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Comment by vladd | Hacker News Reader

I saw in the supermarket the other day a group of parents buying for their young child a so-called "mini-laptop" that costs $100 and probably only knows to do addition, multiplications and some basic word-games on a cheap LCD screen. And I realized that for them, and for a large portion of the end-users, lack of education in IT makes it very difficult for them to see the difference between the said laptop and a regular PC device.

Apple realized first what this lack of knowledge can do: the ability to lock-in a product so that it runs only your AppStore's apps is not only good for the high-end of the market that is willing to sacrifice freedom in the name of usability and beautiful design, but rather more importantly it's good for the ignorant masses that don't even realize this fact when they buy the product just because it's fashionable to do so.

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>buying for their young child a so-called "mini-laptop"

They're great devices. They can reach kids for education and let them learn in a format that will be useful to them going forward. I wouldn't buy a young child a full-fledged laptop, it'd be a waste of money and that's too much freedom to afford a kid if you don't know how to lock it down for malware or scams.

"I saw in the supermarket the other day a group of parents buying for their young child a so called "army man" and I realized how difficult it is for a 5 year old to join the military."

You think Apple cares about locking down a device just for the sake of taking advantage of the ignorant masses?

The truth is a lot simpler than that. They aren't trying to enslave humanity. They are just control freaks with a culture of creating art. It's ingrained in their corporate culture that people shouldn't decide how to use Apple's products. They believe that they should control that.

Whether you agree with that or not is your own choice. But it's just plain stupid to say that there is some kind of plot against "freedom" here.

I agree that they aren't plotting against freedom, but not for the same reason as you. I think that they want to make money, and think that controlling content is best the way to do that.

Of course they want to make money though. They are a business. However, they've forgone more profitable business models in the past in favor of tighter control and they'll likely continue to do that.

It's hard to argue that they've forgone more profitable business models, as they are in the top 10 most profitable companies in the US, and are the most valuable company.

One lesson I took away from my university economics class is that in a large enough market all competitive products are virtually identical. One may offer X better than the other while that 2nd one may offer Y better than the first but for the most part that is all smoke & mirrors to the consumer.

The point is that people cannot tell the difference without marketing to try and exaggerate one thing over another. Its why people buy inferior products at inflated rates and don't get upset. It is also why marketing is so very important in a saturated marketplace.

This is exactly what happened in your scenario. The well thinking mothers were lead to believe that any `laptop` can be just as good as another because someone told them it can be. They believed it without understanding it was all a ploy to gain a customer.

Either that or they fully understood its limitations and were satisfied with them.

I'll happily get my 2 year-old a Leapfrog/LeapPad type device and he'll be happy with it and learn from it. Even if I could get a laptop at the same price point, I wouldn't. Why?

The LeapFrog type devices are made to be handled by toddlers. That means they can take being thrown across the room, tossed out a window, and used as a hammer and still come up smiling. Try that with a laptop! Not to mention that with the specialized device I don't need to be concerned about loading DVDs, CDs, etc: the media is similarly rugged.

Don't be too quick to discount what those parents were doing: they may have a better idea than you what type of environment the device operates in.

Exactly. My first exposure to programming was on one of those cheap toy computers. My parents bought me one of those when I was in elementary school and after getting bored with its built-in games I noticed a button labeled ”BASIC.”

Around the same time I noticed a book in the school library on BASIC and put the two together. That cheap Christmas gift turned me on to computers and programming and though I’m now writing a thesis in Scala rather than hangman in BASIC, I’m glad I had that toy to get me started.

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