9 ms·

Against Nostalgia - Mike Daisey on Steve Jobs

146 points by bgruber 15y ago

ghostwords 15y ago
"Mr. Jobs leaves behind a dominant Apple, fulfilling his original promise to save the company from the brink when he returned in 1997. Because of its enormous strength in both music sales and mobile devices, Apple has more power than at any time in its history, and it is using that power to make the computing experience of its users less free, more locked down and more tightly regulated than ever before. All of Apple’s iDevices — the iPod, iPhone and iPad — use operating systems that deny the user access to their workings. Users cannot install programs themselves; they are downloaded from Apple’s servers, which Apple controls … … Today there is no tech company that looks more like the Big Brother from Apple’s iconic 1984 commercial than Apple itself, a testament to how quickly power can corrupt."
- deyan 15y ago
  This really captured my biggest concern as well - thanks for the link!
- erichocean 15y ago
  > Users cannot install programs themselves It costs $99/year to do so. I have written software and installed it on all three of those devices. I wish it cost no money whatsoever, but the quoted text itself is simply not true.
  - ghostwords 15y ago
    You are not a user, you are a developer. Consider that having to pay/become certified to develop reinforces the above point.
- saturdaysaint 15y ago
  less free, more locked down and more tightly regulated than ever before. What a contortion to characterize Apple's achievements with iOS this way. Compared to life before iPhones, we practically have superhero abilities at our fingertips, but yeah, Steve Jobs was mostly just taking our freedom. I can read any book or essay (including this thinly veiled anti-Apple screed) or hear just about any song ever recorded within seconds of it coming to mind, but Apple is "Big Brother". This guy is a clown.
  - Steko 15y ago
    "What a contortion to characterize Apple's achievements" It's Mike Daisey, dude knows one song and he's playing it. Not a great time to be running a one man show that trashes Steve Jobs. Or maybe it is.
    - saturdaysaint 15y ago
      It's a shame because some of his thoughts on Foxconn are interesting. I saw him in an interview and I'll admit that he made me think about the impact that my buying has. He's an engaging speaker. But he really does a disservice to these arguments by going off on EFF-style rants. Its not in the same ballpark as the human rights concerns, which sure makes it look like he's just looking for a conveniently high profile target.
fritzy 15y ago
Most good things, taken to an extreme, become terrible in some ways. In this case, consumerism -- the United States, and increasingly the world, have taken consumerism to an extreme. Our culture has been systematically shifted by laws, advertising, taxes, and our own desires to drive us towards making and lusting after purchases. We enjoy a high quality of life, and many amazing technologies, in part due to our rampant consumerism, but the side effects may not be worth it.
juliano_q 15y ago
That was something that I needed to read. Yes, Steve was a genious, but we can't let death create a saint from him. With Apple's giant profit margins he could enforce better working conditions. I also don't like the closed ecosystem idea, but that is just my PoV and I understand why people support it to have a better overall usability.
- 3pt14159 15y ago
  He has a duty to his shareholders. The reason that the Chinese workers are willing to work in such terrible conditions is that it is a step up from where they were. China is modernizing, just as we did once. Say for a second that Jobs was somehow able to double the wages given to the average worker in China (or increase conditions such that it was effectively a doubled salary). The result would be massive, widespread demand to work in those factories. Since supply and demand are not balanced either queues take over or gate keepers get paid off. If that doesn't make you feel better at least the corporate taxes Apple pays might.
xutopia 15y ago
Is this the Mike Daisey who had some Christian mob throw water on his show notes?
- allwein 15y ago
  Yep, same Mike Daisey. http://www.mikedaisey.com/2007/04/night-to-remember.sht http://www.mikedaisey.com/2007/04/night-to-remember.sht
lukifer 15y ago
