness I believed it to deserve.

I'm not scared, but I think it is worth to look out, because this kind of scenario has already happened, for instance with web-based mail: webmail is convenient, limited, and pervasive. Plus, spam is evil. Result: most ISPs block the outgoing SMTP port without too much complaints.

Now, imagine that devices like the iPad are the majority (like Windows is now). Plus, viruses and netbots are evil. Result: Trusted Computing everywhere.

This is of course the extreme, very unlikely scenario. However, this is so serious that I think it is worth to watch out, even knowing that the odds are almost nil.

You cannot take the "it's not evil, it's just capitalism" argument all the way to its logical conclusion. Even a basic Economics 100 class will teach you that it's more complicated than that. Some levels of "good" and "evil" may have slippery and relative definitions, but it should be obvious that evil, as well as good, can exist in capitalism.

If you disagree with what is being called "evil", than you could be more specific. I don't think free bus passes for employees justifies a company to engage in anti-competitive behavior. Remember, legal != good.

Companies can be successful and making a lot of money without taking away their users' freedom. It doesn't make them evil, but it makes me loose any interest in their products.

EDIT: Sorry somehow I thought this post had no URL, I was making these comments purely on the title. Must have accidentally clicked comments instead of the title.

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