Good post. It's time to be a realist. I read Jobs' essay as laying out
his thinking reasonably clearly, but with some slanting -- probably
this is just the way he is, remember the "reality-distortion field"
after all. In particular, I'd have a little more respect for him
without the distortions -- eg:
"What they don’t say is that almost all this video is also available
in a more modern format, H.264, and viewable on iPhones, iPods and
iPads. YouTube, with an estimated 40% of the web’s video, shines in an
app bundled on all Apple mobile devices, with the iPad offering
perhaps the best YouTube discovery and viewing experience ever. Add to
this video from Vimeo, Netflix, Facebook, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, Fox
News, ESPN, NPR, Time, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal,
Sports Illustrated, People, National Geographic, and many, many
others. iPhone, iPod and iPad users aren’t missing much video."
I just checked, and my iPhone still doesn't play any NYTimes video,
which has been a major disappointment for me for some time now.... I
can only hope that Jobs is right and that Apple's pressure towards
(presumably) more reliable video standards will eventually induce
outfits like the Times to provide video in a different format.
Meanwhile, in the real world, I'm still missing out on something I
want. I've written to the Times to request a different video format, I
guess that's what I can do, but last I heard from my nephew, who works
as a video producer for NYT, that any changes won't be very immediate.
-- Peter
Peter M. Brigham
[email protected]
http://home.comcast.net/~pmbrig
On Apr 29, 2010, at 1:17 PM, Bob Sneidar wrote:
I think the source of whatever disagreements are being had in this
thread stem from a tendency for people to misperceive the nature of
the world they actually have to deal with day to day, and their
ability to make any real quantum change in it's nature. This is
driven by the seemingly inescapable sense that "men ought to be
better than this" but simply aren't, coupled with their own
inability do do much about even themselves, never mind everyone else.
One of the reactions to this phenomenon that I see people exhibit
frequently, is to imagine a better world, and then try to live their
lives as though the world was more like the better one they imagine.
My personal opinion is that this is a fools game. Usually what
actually transpires, is that being unable to produce any real
substantive change themselves, they often latch onto certain causes,
and then pursue them to extremes which would shame all but the best
of saints. In doing so, they cannot help to implicate and alienate a
great many people for "not doing enough" toward their particular
cause. The net result is a kind of moral finger pointing usually
reserved for religious folk who say but don't do.
Now apparently many people feel that Steve Jobs ought to be behaving
much more in accordance with the benevolence and altruism that their
perception of "the world that ought to be" requires, and are
disappointed that he doesn't. I call to witness all the claims of
his lack of consideration for "what developers want" claiming that
instead he is simply focused on the bottom line.
I suppose in the world that ought to be, heads of corporations would
be free to pursue such lofty goals at will, while the masses admired
him for all he aspired to do. But we live in the real world, not
"the world that ought to be", and in that real world, people pay
Steve Jobs a lot of money. Those people expect him to do one
particular job. That job is to make Apple as profitable, in the near
term and in the long term, as he can possible make it. Most of the
time he can accomplish this by accommodating as many end users and
developers as possible, but this is not always the case. Sometimes
in the world that is, you have to take from Peter to pay Paul.
Peter's friends will undoubtedly feel angst at this, but then Paul's
friends would feel no less angst should the transaction not have
occurred.
So my point here is that trying to live your live in "the world that
ought to be" is fine up until the point that you begin to require of
others to do the same. If imaging such a world motivates you to be a
better person in the real one, excellent. We need more of you. Just
know that my version of "the world that ought to be" is likely to be
on may points contrary to yours. We aren't going to get along very
well requiring each other to conform to each other's dreams and
visions.
Instead, we ought to resign ourselves to figuring out how the real
world works, and then do our best to live in that world while not
compromising our own personal principles, or encroaching on anyone
else's rights or freedoms. I often tell starry eyed young people
with hearts full of hope recently deferred, "There is 'The World
That Is' and there is 'The World That Ought To Be.' You can only
live in 'The World That Is.'"
Bob
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