I wish that before Steve had left us, someone would have been able to ask him about the lack of a magical user experience for developers. While Apple has always made "closed" hardware, the Apple II and the early Macs were delightful toyboxes for swaths of young people: BASIC, Hypercard, ResEdit, etc. They (we) learned, tinkered, explored, taking the concept of a "bicycle for the mind" to a whole new level. There's a lot to like about modern Mac and iPhone development: the tools and the documentation are arguably better than they've ever been, and the APIs have become absurdly powerful. But there's very little magic or UX to be found for the young and the new: even if you scrape together the $99 and brave the frustrating certificate process, it still takes a lot of overhead to make anything happen on the screen. (Recent improvements like ARC and storyboards help, but they're a band-aid.) I think there remains a tremendous unfilled space in the computing world for usable "prosumer" programming, in the spirit of Hypercard. If the FSF types could pull their neckbeards out of their UNIX sphincters for five minutes, they'd see that the real barrier to truly free software is software that's trivial to learn how to edit or create [1]. And if Steve had seen this as a priority, I have no doubt that he could have made it happen. [1] Obviously, not all software could be written this way; we'd still need engineers. But even web-enabled Hypercard-style apps would allow people to create a great deal of value for themselves and others, and give them the courage to venture deeper.
- isopod 15y ago
  I think there remains a tremendous unfilled space in the computing world for usable "prosumer" programming, in the spirit of Hypercard. I would argue that such a thing already exists. If you want to do 'easy', low-hanging, easily-prototyped design and development, the kind of experience you had as a kid with Hypercard, you can still do it, and mostly for free: it's the web.
  - lukifer 15y ago
    > it's the web. I couldn't agree more, and it's why I'm so enthusiastic about the web as the lingua fraca of computing. But as Steve might say: "Not good enough yet; make it again." To put it mildly, I think we can do way, way better.
  - 15y ago
lucasjake 15y ago
This article makes several valid points, but the overall 'hook' or theme doesn't really make sense. Steve Jobs was very nostalgic, greenlighting the original 'think different' campaign profiling historical figures, and more recently the iconic advertising featuring The Beatles, which apple worked so long to get into iTunes. There are also valid points made about the manufacturing situation in China, but he did not explore any real counterargument. The factory jobs in China are not perfect, but do we know if those workers are fundamentally opposed to it? China tried to avoid this type of capitalistic society for a generation, and was not happy with the results. I think it is fair to critique the standards of the factories, but without providing an alternative solution to lifting a billion people into prosperity, I think it was kind of a low blow against Steve in the article given the timing.
- zbuc 15y ago
  It was also a low blow given the fact that the author owns an iPad... so he's enjoying the fruits of what he describes as abusive labor practices. If you're going to be principled, be principled. An iPad isn't a necessity in any way.
  - burgerbrain 15y ago
    Owning Apple hardware doesn't mean you have to be blind to the dark side of Apple. If anything, it just tells me the author is capable of analyzing the situation critically.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- vogonj 15y ago
  it's not "nostalgia" in the sense of old/classic things, or at least that's what I get from his thesis. it's nostalgia in the sense of doing things because, gosh darn it, that's the way we've always done them. his argument is that the Apple of "the crazy ones, the rebels, the troublemakers" would ignore what's profitable and what the rest of the industry does, and make wide-open systems, humanely -- because Steve would've seen what doesn't work about the current model, thrown it out, and done it his own way. The Beatles and historical figures are (arguably) timeless classics which don't grow worse with age; walled gardens and overseas manufacturing are (arguably) relics of an era where Apple was struggling to gain a foothold in the industry, and that's what the author claims passes for nostalgia.
gatlin 15y ago
I'm not sure how unique Apple is in supply chain human rights issues, but I will say that it's appalling how little anyone seems to care about who we are literally killing to have nice things. I'm just as hypocritical and evil as everyone else, too, so please save your ad hominem responses.
- aikinai 15y ago
  I haven't looked into it extensively and I could be mistaken, but after the suicides at Foxconn, I remember reading an article about how the suicide rate at the factory was far lower than the suicide rate of the surrounding towns. The conditions in Chinese factories are horrible to think about, but it's important to keep in mind those conditions are often better than the places the workers came from. Shutting down factories in China wouldn't do anything to improve the lives of poor Chinese. And I've read that Foxconn is actually the most desirable employer compared to other factories.
