Someday You'll Hate Apple (And Google Too)

jfruhlinger writes "Think today's world, where Apple is the innovative underdog, Google is the company that does no evil, and Microsoft sits atop its throne as ruler of an evil empire. Will this state of affairs last forever? You must not remember the days when everybody loved that scrappy upstart Bill Gates. Don Reisinger muses on the fickleness of consumer loves and hates. 'It's that same [level of] success and its own questionable privacy practices that will lead to Google's PR downfall and propel it into a position of disdain going forward. Trust me, the future of Apple and Google may look bright from an economic standpoint, but these companies will be hated one day too. Sad, but true.'"

One day?

Even without the internet, people have been hating Apple for decades. Usenet and forums just made it easier for them to spew their opinions about.

Blind devotion to *anything* is questionable.

Re:One day?

This is indeed true.

Everyone can find someone to hate them. The important point is that Microsoft are hated by their own customers, and it's probably true that Google and Apple will be too.

Re:One day?

Blind devotion to *anything* is questionable.

Amen!

Re:One day?

Hate Apple? I don't remember anyone hating apple, although they did say their prices were too high in the 1980s.

And Bill Gates:

I never had an opinion about him, but I hated the IBM/MS-DOS empire which symbolized a lack of progress in the 80s (and in some respects still do). While I was creating music on my Ataris and Commodores, the MS-DOS machines were still going "beep" with a mere 4 colors. While my Amiga was running a dozen programs at the same time, Microsoft machines were still limited to just a single task.

By rights IBM/Microsoft PCs should have died while the innovators at Atari, Commodore, Amiga rose to the top with their multimedia machines.

But success and innovation aren't always the same thing.

No, we hated Apple from time to time

Crappy, closed-technology machines. The cult of the single-button mouse. Reseller programs from hell. Lovely laser printers that became ultimately useless. Two wire AppleTalk networks with all of the speed of ISDN on a good day. Cute little useless Newtons. Servers that could never rise above simple workgroup needs. Special connections and exceptions needed to network with anything else but perhaps NFS or wicked Novell patches. Wonderful and proprietary (given few others used them) PPC CPUs. I'm sure others can count the way. Others can see the bloom on the rose, and I still have marks from the thorns. Oddly, I still use a PowerBook G4, alongside a heavy-duty (and less expensive) HP core-duo notebook. Only for games, of course....

Is this really surprising?

I mean, Google is easier to see, since it already has a majority marketshare in its main market, but is anyone dreaming enough to think that once (if) Apple gets a large marketshare, it will just be the next Microsoft?

I mean, looking at all their marketing tactics and dirty moves... its fine now, because its mostly aimed at Microsoft, and its with a small market...but if Apple was to NOT change tactics once it reaches 30%+ marketshare? OUCH! Bundling, false advertising, FUD, price jacking, bullying their partners around, etc? That would be fairly bad.

Now to hope that the only reason they do that now is because they have no choice (have to sink to the competition's level), but I somehow have my doubts.

Re:Is this really surprising?

One key difference is that Apple and Google's products have always been best-of-breed, while Microsoft has always been the lowest-common-denominator. When you say "quality", Microsoft isn't the company that jumps to mind. (Perhaps "cheap", but now Linux is eating them from below on that, so I'm not exactly sure what Microsoft's "core" is anymore.)

Thus the entire premise of the article is a bit of a straw-man: Apple's corporate goals don't appear to include even TRYING to gain a majority of the market share. Their phone only competes in the "smart" market which is 1% of the total market; their computers have no low-end offerings whatsoever; the iPods, despite having some of the best margins in the industry, are consistently undercut on price-per-feature.

Yeah, but they're just companies

They're not religions, political parties, families, etc. They're businesses.

They don't need an adoring cult around them. They need to provide what the market demands. If people want to impute a personality or culture to a company, that's fine as far as that goes. But it's still pretty much bullshit.

wrong assumption

Err, no?

Quite a lot of people never liked Bill Gates. Not his person, not his business ethics and not the software he created. There's enough stuff on the Internet about his early disagreements with Free Software advocates, for example.

And far from the article, like it or not, Microsoft and especially Gates are still hailed as the best and greatest in a lot of trade magazines and computer magazines for the non-techies. Despite the crashes and bugs and problems, a lot of "regular" people believe that they invented "the cumputa".

