[Windows Phone 7 General] Spike15:
Not really you don't. "Belie[f]" is about more than just sitting around talking about how great something is. "Belie[f]" is having the conviction to do what is necessary to make sure something comes to fruition, whether or not it means inconveniencing yourself.

The simple fact-of-the-matter is that even as you pontificate about what you "believe" you are -- by your own actions -- undermining those "belie[fs]".

Corporations only understand money. That's a simple fact. It's their nature. By continuing to patronize Apple even as they push products that undermine your "belie[fs]" you are ensuring that they continue to release those products that undermine your "belie[fs]". And, because you're here preaching about their methods, you're ensuring that other people will convert, and thereby increase Apple's products, and thereby ensure that Apple not only doesn't stop what they're doing, but continues to go ahead in full force, locking-in and -down in the interests of manipulating their customers into thoughts, behaviours, and patterns which are not "healthy", but merely "more profitable".

The consumer is -- by his own free will -- giving up his power in this economic climate, and that's why you have companies making record profits even while customer appeasement is dropping like a stone. Consumers have forgotten that corporations need them, and that without their money corporations cannot survive.

It doesn't matter whether you're jailbreaking or not -- you're still not "free".

Do you think the Christians oppressed and persecuted by the Roman Empire, who gathered in secret to practice their faith despite the efforts of the authorities, were "free"?

That's what you're doing. You're playing a game of cat-and-mouse with Apple's software updates, constantly trying to find a new way to jailbreak and get what you want. The very fact that Apple is not content to have profited from the sale of the iPhone, and have an experienced user jailbreak (which is no inconvenience to Apple, it voids your warranty and ensures that Apple will never have to deal with you again), should indicate without doubt to you that Apple seeks to control and manipulate their customerbase -- they don't seek to please their customerbase, because they don't have to. People don't hold Apple accountable, and therefore they can do whatever they want, and they'll continue posting profits.

And that is all that matters to them -- profits.

Everything has "a reason". I'm sure Hitler had "a reason". Just because you have "a reason" doesn't mean that it's right.

Controls are not reasonable. That's what free society was founded upon. I'm sure there are a lot of socialists who could give you a lot of "reason" why the government should control and cap your income, choose your job for you, et cetera.

That doesn't make it right.

Protecting the rights of "music and applications producers" is complete and utter bull****, because it infringes upon your benefits.

You have a legal right to make a copy -- for your own personal use -- of things like software and music that you purchase, and yet the DRM mechanisms that are on them make that impossible for the average person, and the DMCA makes it illegal.

You honestly don't see what's wrong with this system? It's a system that makes normal, legitimate consumerism not only more costly than pirating, but also less convenient. The incentive not to pirate is gone, and so you have the pirate community growing while the industry tries -- and fails -- harder and harder to lock the pirates into legitimate purchases. All the while they're damaging and inconveniencing their real customerbase, the people who feel morally bound to purchase their content. But people can only take so much abuse, and therefore you see previously morally-bound people haemorrhaging to piracy, justifying it through the very means that the content providers undertook purportedly to prevent piracy.

Of course you can't legally do anything you want, but the keyword here is "legally". There aren't breathalyzers built into the car that you have to use before starting it. You don't have to validate your registration before your car will start. The car companies leave this enforcement of the law up to the law-enforcing authorities, and that's exactly what content providers should do.

Freedom from being controlled by fellow citizens is supposed to be what democracy and free society is all about, and yet this DRM bull**** that you so vapidly defend does exactly that.

I don't have a distorted worldview, I see things for what they really are: Nowadays you have corporations arranging themselves in ways that free them from the constraints which typically keep corporations honest: Competition and consumer accountability, and therefore you have corporations who are absolutely free to become more and more evil. All the while they hand us fallacious arguments which sheep like you gladly gobble up and regurgitate on demand.