  - justsee 15y ago
    "it's important to keep in mind those conditions are often better than the places the workers came from" No offence, but I think this type of ignorance forms part of the denialism we use to avoid considering the moral issues. Mike Daisey has made the point that manufacturing has only really taken off in Shenzhen in the last 10 years, and that the horrific working conditions could be improved without a significant increase in product price as labor is such a tiny part of the overall cost. This was a very good article where Mike Daisey rails against the sentiment you're showing above: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/the-dark-side-of-apple-one-mans-monologue-of-misery-20110930-1l0hg.html http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/the-dark-si... His interview on the issue was particularly good as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=D040AvDBAT4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=D...
stevengg 15y ago
the wrong shade of yellow in the second “O” that this story mentions https://plus.google.com/u/2/107117483540235115863/posts/gcSStkKxXTw https://plus.google.com/u/2/107117483540235115863/posts/gcSS...
ilamont 15y ago
I wish that the bio at the end, which promotes the author's Steve Jobs monologue ("scheduled to open at the Public Theater on Tuesday") hadn't been added. It lessens the power of some of the points he brings up, and makes his argument seem more like an advertisement. In addition, the safety, health, and compensation of workers at suppliers' factories in Asia could have been explored more. The fact that workers' rights in China and elsewhere are so poor is one of those uncomfortable realities about global manufacturing that most consumers -- and fans of Apple and Steve Jobs -- would rather forget.
- SeoxyS 15y ago
  The bio in op-eds is a standard in journalism. It's added by the editor, not the author.
  - ilamont 15y ago
    I used to work in the news business. At every publication I've worked for, the editor asks the author for a short bio. It's almost never changed unless it's too long or too over-the-top.
- bad_user 15y ago
  I wanted more details too, but in the age of SMS and Twitter that's like cutting the tree branch from under you.
- nsmoot 15y ago
  Daisey's website links to articles that provide a deeper look into the factories and their work conditions. He's a performer no doubt, and hopefully the short bio doesn't get in the way of his message or preclude anyone from seeing The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. It was a passionate, thought-provoking show, and I recommend checking it out if given the opportunity.
snorkel 15y ago
It'd be interesting if Apple were bold enough to pursue Fair Labor Certification even if it meant pricing their products even higher, but I think Apple has the exact customer base that'd be willing to pay the Fair Labor premium.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
brd 15y ago
I love this op-ed, I've harbored similar feelings since the rise of iTunes and haven't owned an apple product since its arrival. I have always readily admitted the superiority of Apple's design and user experience and I admire Jobs for everything he has accomplished but Apple has never, in my eyes, been a company truly deserving of celebration.
Blunt 15y ago
another fucking story about Steve Jobs... RIP in piece Ralph Steinman!
ricardobeat 15y ago
No mention of http://www.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/ http://www.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/ or the Code of Conduct they put together after the Foxconn fiascos.
kragen 15y ago
Daisey is more eloquently and sensitively restating the same arguments that Stallman wrote, drawing much flamage, earlier today: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3085417 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3085417
polemic 15y ago
This article mirrors my thoughts - Steve Jobs was truly a great business man who revolutionised consumer technology and the entertainment industry. But if we really think that these are the industries that betters humanity, we need a strong reality check.
sajid 15y ago
The outpouring of emotion we've seen over the last few days is not due to nostalgia. It's because a person many people have admired and looked up to is gone. Steve Jobs was a hero for a lot of people in technology, especially for entrepreneurs and it's ok to grieve when your heroes die. Nobody is claiming Steve Jobs was perfect, he had flaws like any other a human being. But he was a damn good entrepreneur and for many people that's no small thing, it's what many of us are dedicating our lives to.