AN OPEN LETTER TO HOBBYISTS

By William Henry Gates III

To me, the most critical thing in the hobby market right now is the lack of good software courses, books and software itself. Without good software and an owner who understands programming, a hobby computer is wasted. Will quality software be written for the hobby market?

Almost a year ago, Paul Allen and myself, expecting the hobby market to expand, hired Monte Davidoff and developed Altair BASIC. Though the initial work took only two months, the three of us have spent most of the last year documenting, improving and adding features to BASIC. Now we have 4K, 8K, EXTENDED, ROM and DISK BASIC. The value of the computer time we have used exceeds $40,000.

The feedback we have gotten from the hundreds of people who say they are using BASIC has all been positive. Two surprising things are apparent, however, 1) Most of these "users" never bought BASIC (less than 10% of all Altair owners have bought BASIC), and 2) The amount of royalties we have received from sales to hobbyists makes the time spent on Altair BASIC worth less than $2 an hour.

Why is this? As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on it get paid?

Is this fair? One thing you don't do by stealing software is get back at MITS for some problem you may have had. MITS doesn't make money selling software. The royalty paid to us, the manual, the tape and the overhead make it a break-even operation. One thing you do do is prevent good software from being written. Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free? The fact is, no one besides us has invested a lot of money in hobby software. We have written 6800 BASIC, and are writing 8080 APL and 6800 APL, but there is very little incentive to make this software available to hobbyists. Most directly, the thing you do is theft.

What about the guys who re-sell Altair BASIC, aren't they making money on hobby software? Yes, but those who have been reported to us may lose in the end. They are the ones who give hobbyists a bad name, and should be kicked out of any club meeting they show up at.

I would appreciate letters from any one who wants to pay up, or has a suggestion or comment. Just write me at 1180 Alvarado SE, #114, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87108. Nothing would please me more than being able to hire ten programmers and deluge the hobby market with good software.

Bill Gates

General Partner, Micro-Soft

I don't get it.

"Trust me, the future of Apple and Google may look bright from an economic standpoint, but these companies will be hated one day too. Sad, but true."

Why is this sad? Surely being suspicious of powerful entities is one of the better human qualities.

We'll See

"but these companies will be hated one day too."

*sigh*
I have this conversation regularly at work. Whenever I express my distrust of Microsoft inevitably someone will start babbling about how I will hate some other random company in ten years. I can't help but think that these are all just Microsoft apologists.

It isn't the age or size of a company that makes me hate them personally- it's their behavior.

So far Google has never done anything as a company that I think is evil (yes even the China filtering) and all their products have been delightful to use. Given their past history I see no reason to assume that they will suddenly and magically become irresponsible. I also don't see my loyalty to them to be a function of any PR department. As soon as they modify the IMAP spec to make it so only their own email client can connect, or sell my personal information, then I will hate them.

The difference is that I can't imagine Google doing that. I would practically expect it of some companies like MS or Sony who have a long history of such behavior.

Incidentally- I have no opinion about Apple as a corporation.

I'm starting to fear Google already

Their "don't be evil" policy is admirable, but "evil" is subjective. Google really don't seem to be quite in step with most geeks I know when it comes to data protection and privacy.

No.

You must not remember the days when everybody loved that scrappy upstate Bill Gates.

That is because there were no such days. From the very beginning, having stolen CP/M and computer time at a university to get their business running, Microsoft has always been regarded as a band of criminals largely devoid of real know-how. The fact that Google and Apple are not targets of widespread hatred in the tech community is evidence that there is more to the anti-Microsoft sentiment than simply rooting for the underdog.

Microsoft hasn't mattered in 10 years. Google is on top of the tech game now and everyone knows it. Apple is expensive and pretentious, but remains, for the most part, respected. The best Microsoft can hope for with regard to public sentiment is to transition from outright, boiling hatred to pity. If anti-Microsoft sentiment were the fickle leftist hatred of success that it is cast to be, then why would we also hate SCO, which is anything but successful?

The hatred of Microsoft is well earned, and its reasons go back to the very beginning of the company. If the SCO experience is any indication, it will long outlast the company's success.

All about competition

Utter nonsense. Apart from the obvious massive differences in approach to quality between MS and Apple, it's actually primarily about competition; companies generally stay in line when there are true competitive pressures. If the industry manages to become competitive (we're not there yet but it's certainly improved over five years ago) then there'll be fewer reasons to 'hate' any particular company, market forces will help make sure they behave. The current trend towards improved support for Web standards is just one example. If we end up with say 15% Linux, 30% Apple, 30% MS, 10% Androi, 15% 'other', that would be a good balance - things like interoparability will be literally forced by the market, and they'll also be forced to actually improve and debloat their respective products.

