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Comment by mindcrime | Hacker News Reader

There are plenty of companies that we love (hello, Apple)

Speak for yourself... there are plenty of us who cheerily invite Apple to go straight to hell. You can certainly count me among their number, for one.

I have no use whatsoever for their anti-hacker ethos, their locked-down, proprietary, "no user repairable parts inside" attitude, and the arrogance with which they presume to know more about what the customer needs, than the customer does.

I'm sure this is going to be unpopular, but sorry, when it comes to corporate success, values don't mean shit.

That's hardly a settled point. There's evidence on both sides of the argument, to this day.

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"Plenty of us" where plenty equals...how many? Apple was crowned as the biggest PC maker in the world this week.

Plenty of us" where plenty equals...how many?

Honestly, from my point of view, just myself counts as "plenty" in this context. But I'm pretty sure the number is actually higher than that. Just count up all the F/OSS ideologues who refuse to use closed-source / proprietary software as a matter of principle, for starters. And I'm guessing there are a handful of folks who don't count themselves as total GNU hippies, but still prefer to shy away from companies that sell products based around such a locked-down, proprietary, closed-off ethos.

Apple was crowned as the biggest PC maker in the world this week.

I never said they weren't successful... I'm just saying that not everybody buys into their bullshit or likes their shitty proprietary products, that's all.

> I never said they weren't successful... I'm just saying that not everybody buys into their bullshit or likes their shitty proprietary products, that's all.

...So you've chosen to swallow someone else's bullshit line then instead? That's way better.

Not everyone has the same fundamental values, you know. I value freedom, hackability and openness over the kinds of things that Apple fanboys seem to prize. That doesn't make anybody wrong or right, or either option better or worse; it just reflects the underlying truth that we don't all value the same things.

Right, but I didn't say the products you like are shitty now did I? What you like isn't bullshit. Your overly aggressive opinion on Apple is what's bullshit. Anyone with a reasoned opinion would never brand Apple's products as shitty. They might not like some of the philosophy behind them, but they aren't bad products in any light.

We may not all value the same things, that doesn't mean we need to be deliberately ignorant about the appeal others see in a product.

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