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Apple Deserves the $450 Million Piracy Loss

By Tamar Weinberg Wed, Jan 13, 2010 @ 2:27 PM

102798907 4ecf54146b m Apple Deserves the $450 Million Piracy LossToday, it has come to light that the Apple App Store has lost $450 million due to piracy. Ironically, as much as I’d love to jailbreak my iPod touch to get the functionality I long for, every single application I have on my iPod touch comes from Apple’s store legitimately. I’m embarrassed to say how many apps I own, in fact.

Piracy is abundant in the digital world. People who grow up with the mindset that digital means free just won’t pay for your stuff even if it was $0.10. Free a concept to them, and they’ll get their hands on freebies with whatever it takes.

There’s another element to this. Jailbroken iPhones exist for a reason. People, including myself, feel limited with the current iPhone’s feature sets. Multitasking? Nope! Apple doesn’t give a damn to offer you such a nice benefit. I won’t jailbreak my iPod touch because I don’t want to break core functionality, despite the abundant availability in games everywhere under the sun, but the thought has crossed my mind more than once.

Apple products are pretty cheap. $0.99 for a great playable game? Check. But while I’d love to support the Apple economy, I’m sure I’m in a minority of Apple iPhone/iPod users who think that Apple has a sense of entitlement it doesn’t deserve. I think the fanboyism needs to stop. Apple is not receptive enough to respond to legitimate customer complaints because it feels like it’s above everyone else.

We’re seeing a digital transition in the interconnected online space. Customers expect companies to care about them. If they can’t take heed to suggestions and feedback, they might as well die out.

Apple’s choice of removing the only functionality I relied on on the iPod touch was the final straw. I’m no longer planning to support an Apple economy. Until they show me that they appreciate my financial investment in their products, I’m done. I bought a product with a set of expectations and Apple changed those expectations during the course of my ownership to further their own agenda.

Until Apple shows that they care about their customers, customers should do what they want to avoid supporting the Apple regime. And if you’re building Apple apps, as much as I’d love to continue supporting you, you’re shit out of luck anyway; the App store is too saturated for anyone to buy your apps. You should consider the Android platform which isn’t run by greedy bloodsucking money mongers.

I hate to encourage theft.  In fact, that’s not my typical philosphy.  I’m not explicitly endorsing it either.  This post serves to understand where the others are coming from.  Apple has a “holier than thou” attitude that compels people to defy.  Good for those people.  Apple needs to get off its throne and walk amongst the average man to understand where those folks come from.  Once someone turns to jailbreaking to enable necessary functionality, all is over for Apple when these customers realize the goldmine of “free” apps that are available outside the confines of Apple’s store.

  • http://www.macgasm.net Joshua Schnell

    Woah, and I thought I was going to take the cynical crown today. I agree with a lot of what you’re saying. But, it’s not just Apple these days. At least apple has a call centre to take customer complaints. Google gives users a forum for Nexus One questions. Add that to the fact that Nexus One users will be charged two cancellation fees, and you’ve got a really good commentary on what the problem is with technology today. Companies caring more about getting your money than they do about your customer experience. I think it’s turning into an epidemic. It starts with stupid Beta software programs, with the masses flocking to less than stellar products so they have the luxury of being “first” to use it, and sadly it’s ending in a severe disconnect between the consumer and the software or hardware vendors.

    • Tamar Weinberg

      Apple has a call center but it also has online discussion forums that are censored if people express anti-Apple sentiment. Why do people express anti-Apple sentiment? Because Apple doesn’t listen.

      Apple likes people who spend real money on their goods. The iPod market is not important to them. They want people who invest real money in high end products that cost and arm and a leg.

      • http://islandinthenet.com/about-island-in-the-net/ Khürt L Williams

        ” I bought a product with a set of expectations and Apple changed those expectations during the course of my ownership to further their own agenda.”

        Please list the expectations that were not met.