We don't hate MS "because they're big", that's what marketers want you to think. We hate them because of their unethical abuse of their dominant market position to push inferior products which we've had to suffer with for years.

The day they change their attitude and start producing quality standards-based products, is the day we start liking them, no matter their size - it's really as simple as that.

Maybe hate is the problem then?

How about if you guys just give up on the groupthink instead?

The socially-reinforced need to pick out people or organizations to hate seems like something you might want to grow out of at some point.

If Apple or Google actually send assassins to kill your wife and children, go ahead and hate them. If some opinionated Internet comment-posters and the folks you chit-chat with at the office decide to hate Apple and Google, why not just encourage them to worry about reality, live their own lives, and stop the schoolgirl clique nonsense?

Don't you have anything better to do? Can't you find something before the "hate-Google" and "hate-Apple" memes get started? You have time. Now is your chance.

Re:Not quite the same

Apple and Google's current offerings being made from the ground up? Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Re:Not quite the same

Apple and Google wrote their own software from the ground up. Bill Gates bought DOS from another programmer

The only thing they use that isn't theirs is *occasionally* zope/plone and whatever web server du jour.

Umm... Google Maps?! Youtube? Picasa? Google Earth?

and in Apple's case, Darwin that you conceded, Filemaker? iTunes (not the store) ?

others are pointing out more.
Are you RDF positive?

Re:Not quite the same

I think most of my like for plucky upstart MS was because of how such a little company could manipulate a much larger company (IBM). The story of Bill Gates selling them an OS that he did not yet have is classic. He was reckless and successful and dishonest at the same time, and it was kind of bad-ass and cool. They kept on screwing Big Blue right up through their inheritance of the OS2 code for Windows NT, and it was a little bit beautiful in a sick sort of way.

The thing is, though, they didn't really do anything terribly innovative. DOS is just a close kissing cousin of CP/M, and if Bill had failed IBM would have paid someone else for their copy of CP/M, or just bought the real thing. Microsoft was really just a broker. Even their much-heralded office suite was nothing special until all of the competition was beaten away and no one could afford to make a competitive product. In the end, it was easy to dislike them.

Contrast this with my like for Google and Apple, where I actually like the products that they make. As long as they keep making great products, I'll probably keep liking those companies - it has very little to do with their corporate policies (unless the policies become "screw the customer").

Re:Not quite the same

I find it difficult to believe Gates stole Microsoft BASIC from his local user group.

HE was the one who wrote the famous CUG letter about not stealing software. For him to lecture his fellow club members about not stealing, and then do it himself, would be hypocritical.

Oh wait.

Re:Why we love them.

A few hundred thousand BSOD's dissagree with your idea about microsoft giving excellent software, especially in the 90's. Though I won't deny that I still fire up visual studio 6 just because it kicks major ass. Some of their software was amazing, but for the most part it was absolute shite compared to the *NIX offerings that were out there stability and security wise. Microsoft just had better marketing, and before linux and BSD really became more well known outside the dedicated CS scene, it had the price tag.

Pretty simple, really

It's pretty simple, really. As I keep reminding people:

- when companies are at the top of their niche, and have their nice walled garden and penned sheep to shear at will, they want to keep their garden walled and their sheep penned. Then they want proprietary protocols, incompatible tweaks to the "standard", and they want those sheep scared shitless of even thinking about the world outside their pen. They want you to think "oh shit, if we switch from IBM mainframes to cheap Unix workstations, we'll have to retrain everyone, rewrite our software, rip out and change the whole infrastructure, etc. Naah, let's buy another workstation, it's cheaper." In fact, they don't even want you doing that kind of maths, they want you scared of what might pop up later that you haven't foreseen, and unsure if you even know the right sum it will cost you, and whether you'll get ass raped without lubricant by your clients _and_ accounting department if you changed anything.

The term FUD, now almost synonimous with MS tactics, was coined about IBM tactics. That's not even the tip of the iceberg of FUD there, but the very phrase "nobody got fired for buying IBM" carried the thinly veiled threat that you _might_ lose your job if you go with something else.

- when they're at the bottom and scraping a living off the niches outside the pens, then they want access to those rich guys gardens and sheeps. Then they start screaming that such fences and walls are an abhomination and evil. Then they want open protocols, and ISO standards, and generally everything that will make it easy for them to get to those penned sheep.

