[ubercow13]

I don't see the difference. Negative sentiment, once broadcast publicly and when diseminated widely enough or by the right people, becomes negative publicity, and that's what they acted on as you say.

Anyway I would hope that 'incessant drone' is often about more than customisation, it is because people are concerned about the impacts on general purpose computing a la Cory Doctorow [1]. Moaning about that being annoying is like moaning about the 'incessant drone' of climate change commentary.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg

[chongli]

I’ve been aware of Cory’s argument since he first began writing about it. It still hasn’t come to pass. I can still run a C compiler on my Mac and write whatever software I want to write. I can still install any other compiler or interpreter I like and write whatever code I want for it. I can still install any open source software I want.

Cory’s arguments ultimately boil down to a slippery slope argument. Apple says it is locking things down in order to protect people against malware. Cory says this will lead to a lockdown against general purpose computing (ability to run any software you want). This hasn’t yet come to pass, so it’s a matter of waiting at this point.

I don’t think climate change is an appropriate analogy. Climate change is a physical process which we can model and predict via the scientific method. It’s pretty clear at this point that if we maintain the status quo and don’t change our behaviour then catastrophe will ensue.

You can’t say the same thing about Apple. They’re a company full of people and you can’t predict what they’re going to do next. Plenty of people try, of course, but they’re wrong every year.