In the few brief moments of respite we get from the constant flurry of Apple rumors, sometimes it seems worth something to think about the broader effects a company like Apple has.
After all, though there is always much debate about the gang from Cupertino, it tends to be about technology or features or interfaces. And in this, I’d argue Apple excel. The iPad is vastly superior to any other tablet on the market. The iPhone became a platform rather than a product, and in doing so totally revolutionized mobile. And the Macbook Air and iMac are certainly very pretty, practical machines.
But does all this come at a kind of ‘social cost’? And is there something a bit off about Apple culture that makes it… well, elitist?
If elitism is loosely about unfairly favoring people who are already lucky, then isn’t it a bit crazy to call a company elitist? After all, a company simply makes products and then pitches them to a certain market. How can simply at aiming at a particular demographic be elitist?
But sometimes, though a company’s intentions may be noble – such as “make the best product you can” – the effects of those of those intentions can have negative consequences. No-one necessarily believes Steve Jobs is sitting in a tower somewhere plotting the destruction of the poor. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth critiquing how Apple acts. An elitist company is simply one that looks after the privileged at the expense of others – whether they mean to or not, or even whether it’s good business to do so.
Is Apple an elitist company?
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Evangelism versus Consumerism: Speaking as a first-gen “The Rest Of Us” Mac (128k!) user, Apple has always been an “elitist” brand. Formerly, this elitism was an expression of the evangelical belief that we were championing better (more user-centric) design in hardware and software in contrast to the PC orcs and their mouth-breather ilk. From what my niece tells me, Nu-Mac elitism is more about the reflected cool of a popular brand than a shared vision of the future.
I don’t think they’re elitist in the true sense. I just think they believe their own hype. And the fanboys make it worse…
creating a better product and charging a premium for that product is not elitist. It’s free market.
no,i don’t think