Some would argue that 'capitalist corporation'='evil'.
Having the same rights as an individual (and in some cases more) corporations often exhibit traits that, if observed in an individual, would result in that individual being diagnosed as a psychopath.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation_(film)
"Evil" isn't really a useful term, it can be taken too many different ways. How exactly would you define "evil"? And how does that definition relate to capitalist corporations?
It's my last line of defense when someone brings out the quotes and asks me to define good and evil. It doesn't take that much imagination to at least understand the idea that some people consider some huge corporations evil.
I hear people say "evil corproation" a lot, but I'm not quite sure what they mean. Do they mean, "don't care about individual customers, because there is no economic value"? Do they mean, "break into people's houses at night and wreck up the place"? Do they mean, "release an open-source phone software stack"?
Just because people parrot the same line again and again doesn't mean it makes sense.
I take it to mean that the one expressing that sentiment doesn't have the same interests as the corporation mentioned in a shared matter, like open/closed platforms, like freedom (maybe wanna rip that DVD you own so you can view it on the iPad because it's even not available for iPad), or maybe you don't want to be tracked by facebook and googles supercookies (via like buttons and, google adsense/analytics).
Another thing would be removing all crapware that comes with a new windows computer, or having to buy a "clean" windows just to get rid of that. Another big evil is Microsofts requirement that all netbooks can have max 2G of ram. That's clearly not in anybody elses interest but Microsoft.
Interests are not aligned. Annoyment ensured.
Then there are real evils of course, like using slave or child labour, destroying the environment and funding wars by using natural resources like Coltan.
That's a really boring statement "One one side, apple not evil but a capitalist corporation, on the other side, google not evil but a capitalist corporation." why would I say that to be more reasonable, that reasonable statement doesn't convey meaningful value in explaining why people are worked up.
I think that the reason for people percieving apple as evil is because apple restricts the user, and forces the user to accept their terms.
The reason for google being evil would be that they track everything and everybody, they have access to your (g)mail, they know what you search for, they know where you are when you search for what and when. It's not that they actually might be doing something with that data, but just by having that data, they have a force do to evil. A lesser evil is serving you ads for .NET CMS jobs when you are looking at gmail ;) CLEARLY that counts as evil.
Apple makes a product and service and clearly lays out what its for. Consumers can choose to buy into that or not. Apple isn't "forcing" anyone to accept their terms, people choose to accept them in return for certain products and services from Apple. If you don't want to, don't buy an iphone!
"just by having that data, they have a force to do evil" -- sorry, but having a force to do evil is not in itself evil. EVERYONE has a force to do evil, I could go and chop up some bunnies for fun right now, but I choose not to, therefore I'm not evil.
How is serving you ads evil? I really don't get that argument. Yes it's annoying, and sometimes distracting, but again, the price I choose to pay for products and services. No one is forcing you to use gmail, even by default; there are plenty of other options.
>Apple isn't "forcing" anyone to accept their terms, people choose to accept them in return for certain products and services from Apple.
The thing is, many people do not even know about, much less understand the ramifications of buying from Apple. And I find it sad that someone who does is still willing to castrate his own freedom for no gain whatsoever.
Well I "disagree" with "you". There's a lot at stake, depending on the fate of mobile web and computer interfaces in general, and privacy issues as well.
What would you rather be the case then? Let's say Apple don't restrict what you can do on your device, what does that look like? What do you think Apple should do differently, specifically?
In my opinion, Apple's original sin with iOS was banning side-loading. Many of the specific things they've done that I would call evil, for example:
- squashing alternatives to built-in iOS apps
- the attempt to ban iOS development in non-Apple-approved languages
- the in-app purchase nonsense [apparently designed to prop up iBooks, among other things])
are only possible in the first place because of the side-loading ban. Making that one change (without changing the APIs, the App Store, approval policies, etc.) would go a long way towards fixing the aspects of the iOS platform that are problematic from the perspective of user freedom.
