Is Apple the next Microsoft or, is Apple Evil?
As I watch Apple take over the online music world, I can't help but wonder if much of what they're doing isn't akin to what Microsoft does to hold on to it's control over whatever domain it targets. But in many ways, it's worse.
Apple's OS is built on top of BSD Unix, and open and free OS. They take it, 'extend' it to be the Mac OS, wrap it in sophisticated copy protection scheme (called the Macintosh Computer) and sell it at a premium.
We're starting to see the same thing in their iPod business. With the recent release of iTunes 4.9, we see the addition of podcasting, but, in a closed mannor. There's no 'sharing with the community' happening here. It's all about aggregating as much control as possible into the Apple view of the audio world. I can see Steve now:
"What if we go all these podcaster dudes to put their crap into iTunes and we added advertising? Hmmm... lots of people doing that, or trying to. But we