146 points by bgruber 15y ago

"Mr. Jobs leaves behind a dominant Apple, fulfilling his original promise to save the company from the brink when he returned in 1997. Because of its enormous strength in both music sales and mobile devices, Apple has more power than at any time in its history, and it is using that power to make the computing experience of its users less free, more locked down and more tightly regulated than ever before. All of Apple’s iDevices — the iPod, iPhone and iPad — use operating systems that deny the user access to their workings. Users cannot install programs themselves; they are downloaded from Apple’s servers, which Apple controls … … Today there is no tech company that looks more like the Big Brother from Apple’s iconic 1984 commercial than Apple itself, a testament to how quickly power can corrupt."

deyan 15y ago
This really captured my biggest concern as well - thanks for the link!
erichocean 15y ago
> Users cannot install programs themselves It costs $99/year to do so. I have written software and installed it on all three of those devices. I wish it cost no money whatsoever, but the quoted text itself is simply not true.
- ghostwords 15y ago
  You are not a user, you are a developer. Consider that having to pay/become certified to develop reinforces the above point.
saturdaysaint 15y ago
less free, more locked down and more tightly regulated than ever before. What a contortion to characterize Apple's achievements with iOS this way. Compared to life before iPhones, we practically have superhero abilities at our fingertips, but yeah, Steve Jobs was mostly just taking our freedom. I can read any book or essay (including this thinly veiled anti-Apple screed) or hear just about any song ever recorded within seconds of it coming to mind, but Apple is "Big Brother". This guy is a clown.
- Steko 15y ago
  "What a contortion to characterize Apple's achievements" It's Mike Daisey, dude knows one song and he's playing it. Not a great time to be running a one man show that trashes Steve Jobs. Or maybe it is.
  - saturdaysaint 15y ago
    It's a shame because some of his thoughts on Foxconn are interesting. I saw him in an interview and I'll admit that he made me think about the impact that my buying has. He's an engaging speaker. But he really does a disservice to these arguments by going off on EFF-style rants. Its not in the same ballpark as the human rights concerns, which sure makes it look like he's just looking for a conveniently high profile target.

fritzy 15y ago

Most good things, taken to an extreme, become terrible in some ways. In this case, consumerism -- the United States, and increasingly the world, have taken consumerism to an extreme. Our culture has been systematically shifted by laws, advertising, taxes, and our own desires to drive us towards making and lusting after purchases. We enjoy a high quality of life, and many amazing technologies, in part due to our rampant consumerism, but the side effects may not be worth it.

juliano_q 15y ago

That was something that I needed to read. Yes, Steve was a genious, but we can't let death create a saint from him. With Apple's giant profit margins he could enforce better working conditions. I also don't like the closed ecosystem idea, but that is just my PoV and I understand why people support it to have a better overall usability.

3pt14159 15y ago
He has a duty to his shareholders. The reason that the Chinese workers are willing to work in such terrible conditions is that it is a step up from where they were. China is modernizing, just as we did once. Say for a second that Jobs was somehow able to double the wages given to the average worker in China (or increase conditions such that it was effectively a doubled salary). The result would be massive, widespread demand to work in those factories. Since supply and demand are not balanced either queues take over or gate keepers get paid off. If that doesn't make you feel better at least the corporate taxes Apple pays might.

xutopia 15y ago

Is this the Mike Daisey who had some Christian mob throw water on his show notes?

