Weighing in on this Steve Jobs nonsense
Steve Jobs makes shovels of money. Did you know that? He makes dump trucks full of money by making Apple stock go up. He doesn’t get paid as C.E.O. he only gets paid by making Apple stock go up.
Do you know why people use the iTunes store? Because if they own an iPod, they have to. And then when when they want to upgrade to a new MP3 player, they have to stick with the iPod because they have all of those iTunes songs. It’s a self perpetuating cycle and I hate it.
I have never purchased music on the Internet because I think it is a waste of money. I suffered that huge data last a few months back and if I didn’t own all of those CD’s I would have never gotten that music back!
Last week Steve Jobs wrote that he would love to sell music without DRM, and I think that is utter bullshit. I think those words are the same thing that exits from a donkey’s rear-end. The iTunes store needs to DRM it’s music to keep it’s users using iPod’s and there are no two ways about that.
On the other hand, the iTunes/iPod relationship makes for a great user experience for people like my Mom. She doesn’t know what DRM is or that any of the music that she buys from iTunes is covered in it, she just know’s that it works.
I hate DRM, but right now I think I dislike Steve Jobs just a little bit more for being such a phoney. I can’t wait for Zune 2.0, I could see myself buying that.
-Josh
17 Feb 2007 6:49 am
…ya, i hate itunes and its incompatibility with everything but the friggen ipod. I never plan on getting one.
17 Feb 2007 5:13 pm
I should clarify a little. My iPod compleatly changed the way I listened to music and it made it much more simple. Hundreds of albums in the palm of my hand anywhere I go. I love it. And I also think that it is currently the more elegent music player on the market. But I think the next gen zune is poised to do it better. But I guess we’ll wait and see.
19 Feb 2007 6:50 pm
Regardless of Jobs’ sincerity, his anti-DRM rhetoric has sparked a massive response from the internet community on a whole. If we are all agreed that DRM is a near-perfect manifestation of corporate-music-greed, any disavowing of its necessity, real or imagined, is a good thing.
That’s how I feel. I have an innate distrust of Apple due to their amazing ability to get people to pay triple price for their merchandise, but Jobs’ recent statements made me respect them slightly more. At the very least it places them ahead of Microsoft.
19 Feb 2007 6:53 pm
Thanks for the comment Adam! I have nothing to back this up, but I think that Microsoft will follow up the Zune with a music player that isn’t quite so crippled by it’s DRM. I’m not ready to rule Microsoft out yet.
21 Feb 2007 12:25 pm
I don’t think Steve Jobs cares what you wintel snobs think. Steve is making a corporate decision based on what is good for APPLE. The quality of the product speaks for itself. The production of proprietary stuff is a reality of the corporate world. I don’t see anyone gripping about SONY. They have been doing the same thing for years. I can’t think of any small electronic manufacturer that hasn’t tried to put some kind of proprietary component or connection on equipment, or some kind of coding on communication periferals.
I have to say that I agree with Schalicto, don’t purchase songs over the internet, buy the CD, then there is no question about your ownership and if you choose to change your equipment you can always change your interface software.
21 Feb 2007 1:48 pm
“I don’t think Steve Jobs cares what you wintel snobs think. Steve is making a corporate decision based on what is good for APPLE.”
Woah! The Apple snob comes out swinging!
I think Steve Jobs does care what I think because I own an iPod but I’m talking about buying a Zune instead of another iPod. That is exactly what Steve Jobs should care about.