22 October 2009
Cyberpunk Megacorporations – Apple
This article goes about to paint a hypothetical future where megacorporations rule the world, plus just how that might happen. Today’s subject is Apple (includes some speculation of new product release).
First things first, what is a Megacorporation?
According Wikipedia,
“It refers to a fictional corporation that is a massive conglomerate, holding monopolistic or near-monopolistic control over multiple markets (thus exhibiting both a horizontal and a vertical monopoly). Megacorps are so powerful that they can ignore the law, possess their own heavily-armed (often military-sized) private armies, hold ’sovereign’ territory, and possibly even act as outright governments. They often exercise a large degree of control over their employees, taking the idea of ‘corporate culture’ to an extreme.”
While the private armies are bit of a stretch still, the rest of it just could be possible.
Why Apple?
For all of you haters out there, even though I tend to criticize Apple a lot, this isn’t personal. The whole thing started when I was thinking about a product concept and came to conclusion that there are couple of things that are vital to the concept, and all of those Apple has a stranglehold. Thus, the idea was scrapped and morphed to Megacorporations article.
First of all, Apple has bunch of special traits that tend to tint it towards possible Megacorporation:
It has created nearly fanatical following that is big enough to move mountains
Anyone knows what kind of a buzz the endless lines for iPhones created when the device launched. The lines were long alright and full of nothing but Apple fanboys, this in turn sparked the general public as “everyone” seemed to have an iPhone.
It has big brother like behavior which and isn’t necessarily questioned by it’s followers
The fanboys buy every line the marketing (one might say propaganda) department spews out as the truth, and not necessarily checking the facts by themselves. This can specially be seen in things like usability and user interface issues. Only recently has the actions of The Company provoked some questions with it’s behavior with App Store, see next chapter.
No stranger to banning content
App store, do I need to say more? To those who have been living underneath a rock the past months here’s a brief recap: Apple have been banning applications from it’s App Store seemingly as they please, without any warnings or clear rules. In some occasions, even making the developers pay for it.
Aggressively patents everything, actively denying any open innovations
In the world of today, patents have morphed, from protecting your hard earned IP, to as main tool to kill possible competition. Companies are patenting the simplest of things, which any teenager would whip up in less than 30 minutes. Now, one needs only to read sites like Engadget every now and then to see how aggressive Apple is to patent everything it possibly can.
Practical monopoly over digital entertainment distribution
And not only that, it is actively seeking to kill it’s competition, like what happened to Palm Pre syncinc with iTunes, which would add sales through iTunes but would also weaken Apple’s control over what devices people are using.
The Next Step: AppleTV
Wait, doesn’t that already exist? Yes, it does, but there might be a major re-release. It also might be coming sooner than you think since there have been rumors of new product left and right and even slip-ups of increased air freight. What if it’s not the tablet everyone has been raving about but an TV? Here’s what and why. (Whereas the cyberpunk is just mild entertainment, this is something that I see as real deal.)
As Apple tightens it’s grip around it’s media distribution monopoly, the next logical step would be to control the TV as Apple already has monopoly over music and soon over movies. The TV would also be logical step because it’s nature is changing from a passive tube of pictures to a actibe window to cyberstream, from where it can pick any media, any time, anywhere around the world. This is a major shift and Apple is no stranger of making big shifts, like iTunes or iPhone, plus, it already has some experience under it’s belt from the failed AppleTV, which would now be revamped.
What is is?
The AppleTV would have sleek aluminium shell, something the likes of iMac, but bigger and wider. It would be able to stream content straight from iTunes and/or from your computer(s). It would also have a internet browsing capability and ability to run games. It also might have an webcam for whole family video calls. What’s most important though, the whole shebang could be controlled by your iPhone and all of the distribution would be done through to iTunes.
Now, imagine a future where Apple has launched it’s TV, the first really interactive TV, with iPhone and iTunes. Now, Apple being Apple, all of these would be bound together tightly, only allowing Apple devices in the loop and effectively seeking to block any breach attempts by third party developers. This combination of forced vendor-locking and monopoly practices would be really hard, if not impossible, to compete.
At this point you would have a single company that would control the majority of TV’s AND the content that is available. Now, imagine a leap to daily shows and even news: News need editing. Editing is always subjective, thus distorting something else. A Megacorporation is born, welcome to the world of cyberpunk.
Post Scriptum. Fear not, it’s not just about Apple, there is another Megacorporations article brewing.
