Steve Fucking Jobs
I hate him. He's everything that's bad about uttlery disingenuous corporate figureheads. A smiley face and a "Hey, I'm just one of you geeky guys!" persona masking a ruthless, egocentric desire to rinse as much money as possible from the often unquestioning captive audience that worship his overpriced products.

A man who did nothing but marketing and shouting at people in the early days of Apple. Now he just shouts at people. Admittedly, that's behind the scenes, yet he pretends to be everyone's favourite geeky uncle in his public appearances. Like Disney and Nintendo's public image, Steve represents the very worst kind of consumer-exploiting capitalism.

He promotes ultra-locked-down 'appliances', that just happen to spew revenue directly into his pockets, as being what people 'actually' want, when really his approach just creates a population of dumb users who still have no clue about the potential of the machines they buy - because Steve tells them exactly what they 'should' use those machines for. He wants to promote goods for people that are scared of computers, yet he doesn't take away that fear. He just gives them dumbed-down devices, because according to his methodology 'it's what they need'. It's dictatorial. It's patronising. It makes Steve even richer.

Contrastingly, I love Bill Gates, even though Windows is still horrific. Why? Because Bill still reviewed code, even when he was running the richest company in the universe. He also pays for something 30% of global malaria research. He's just committed billions to vaccinations in the third world. IMO, whatever wrongs Bill did with MS, he's righted them all a thousandfold.

I doubt we'll ever see Steve doing the same. Mostly because he doesn't care as long as you PAY MORE MONEY and LOVE HIM.
(Tont Tont Tont, Fri 5 Feb 2010, 13:21, 7 replies)

Totally
agreed.

On every point.

I think it has something to do with his being being adopted at a young age - I think he needs to create wealth and be loved by everyone to show his *real* parents what they gave up.

Bill, on the other hand, has made great strides to write his wrongs.

I will still not use the excuse for an OS that is windows though.
(dchurch bah, Fri 5 Feb 2010, 13:27, closed)

It's not a computer, it's a WAY OF LIFE.

( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 5 Feb 2010, 13:32, closed)

Although they're not celebrities
shouldn't you then hate the show or idiots who actually buy those awful Apple products? After all, they're the ones pouring money into Apple's pockets.
(Smale is stuffed, Fri 5 Feb 2010, 13:46, closed)

Nooo. People buy what they're sold on the most part. Can't blame them for being sold to by evil corporate behemoths.
(Tont Tont Tont, Fri 5 Feb 2010, 14:38, closed)

So
are Apple any more evil than anyone else selling mobile phones, mp3 players or computers? Or do they just have the mind-control frequency just right?
(Smale is stuffed, Sun 7 Feb 2010, 7:57, closed)

Hell yeah.
Totally agree, (even though I'm typing this on a macbook and linking through a time capsule!!)

I can rip apart an old PC, bodge together components from 5 different sources, run a dozen different programmes on it and it falls over occasionally. On the other hand I can buy a pretty apple product that runs apple approved products and look at a pretty coloured pinwheel less often. Prime example: where did the early imacs put USB ports? at the back where they wouldn't ruin the prettiness. Where did PCs stick them? on the front, around the monitor, on hubs and anywhere else they were needed.

Bill Gates is a saint for his charitable funding, Linus Torvalds is a hero for freeware, Steve Jobs is a cunt.
( da5id <YOUR SIG HERE>, Fri 5 Feb 2010, 16:40, closed)

^^this

(dchurch bah, Fri 5 Feb 2010, 17:21, closed)