Let's start with Apple. As a company I despise them. They champion the walled garden/closed system/big brother approach to everything and while this makes for a tight and stable product it is a system you are not allowed to interact with. Much the same way people say "At least Mussolini made the trains run on time," you can say that Apple makes a solid piece of software. The problem is anything that you run on a lot of their products is by their choosing. Sure, it may be nice but if it's not then it's already too late to look for competition. They have created a computer ghetto. It's a lovely community but you are stuck there whether it is to your taste or not.
The most recent slap in the face in terms of their operating procedure is the rejection of all Google Voice applications for the iPhone. If you were running Windows Mobile then you wouldn't notice what Microsoft thinks about an application; it's an open system that you're free to install anything you'd like on. If it was on Android (technically, it is since Google has their app in their own OS, but pretend we're talking 3rd party) then as long as it's not malicious is would stay in their app store. But with Apple they have this sliding scale of what can or can't be sold. If it's malicious it's out. If it's in poor taste it might be out at some point. If it duplicates a feature on the iPhone then it might be out. And if it produces competition to Apple or one of Apples partners then it will most likely be pulled.
Because Google Voice gives users many options that normal phone carriers don't it has been pulled. Apple says it's because it duplicates iPhone features but it doesn't. The iPhone has no feature that lets you switch numbers on the fly, send free text messages through your alternate number or transcribe your voicemail and forward it as an email. But since it has a number dialer it competes with the iPhone's dialer and that is forbidden. Bullshit. This is Apple trying to stifle competition for AT&T. With Google Voice you can jump carriers on a moment's notice and take your number with you without having to deal with a support line.
So now Apple is using the walled garden to stifle competition. And that's bad business. What's the motivation for improving products and services if you know that your user base is trapped. I'm not saying Apple is going to stop all updates but whatever they offer is clearly on their terms and not in response to demand. There's a demand for Google products. There is a freeze on the supply, however.
And now Google Voice is available for the iPhone free of charge but only if you have a jailbroken phone. I've been following the iPhone with a very close eye. Following the saying "hate the factory, not the machine" I recognized that the iPhone is an amazing piece of hardware run by a dictatorial company. With the iPhone 3GS I saw almost no reason to jailbreak other than for cosmetic purposes and came damn near close to getting one. But this has crossed the line. If a product has to be hacked and cracked and warranty-voided the moment you take it out of the box then there's something wrong with that product. In the case of the iPhone and Apple it's all software. But is that the kind of company you want to invest your time and money in? A company that will take out legal programs because it means more work to continue to innovate? A company that rather than participating in a creative dialogue with the user and 3rd party developers simply cuts the cord and forces its customer base to take whatever is doled out and no more? That is a broken system that will only breed dissent and stagnation. And that crossed the line.
Now we come to everyone's favourite villain: the RI/MPAA. The cartels that represent music and movies have taken the following stance:
"We reject the view that copyright owners and their licensees are required to provide consumers with perpetual access to creative works. No other product or service providers are held to such lofty standards. No one expects computers or other electronics devices to work properly in perpetuity, and there is no reason that any particular mode of distributing copyrighted works should be required to do so."
What that means is they think it's unreasonable to expect their products to last forever. Sort of. If you re-read the above you may notice that the statement (made by the lawyer representing the RIAA and MPAA to the Copyright Office) tries to make the concept of "product" and "service" interchangeable.
"We reject the view that copyright owners and their licensees are required to provide consumers with perpetual access to creative works."
No one is asking this of them. Books do not remain in print forever. Magazines close production or require you to renew your subscription. But what magazines don't require is for you to pay to keep access to the issues already delivered to your home. It's not a question of continued access to the creative works as intellectual property. It's the continued access to creative works in hard copy. Your music files should not expire after you have bought them. Your e-books should not vanish one you have legally purchased them.
Of course no one expects electronic devices to work "properly in perpetuity". That would require your warranty to never expire! But you can expect to keep the hardware forever. My friend had a laptop who's cooling fan died. Instead of the unit expiring I cracked the case, peeled out the innards and made a wi-fi equipped 14 inch digital picture frame. When the battery dies on your cell phone you still get to keep the phone and replace the battery (unless it's an iPhone). Corey Doctorow lists a bunch of "creative works" of various ages that still work for him:
I've got 78RPM records from my grandparents' basement that play just fine today -- and I've got Logo programs I wrote in 1979 that I can run today. I own a piano roll from 1903 that I can play back if I can clear the space for a player piano. I've got books printed in the 17th century that can still be read -- and if they can't be read, they can be scanned and the scans can be read.
I personally do work arching documents and converting them to digital form. We've done legal documents, museum catalogues, technical journals… and they all still work. I've opened books from nearly 100 years ago and not a single one ever demanded that I authenticate the most recent purchase of the rights to read the text. They were bought and they work. End of story. Unless you have a closed system like DRM that treats the legal customer with distrust and possibly contempt. It is not the responsibility of the customer to prove their self to the product. It is the responsibility of the producer to provide a product that proves itself worthy to the customer. And that, MP/RIAA, is how you've crossed the line from producer to extortionist.
In both cases you have the huge, deal breaking issues that are made simply because the company in question treats the consumer as a child at best and a criminal at worst. And in both cases the fair option to regain your consumer rights falls in what is now legally dubious territory. If you want your iPhone to work like a real computer product you have to jailbreak. If you want your music to actually play on all your devices, as fair use dictates, then you need to pirate DRM-free tracks after you have legally purchased the music. Is that piracy? Is that fair use? Today it seems to be both.
So what about you? What company or group has crossed the line you've drawn in the sand? What company is getting close? Or do you keep finding that you push that line back inch by inch, giving away more of your rights and a consumer, only to be left with crippled products?
