3 ms·
You are so right about this. The thing is, I actually also do believe Apple is evil, as is almost every business on our planet. Apple wants to protect it's ass
by emanuer 16y ago
You are so right about this.
The thing is, I actually also do believe Apple is evil, as is almost every business on our planet. Apple wants to protect it's assets by keeping a very tight control over the ecosystem around it's products. Pharmacy companies pay politicians to get their drugs approved. The tobacco industry has a great interest that it's products get smuggled. Insurance companies... don't get me started on them.
I am guessing what Mr Wilson meant was: "Apple believes to know what is best for me and gets it right more often than not. And after everyone bought their somehow superior product they only allow me to enter the market they created, if I play after their rules. And I don't like that. I want the freedom to sell any kind of software to people without someone babysitting me."
Well I don't know if he really meant that by saying "Apple is evil", but I do know that if one calls Apple evil, there has to be a new adjective invented for insurance companies, weapon producers and the pharma industry.
- fredwilson 16y agoi was purposefully trying to be controversial and we were playing a word association game on stage. so take this whole thing with a big grain of salt. i think they are being a gatekeeper and i don't like gatekeepers very much. they aren't good for entrepreneurs and hackers
- jsz0 16y agoI think the wild-west model is usually not very good for users to the same way the gatekeeper model is usually not good for hackers. Maybe we need more janitors instead.
- sorbus 16y agoWouldn't every conventional operating system be using the wild-west model? Windows, OSX, even Linux[1][2]: if you need a program, you go out onto the internet and look for it. [1] At least, it can be used that way. It fits the Janitor model much better when using repositories to install programs, or at least what I imagine the Janitor model to be (weakly curated system with misbehaving applications removed). [2] I'm also ignoring all of the less common/lower profile operating systems, because the only one I can name is BSD and I've never used it.
- AmericanOP 16y agoI saw the interview, Fred was having fun on stage being witty when the snark started to creep in. Perfect recipe for a soundbyte unfortunately. This is what happens when conversation stales around the usual suspects (apple, google, twitter, etc.) Too bad too, I could tell Sam from Loopt was unimpressed with the event as he wanted to talk about users but after the one-liners things stayed very superficial. Don't think less of Fred though, VC's don't become celebs for their one-liners.