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July 2, 2007 3:12 PM
Why Buying the iPhone is a Reactionary Act
How about that for fighting words? Just trying to get your attention.
Last week, we posted an action urging consumers not to purchase the iPhone, which is a shared product between Apple and AT&T. Our action urged Steve Jobs to unlock the iPhone from its monopolistic reliance on AT&T. Lots of people liked the action and it traveled around the blogosphere rapidly, particularly among activists who are concerned about AT&T's lead role in trying to eliminate net neutrality and its active cooperation with the Bush Administration in allowing the National Security Agency and others to listen in on our phone calls and review our emails without court oversight.
Others liked it simply because it put on the table where we and they would like the wireless industry to go - a market where consumers can choose their own handsets and move freely among competing network providers, all the while being able to download third party applications without obstacle onto their handsets. This is the ethos of the open internet. In our mind, the wireless companies today are where AOL was before Netscape came along.
At the same time, quite a few members of our own activism network reacted angrily. Some thought that the issue was a trivial one at a time when soldiers are being killed daily in Iraq. Others thought it was self-serving to criticize anyone else in the wireless industry if we did not already offer service that met our own standards.
We welcome open debate about our positions. Working Assets has long taken controversial positions. Such positions at times attract customers and at times push them away. We take the positions because we believe in them - not because they attract customers. In the case of the iPhone, we have a long standing commitment to advocating for an open internet, net neutrality, and an opensource wireless market. As far as I can tell, these positions have not brought us a single customer.
And as to being less important than stopping the occupation of Iraq, well, of course! We work every day on that. But we do so using the tools of an open internet. We invaded Iraq because we have a failed, captured, lazy mainstream media which served as stenographer to the pronouncements of the Bush Administration. Only with an open internet did some of the truth eventually emerge. And it is precisely that open internet that AT&T seeks to suppress. So devoting one action to a vital infrastructure issue hardly seems unreasonable to us.
Perhaps unfairly, we tend to think of the consumers of Apple products as being a bit more progressive than those who stick to the Microsoft world. We think that they should know that their use of the iPhone will enrich and entrench precisely those forces that are seeking to eliminate the very soul of the internet. And if they have any doubt about whether AT&T is on the side of angels, just do a search on AT&T and National Security Agency. AT&T makes choices every day that are political - and they consistenly make the wrong choice.
Apple made a choice in selecting AT&T. Steve Jobs could have used the immense leverage Apple had in launching the iPhone to demand concessions that changed the wireless market. He did not. I had hoped for more.
I would love to hear from some iPhone buyers. What are you doing to offset your inevitable support of AT&T's actions?
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Discussion
The problem with this type of article is that I can never tell if the omissions are due to ignorance or deliberate obfuscation. For example, you claim that Steve Jobs did not use his leverage to make any changes to the wireless industry.
Such a claim would stand stronger if you would explain why Verizon decided to pass on the iPhone before Apple offered it to AT&T. In my mind this happened because they weren’t willing to give in to all of Steve’s demands. You obviously must have another theory (since you say he didn’t have such goals) and it would have been nice to hear those thoughts.
As for me, I have 2 theories on why Verizon might have passed on the iPhone:
A) Apple’s phone is the first step to the destruction of the “pay for everything” model that the carriers have been using thus far. Having a media player that interfaces so well with desktop machines is counter to Verizon’s policies which block the transfer of things like photos back to your computer. Verizon prefers that you send photos from their phone over their network (for a fee of course). Most companies also want you to buy songs over their network for 2 to 3 times the price of a normal online song. The iPhone is the beginning of the end for such restrictive policies.
B) Many of the iPhone’s features (visual voicemail, for one) were dependant on AT&T adapting their network in certain ways. Traditionally wireless providers have dictated what services they would provide and phone manufacturers have built devices to meet those features. Apple has reversed that. Now it’s the manufacturer who is finding the features they think will sell more phones and telling the wireless provider to support the function. This will, I believe, lead to more features that consumers actually want as opposed to the current system which produces features that provide wireless companies with the most profit.
Now, these are just my thoughts…hardly something to be taken as 100% fact. But I think that, at the very least, they show the subject up for discussion. This makes you claims that Steve Jobs demanded nothing to be rather disingenuous since you presented it as if it were total fact.
