04.12.12
It’s good to whip iSteve
It wasn’t enough for Steve Jobs to creatively destroy the major label recording industry with iKit and funnel a portion of all the profits in pop music through Apple.
He imposed the same model on book publishing and, yesterday, the news of the US government pushing back at Apple for it was everywhere.
Completely blown off the wrestling mat in operating system software and networking by Bill Gates, Steve was saved, now to the regret of many. It was his special genius to create coveted consumer goods that made Apple the collecting funnel for big money from artistic and literary talent.
Even though it invests in no infrastructure — like artists & repertoire, agents or development for acquiring, growing and nurturing the talent its shiny hardware and software baubles guarantees it gets pie from.
Eventually even the Beatles were compelled to tithe to Apple and Steve.
The Justice Department’s complaint quoted Steve Jobs telling publishing executives how Apple’s iPad strategy would work.
“We’ll go to [an] agency model, where you set the price, and we get our 30 percent, and yes, the customer pays a little more, but that’s what you want anyway,” Jobs said, according to the complaint.
A group of chief executive officers of the publishers mapped out their collective actions during quarterly meetings “in private dining rooms of upscale Manhattan restaurants,” including at The Chef’s Wine Cellar at Picholine, according to the complaint, which also cites phone calls and e-mails.
[Apple] struck a “most-favored-nation??? deal with the publishers that effectively prevented them from selling their product for less through other retails outlets like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Newly emboldened by the launch of the iPad, the publishers gave Amazon a stark choice: adopt the agency model, with higher prices, or lose the ability to sell new e-book bestsellers. Amazon initially balked, but quickly capitulated, publicly announcing that it had no choice but to accept the agency model.
Apple will fight. Maybe the company will even win.
However, the reputations of Apple and Steve Jobs’ have taken satisfyingly heavy blows.
And you may not like this song but the shoe fits. Apple technology is all about instant self-gratification for assholes at the expense of those who provide the broadcast material for its iKit.
Pop music has always been dispensable. Increasingly, books are, too. There’s paradoxical irony in the iKit of Steve becoming the only part in the pipe to the consumer that inspires customer loyalty.
iSteve — from the archives.