Ever since I came out as a Mac user little over a year ago I’ve been very happy with this choice. Unfortunately “choice” is not really word from Apple’s vocabulary. Everything related to products, music, software, public relations, technical support and so on is very tightly controlled by Apple.
I do understand that control give us the fully integrated experience we get from Mac or iPod but sometimes it’s simply overdone. One of many examples could be the famous Macbook Random Shutdown problem. It took Apple way too long to even acknowledge the existence of the problem and it really upset the community of users. Sometimes the control becomes completely counterproductive: you can’t simply report a problem with iTunes to Apple. You have to pick from “I bought the wrong version of a song”, “I bought the same song twice” and other pre-fabricated options that blame you, the user, before you can even send message to Apple.
Larry Lessig called me once a post-communist capitalist but I don’t think he was correct. I am simply looking for more balanced relationship with my computer/music player/software/media supplier. And I guess this is why I am using Ubuntu more and more. At the end of the day Ubuntu means: “I am because we are, and since we are, therefore I am“…
PS. Apparently the other possible meaning of Ubuntu is “I can’t configure Debian”…