allwein 15y ago
Yep, same Mike Daisey. http://www.mikedaisey.com/2007/04/night-to-remember.sht http://www.mikedaisey.com/2007/04/night-to-remember.sht

lukifer 15y ago

I wish that before Steve had left us, someone would have been able to ask him about the lack of a magical user experience for developers. While Apple has always made "closed" hardware, the Apple II and the early Macs were delightful toyboxes for swaths of young people: BASIC, Hypercard, ResEdit, etc. They (we) learned, tinkered, explored, taking the concept of a "bicycle for the mind" to a whole new level. There's a lot to like about modern Mac and iPhone development: the tools and the documentation are arguably better than they've ever been, and the APIs have become absurdly powerful. But there's very little magic or UX to be found for the young and the new: even if you scrape together the $99 and brave the frustrating certificate process, it still takes a lot of overhead to make anything happen on the screen. (Recent improvements like ARC and storyboards help, but they're a band-aid.) I think there remains a tremendous unfilled space in the computing world for usable "prosumer" programming, in the spirit of Hypercard. If the FSF types could pull their neckbeards out of their UNIX sphincters for five minutes, they'd see that the real barrier to truly free software is software that's trivial to learn how to edit or create [1]. And if Steve had seen this as a priority, I have no doubt that he could have made it happen. [1] Obviously, not all software could be written this way; we'd still need engineers. But even web-enabled Hypercard-style apps would allow people to create a great deal of value for themselves and others, and give them the courage to venture deeper.

isopod 15y ago
I think there remains a tremendous unfilled space in the computing world for usable "prosumer" programming, in the spirit of Hypercard. I would argue that such a thing already exists. If you want to do 'easy', low-hanging, easily-prototyped design and development, the kind of experience you had as a kid with Hypercard, you can still do it, and mostly for free: it's the web.
- lukifer 15y ago
  > it's the web. I couldn't agree more, and it's why I'm so enthusiastic about the web as the lingua fraca of computing. But as Steve might say: "Not good enough yet; make it again." To put it mildly, I think we can do way, way better.
- 15y ago

lucasjake 15y ago

This article makes several valid points, but the overall 'hook' or theme doesn't really make sense. Steve Jobs was very nostalgic, greenlighting the original 'think different' campaign profiling historical figures, and more recently the iconic advertising featuring The Beatles, which apple worked so long to get into iTunes. There are also valid points made about the manufacturing situation in China, but he did not explore any real counterargument. The factory jobs in China are not perfect, but do we know if those workers are fundamentally opposed to it? China tried to avoid this type of capitalistic society for a generation, and was not happy with the results. I think it is fair to critique the standards of the factories, but without providing an alternative solution to lifting a billion people into prosperity, I think it was kind of a low blow against Steve in the article given the timing.

zbuc 15y ago
It was also a low blow given the fact that the author owns an iPad... so he's enjoying the fruits of what he describes as abusive labor practices. If you're going to be principled, be principled. An iPad isn't a necessity in any way.
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  Owning Apple hardware doesn't mean you have to be blind to the dark side of Apple. If anything, it just tells me the author is capable of analyzing the situation critically.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
vogonj 15y ago
it's not "nostalgia" in the sense of old/classic things, or at least that's what I get from his thesis. it's nostalgia in the sense of doing things because, gosh darn it, that's the way we've always done them. his argument is that the Apple of "the crazy ones, the rebels, the troublemakers" would ignore what's profitable and what the rest of the industry does, and make wide-open systems, humanely -- because Steve would've seen what doesn't work about the current model, thrown it out, and done it his own way. The Beatles and historical figures are (arguably) timeless classics which don't grow worse with age; walled gardens and overseas manufacturing are (arguably) relics of an era where Apple was struggling to gain a foothold in the industry, and that's what the author claims passes for nostalgia.

gatlin 15y ago

I'm not sure how unique Apple is in supply chain human rights issues, but I will say that it's appalling how little anyone seems to care about who we are literally killing to have nice things. I'm just as hypocritical and evil as everyone else, too, so please save your ad hominem responses.