        An expectation, which is a belief that is centred on the future, may or may not be realistic.

        I get that you are upset about what you thought you should get but didn’t. But, I feel that I got more than my money’s worth with my iPod Touch. I don’t know any product that does everything that every possible customer could possibly want. Maybe there is a market for that. Maybe you should build it. You seem to know more than the people who work for large tech companies.

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  • http://simplellama.com Simple Llama

    I’m not sure I see the correlation between jailbreaking and piracy, at least not directly. Tamar, you can certainly jailbreak your iPod Touch without stealing any apps. I have a jailbroken iPhone, and purchase every app that I feel I need. I’d certainly never steal an application, and implying that jailbreaking = stealing is a little misleading.

    There are even paid apps in Cydia / Rock ( Jailbreak -accessible app stores ).

  • http://jessearmand.com Jesse

    Well Saurik said “Apple’s evil engineering practice makes him sad, but the fact that other companies could not do it better than them, makes him more sad”.

    Although this is not merely about engineering.

    Piracy doesn’t kill Apple, but it kills the iPhone developers market (yes, I know it helps their apps to be distributed to larger amount of people, or “free marketing”, as they always said).

    Some people respect appulo.us for their reason on their website. But, a lot more people don’t care whatever ethics behind the act of iPhone app piracy.

  • http://www.greenviolet.net/Some404 Matt Lewandowsky

    As I said on Twitter: “i think i agree, in a weird sense. i feel that if a company takes away functionality, the consumer should be able to replace it.”

    Your example of Apple taking away a core UI feature (in this case volume control on what is supposed to be a music player…) is, sadly, not unique. Hell, we’re still waiting for feature parity on OS X with the “Classic” MacOS. They threw us Dock Extras as a bone (which no longer function…), and finally brought back Labels (guess they realized that multiple third parties with hacks to bring them back made their position that they were “not able to be supported in OS X” untenable?).

    But, Apple has a strong history of breaking things for the user and never fixing them, apparently in hopes the user will eventually forget that the functionality ever existed.

    My view is that one should feel free to do whatever is needed to get their functionality back. If, in the process, users enable additional functionality and start diverting money away from the company… Well… They kind of dug their own grave.

    And my impression (I don’t own an iPod/iPhone, let alone a Jailbroken one) is that Cydia doesn’t carry “pirated” software, and it’s the usual place for Jailbroken users to get software. So, I’d have to argue that they’re not losing money to piracy, they’re losing it to their own lack of caring about their customers.

    As for Android, it’s run by Google. And I don’t believe that Google’s definition of “evil” meshes with my own. :)

    What I always find amusing in these sorts of things is how people make no mention of Windows Mobile. It may have the “taint” of Microsoft, but it certainly doesn’t generally get these sorts of “OMG! The sky is falling! Users are becoming empowered!” articles.

    “Piracy” abounds. It always has, and probably always will. Anecdotally, my observation is that it happens most on systems where the users feel repressed, whether they admit to it or not. Perhaps the real answer to piracy is to pay more attention to your customers, and make them feel like they’re getting their money’s worth? Hell, it’s worth a shot. :)

  • Pierre Blais

    I too think that Apple is digging their own grave. Find another electronics or computer product that is the same price in every store.A store like Wal-Mart or other large chains should pay less to Apple and therefore sell less to us the buyers.If I pay $300.00 for an Ipod touch I don’t really feal like paying more,enough is enough,we are already paying Apple’s full price.I say Jailbreak is the answer to many average salaried buyers who can’t afford to keep on paying.That’s my opinion

  • 97Intruder

    Know this is a tad late, but ” jailbreaking ” only unlocks more functions of the Touch/Phone and allows more “features ” to be realized. I suggest you do your research better

  • haggersnash

    “…Apple has a sense of entitlement…”

    Yeah, I don’t think that it’s Apple with the entitlement problem here. Look in a mirror.