> natural monopoly

You are constantly making completely false claims and you are wrongly using words and terms. Utility computing and grid computing has got nothing to do with google's search engine.

Internet search is in absolutely no way even remotely a "natural monopoly". I could set up my own search engine with a few bucks investment just like Larry and Sergey did plus nowadays storage is even cheaper.

> so it is most efficient to have a central distributor

So in case of Google it is a "good" monopoly because it will save costs???? Are you out of your mind? I don't pay for a google search like I pay for my kWh and google does not provide any public infrastructure. They feed off the internet and feed off on my data and make money that way. They are a company, not a utility.

> You also mentioned "all the flak they are getting," could you provide specifics?

Well for starters, look at all the "Apple=Nazi" bullshit and blind hatred this guy wrote: http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=jhuni

> DRM

There is no DRM on my iMac or in my iTunes songs. I can export my photos, videos, contacts, my emails, my documents and everything else I have on my PCs and take it with me at any point. I am in control of everything that is going on on my PC here and I can also install lots of other OSs if I want that.

> evil things like restricting users with DRM

Well, you really must be smarter than everyone else because with a good 100 million iPhones sold, you would think MOST customers would have quickly dumped them as soon as they hit all those horrible road blocks you are seeing... but no, iphones keep selling and a lot of people enjoy using them. So they must have gotten something right for just that target audience.

You need to learn to accept that obviously apple does not care about some bean-foil deflector beanie defender of all developers who sees them as the worst kind of Naziscum. So needless to say, they won't be making any products for you whether you like it or not. There is nothing more to this discussion than that.

> Could you show me what alternatives you are referring to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_online_music_stor...

You need to plug the RIAA with your DRM hatred because they are (were) making those terms.

> PyMusique

Someone illegally reverse engineered a tool to hack around the RIAA-dictated DRM protection and you are wondering that apple plugged (had to plug) that hole? Go hate on the RIAA for that you. There is absolutely no justification that any company is required to open their services up to any third-party clients if they do not want it or as in this case aren't able to allow it. Do not bring this irrelevant argument up again. Ever.

> Apple still uses DRM extensively today

I have no drm on my imac or macbook pro.

> with the freedom from being forced into things by big corporations like Apple and Microsoft.

You are wrong. You are completely, utterly wrong. Neither apple nor microsoft forces people to use anything. If you don't like it, don't use it. You don't get it huh? You must really think you are so much smarter than everyone around you because you obviously believe you are in a position to question all those millions worldwide who decided to buy an apple product.

Back before apple could sell a single home-PC, there was pretty much only x86 and microsoft for pretty much all PCs. To this day GNU/Linux has obviously utterly failed to make it to the average user's desktop at large so people were stuck with Windows. At least apple could grab a few of those percents and bring a little bit of competition to that huge market. Look at the numbers:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Operating...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_system...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Smartphon...

Apple is looking at 10% share (less than 20% for mobiles), the rest is pretty much exclusively M$... Linux is at less than 3% total where they always were. This is no tyranny, this is not forcing nobody to use apple. You make it look like they own 99% of everything. Completely ridiculous and wrong.

If anything you should be thankful that at least there is a LITTLE bit of competition for M$ but you are probably much too ignorant, stuck up and also too young to remember the dark ages when there was nothing but M$ for most computer users.

> You blame me of being a "fandroid"

I blame you for mindlessly repeating retarded, false propaganda and for not seeing things for what they are. Apple has small market shares in everything they do. And I blame you for continuously thinking you know better than all those people who consciously decided to switch to Apple products and find that they like it.

> Yet you a clearly a huge fan of Apple

I am pretty much fluent on all windows, unix, linux and mac system as well as more exotic ones like Be. I really do not care much what I am using as long as it works reliably and comfortably enough. I have seen M$ go from horrible DOS to WinDOS to Vista and 7 and I have seen Atari and Commodore and I have seen Linux and BSD go from flipping every single kernel switch before compiling it myself to dragonfly and ubuntu and whatnot... and I have seen apple from their first little black and white interface to their very first "sexy" products to their switch to Intel and I have seen the iPod help them rise in popularity, then the popular macs and finally the iPhone and iPad. Trust me, I been around the block and I belong to no single camp. I "hate" companies like Microsoft, SAP and Oracle - real actual major players and true monopolists that make atrociously bad software. Not comparatively little fish like Apple.

Back in the day apple used to be so far ahead of x86 PCs it was ridiculous. Now they are Intels just the same. I am no apple fanboy, I like some of their stuff and they have made my life easier. But the one thing where I give Apple real credit is that they were the only ones to successfully bring actual competition to the PC market, even at just 10%. They were the only ones to date to give M$ a run for their money and make M$ finally look retarded, old and horrible. And they have CREATED the modern smartphone and tablet market, things that did not exist before. Finally all those average PC users have a real choice available and there is at least SOME competition which can only benefit all of us. So if you really hate big corps then you should shit on M$ and on google and thank the wolfram alphas and DDGs and also Apple in this world because they were the only ones who could stand up against a real monopoly.

And you know why Linux on the desktop failed to deliver this much needed competition? Because open source and free software is sadly full of ADHD attention whores and people who think they know it oh-so-much-better than the users and they will go to great length shitting on anyone who is just a little bit more successful than they are - which is exactly how I see you. All that choice and possibilities are great for us geeks, so is OS and FSF, but the average user doesn't care about gnome vs kde vs xfce and they don't care about compiling kernels or being able to browse the code. (Even you haven't!!!) They actually have a life that is NOT the computer and they just want to send an email and talk to their family at home, send them pictures and read something interesting online... and that is what apple has obviously delivered, otherwise they wouldn't have the success they currently have.

So it doesn't matter what PG or whoever says, apple's success has proven them all wrong and I can only say I am thankful for the bit of competition and a few neat gadgets that apple delivered.

You are just a troll.