aikinai 15y ago
I haven't looked into it extensively and I could be mistaken, but after the suicides at Foxconn, I remember reading an article about how the suicide rate at the factory was far lower than the suicide rate of the surrounding towns. The conditions in Chinese factories are horrible to think about, but it's important to keep in mind those conditions are often better than the places the workers came from. Shutting down factories in China wouldn't do anything to improve the lives of poor Chinese. And I've read that Foxconn is actually the most desirable employer compared to other factories.
- justsee 15y ago
  "it's important to keep in mind those conditions are often better than the places the workers came from" No offence, but I think this type of ignorance forms part of the denialism we use to avoid considering the moral issues. Mike Daisey has made the point that manufacturing has only really taken off in Shenzhen in the last 10 years, and that the horrific working conditions could be improved without a significant increase in product price as labor is such a tiny part of the overall cost. This was a very good article where Mike Daisey rails against the sentiment you're showing above: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/the-dark-side-of-apple-one-mans-monologue-of-misery-20110930-1l0hg.html http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/the-dark-si... His interview on the issue was particularly good as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=D040AvDBAT4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=D...

stevengg 15y ago

the wrong shade of yellow in the second “O” that this story mentions https://plus.google.com/u/2/107117483540235115863/posts/gcSStkKxXTw https://plus.google.com/u/2/107117483540235115863/posts/gcSS...

ilamont 15y ago

I wish that the bio at the end, which promotes the author's Steve Jobs monologue ("scheduled to open at the Public Theater on Tuesday") hadn't been added. It lessens the power of some of the points he brings up, and makes his argument seem more like an advertisement. In addition, the safety, health, and compensation of workers at suppliers' factories in Asia could have been explored more. The fact that workers' rights in China and elsewhere are so poor is one of those uncomfortable realities about global manufacturing that most consumers -- and fans of Apple and Steve Jobs -- would rather forget.

SeoxyS 15y ago
The bio in op-eds is a standard in journalism. It's added by the editor, not the author.
- ilamont 15y ago
  I used to work in the news business. At every publication I've worked for, the editor asks the author for a short bio. It's almost never changed unless it's too long or too over-the-top.
bad_user 15y ago
I wanted more details too, but in the age of SMS and Twitter that's like cutting the tree branch from under you.
nsmoot 15y ago
Daisey's website links to articles that provide a deeper look into the factories and their work conditions. He's a performer no doubt, and hopefully the short bio doesn't get in the way of his message or preclude anyone from seeing The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. It was a passionate, thought-provoking show, and I recommend checking it out if given the opportunity.

snorkel 15y ago

It'd be interesting if Apple were bold enough to pursue Fair Labor Certification even if it meant pricing their products even higher, but I think Apple has the exact customer base that'd be willing to pay the Fair Labor premium.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

brd 15y ago

I love this op-ed, I've harbored similar feelings since the rise of iTunes and haven't owned an apple product since its arrival. I have always readily admitted the superiority of Apple's design and user experience and I admire Jobs for everything he has accomplished but Apple has never, in my eyes, been a company truly deserving of celebration.

Blunt 15y ago

another fucking story about Steve Jobs... RIP in piece Ralph Steinman!

ricardobeat 15y ago

No mention of http://www.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/ http://www.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/ or the Code of Conduct they put together after the Foxconn fiascos.

kragen 15y ago

Daisey is more eloquently and sensitively restating the same arguments that Stallman wrote, drawing much flamage, earlier today: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3085417 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3085417

polemic 15y ago

This article mirrors my thoughts - Steve Jobs was truly a great business man who revolutionised consumer technology and the entertainment industry. But if we really think that these are the industries that betters humanity, we need a strong reality check.

sajid 15y ago

The outpouring of emotion we've seen over the last few days is not due to nostalgia. It's because a person many people have admired and looked up to is gone. Steve Jobs was a hero for a lot of people in technology, especially for entrepreneurs and it's ok to grieve when your heroes die. Nobody is claiming Steve Jobs was perfect, he had flaws like any other a human being. But he was a damn good entrepreneur and for many people that's no small thing, it's what many of us are dedicating our lives to.