And a company's attitude can change at the drop of a hat, if their position on the food chain changes enough. IBM was the big bad monopolist, as long as it was the king of the hill. IBM became the champion of open source and open standards when it got enough of their lunch money stolen by the likes of MS.

And occasionally you even get to see the schizophrenic fits of a company that just slowly slides somewhere around the middle point. So they're starting to covet the neighbour's penned sheep, but aren't quite ready to free their own penned sheep too. Sun was for a couple of years at that point, but now it seems to have mostly resigned to being in the latter camp.

So what I'm saying is that, yes, things can change with MS too. If one day it finds itself at the bottom of the food chain, then MS _will_ become the champion of open standards. And then a bunch of nerds will love them.

Re:See it everywhere

The big reason that big success companies become hated is that they try to change the way they gained their success and horde everything for themselves. If Google, or others try to do this they too will get the boot from esteem. Most people do not mind a company trying to profit. I don't.

Examples include Walmart. That outfit started out as a country store which got smart in finance but remembered to serve its customers well and and always made sure to involve the local industry in the marketing plan. Then the kids and finance guys took over from Sam Walton and to say the least, instantly the buy local and support your community stuff went the way of the dinosaurs. Bill Gates at the famous evil empire used to brag about making many other people into millionaires. He made a fortune in the USA and hiring Americans to do it. Then he got rich and decided that he should keep all the money to himself. Being as rich as 4 or 5 US States wasn't enough for him. He just had to move on to China, India and the like, forgetting the guys who made him rich. Then he decided to rent his software for developers in the USA for about $2000 a year. At the same time he practically gave it away in India and China. Well it is no wonder the programmers who were living well with him suddenly became the enemies of the empire.

I know a company McKee Baking in Collegedale Tn. This company has made its original owners and heirs quite wealthy. Nobody is anything but proud of them for their pretty successful baking empire. The reason is that they pay well, and have not tried to dump the people who made their fortune possible. If they ever do I assure you their goodwill will go with it. This is pretty simple stuff people. All you have to do if you get big is not to stomp on people and just go on earning your living. It makes friends and deters enemies.

In the case of Microsoft Corporation, they undertook about 10 years ago to begin to completely destroy the careers of American Programmers. They are hated for it now. Their product lines are not growing and are shuddering with competition because they have just about destroyed any rational reason to partner with them. Google on the other hand is for the time being a friendly helpful and cooperative giant. As long as it stays so it will be so. Once burned the good will of such a company is probably not recoverable. Microsoft will be big for some time but it is in decline and it is it's own fault. If I as a programmer could come and pitch a good new idea and get it moved on to production with their cooperation and partnership, they could be winning but they are refusing to do that. Everybody who tries this game with them loses.

Re:First Trout!

He was spot-on in what would make him obscene rich, not what's right..

Re:Power Leads to Corruption

eldavojohn wrote:

[President Bush's] religion encourages him to love his neighbor and to treat him as he would want to be treated. Yet a fence between his country and Mexico says otherwise.

Um, I'm no Bush supporter (and it's sad that I have to run a disclaimer for even being fair to the man), but in the interest of fairness, are you saying you want to be able to just walk in no questions asked and stay as long as you want in any nation?

Sorry but no, I expect and want to be permitted to enter through legally established means, so that I may be an upstanding guest of the place I am visiting.

My difficulty in affording Apple products make me think they are discriminating against the poor.

What? Discriminating against the poor? Has discrimination become this catch-all now? Everyone hates discrimination, therefore, anything I don't like, down to the price someone asks for their wares is discrimination? You think someone at Apple is going "You know, we could produce these things for virtually free and give them away, but forget all that profit and paying our employees shit, what we really have to avoid is all those poor schmoes sullying our good name by using our product with a low disposable income!"

Discrimination is when you use an irrelevant attribute to make decisions. The ability to afford the product at a profitable price(*) is hardly irrelevant, and distracts from real discrimination -- and Apple is one the top 10 companies to work for if you're a minority. I'm not a fanboi, I'm just homosexual and love my wife just the same, and wish her capacity for pregnancy did not prevent her from receiving health care (I don't work for Apple, sadly).

~Rebecca

(*) Someone will invariably make a comment of gasoline or food or some such. Please understand that we're talking about Apple computer, which to my knowledge does not produce or sell anything in the "necessary for sustainable life" category. If iPods become as important as the automobile, groceries, or healthcare, we'll reconsider.