Now, when you get down to it, are any of these issues as important as net neutrality? Probably not, but your entire argument reminds me of a vegan getting mad at a vegetarian…upset because someone else is not as devoted to a cause as you are. Apple has made some (very positive) changes to the wireless industry, I think. If you think they could have done more, well, that’s a point worth making. But to say they did nothing positive just make your point…that just leaves a bad taste in my mouth and brings me back to my first question. Did you do that out of ignorance or just because it sounds better?
never mind the fact that AT&T was one of the major companies that let the NSA have their own room in their HQ so they could easier monitor calls and data being transmitted.... I mean... no way in hell I'd ever use AT&T or any affiliates.
I'm going with Red Parrot on these kinda deals and just hope that its ignorance not some statement by Apple.
I appreciate Red Parrot's thoughtful comments. I should be very clear that I only know what I read in the wireless press about the negotiations over the iPhone, and those focused heavily on what share of monthly revenue Apple might obtain from AT&T. I do not know over what terms the negotiations with Verizon broke down.
I did not read anywhere of Apple, on behalf of its loyal customers, asking for carrier freedom, and I did not read of Apple asking for assurances that AT&T would defend the privacy of iPhone customers from the NSA unless the NSA obtained court approval. I speculate that succeeding at such requests would significantly increase the value of the iPhone, as well as change the wireless market in a socially beneficial manner.
Now as to having made an argument that reminds Red Parrot of arguments made by a vegan toward a vegetarian, well, I am not quite sure what to say. My primary concern has not to do with revenue sharing or the new wonderful consumer features of the iPhone, but with the specific anti-social practices of AT&T.
Prez,
I guess my views can be boiled down to these 2 ideas:
1) I agree with all the concerns raised in the article. They do matter and should be talked about.
2) I think that bringing Apple into the discusion is just a diversion designed to draw attention to the article.
What do I mean by that? If the article had made some suggestion as to HOW Apple could make AT&T change its policies, well that would have been interesting. Instead, it just seems like wishful thinking. Something akin to asking "Disney pays taxes to the government, why can't they force them to get us out of Iraq?" That line of thinking would get attention, but it makes little sense.
Similarly, I suspect Apple could have raised these issues and AT&T would have just said "Ok, see you later" just as Verizon did before them. Now, if there's some other angle here...some way that Apple could have avoided a simple "take a hike" response from all the carriers...well I would certainly be interested in seeing that talked about.
But that's not what I've read here. I didn't see a suggestion as to how they could have done anything. I simply see an article wishing that Apple could have fixed these problems simply by being Apple. Ok, but there needs to be more 'how' involved. Otherwise, I don't see the point.
Actually, Red Parrot, the line of thinking that tax-payers can force us out of Iraq makes more than "little sense."
On the cynical side, how many times can we point to pharmaceutical companies that seem to have paid their way into legislative favors, or wealthy families shaping the Estate Tax debate. sadly, it's not the tax-payers, necessarily, but the donors who we see can have direct power on DC.
But that's not to leave tax-payers powerless...those constituents tossed out one round of electeds last November, and you see a number of Senators (Bob Smith of Oregon) scrambling to make their tax-payers happy.
I actually agree with you: the "Hows" are a difficult proposition worth spending time on. But I find your example that tax-payers and big corporations are powerless to effect the direction of government a weak parallel.
I love the Internet too, which is one reason I always capitalize the word "Internet". It is a noun and therefore should start with a capital 'I'. I'm always amazed that the word often appears with a lowercase 'i' in writings by people who should know better. As for the iPhone - I would suggest not to trust Apple any more than you trust any large corporation and I wouldn't place Jobs on a pedestal any more than anyone else.
I came to this post expecting to disagree with it. The place I saw it referenced came off as petty whining: “I can have any phone I want, I can have any service I want, but it’s a national disaster that I can’t have both the phone I want and the service I want.” This is the right to use a specific cell phone with a service of one’s choice, not the right to decent health care. Why should I care? Besides, the closet capitalist in me thinks that one of the reasons we get cool things like the iPhone is that companies like Apple make a lot of money creating them. If Apple makes more money by signing a deal with AT&T then we get more cool things.
But the actual article was much more thoughtful and persuasive than where I saw it referenced. For one thing, this deal is just another example of consumers being driven to supporting corporations with policy/political agendas they don’t agree with (he writes between sips of his Coca-Cola). And, without re-hashing the whole opensource wireless argument—it’s hard to figure how opensource wouldn’t be better for consumers and, in fact, promote innovation. The iPhone would still be hugely profitable and, with the market freed up, barriers to entry for innovators would be fewer and lower.
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