Steve Wakes Up
About two years ago, I had the chance to have a nice lunch with the folks from ZDnet in San Francisco. Among them was Om Malik, a guy I really like, who pays a lot of attention to Apple, and who has since branched out to his own blog, GigaOM. As in
As I recall it, the result of our lunch talk (now almost two years ago) was this: yeah, the iPod is great, but look at it this way: given the Digita Rights Management control scenario that only lets iPods play the cool iTunes stuff, the story is set in stone: iPod’s market share can only decline, from now on.
Jump cut to last December, when we did our annual SNS New York Dinner, which is all about ten predictions for the coming year. The last of which was, and I am paraphrasing from my home computer, that iPod and iTunes will begin losing share by the end of the year, because Steve Jobs has never learned to play well with others.
All of which brings us to Steve’s sudden, and totally UN Steve-like letter (who really wrote this, and why?) about opening up DRM ASAP.
I will now assume that Steve does not want to again get fired from Apple (ah, you think that’s absurd, don’t you? Check your history books, and resume reading.)
Steve had a dream of dominating the ENTIRE MEDIA WORLD. It didn’t work. Uh Oh, so sorry. You’ll have to settle for jail time and owning Disney stock.
OK, that was a cheap shot. NO JAIL TIME FOR STEVE, I guarantee it, even more likely to be true since the entire line of prosecutors after him has been canned. (I mean, they have resigned, suddenly. I understand they and their loved ones will now live on a new island created and paid for by Steve, outside of US waters.)
All of this brings us to where we should have been, except for Steve’s ambitions, and the RIAA’s greed: using our music freely, and paying for it often.
Just like in 1965.
I have to say, if the entire RIAA took a spinner down the yahootube (that means, did a spiral leap down the toilet drain), the world would probably be a MUCH better place.
How about it, RIAA? Just, like, leave. Steve is right, although he made his own personal grab for the Big Media Money.
Just let go.
Bye.