You know who can also pour humongous amount of resources to develop something? Governments. Grassroots (big enough crowd). Corporation did help the advancement of human society, no doubt about it. But at the same time, because corporations demand return rather than doing things for the good of the humanity, that advancement comes with burden and condition, which can sometimes drag the society backwards or detour from where it should go.
Not disagreeing with any of this. Governments can also make advancement via pooling of resources (and they have). Sure no argument there. Corporations demand returns, which sometimes do not benefit humanity to the fullest. Yep also no argument there. But I don't see what's the point of this? If government can build the best smartphone platform and charge no IAP fee for it. By all means, I would love it. We don't have it today do we? So what are we even talking about here? The only means in which an iPhone like product can be born, is capitalism. Profit drives innovation.
And kids enjoy the fruits of hundreds of years of capitalistic advancement? Yeah sure let’s ignore even longer period of. Contribution when corporations didn’t really exist, instead generations of farmers and similar tried to transform the origin of the fruit we enjoy today, most of which often much less edible, edible and delicious, all without asking for some colossal amount of return. But let’s just let it slide I suppose, and credit ALL advancements to corporations with the ability to magically speed up thousands of years of progress to just a couple hundred.
Uh....are you even arguing this point in good faith or just arguing for the sake of arguing? Have you measured human progress in the first 10,000 years compared to the last 400? Capitalism is what drives progress. How do you even argue otherwise... ?
Apple never invented mobile computing. Apple didn’t invent anything I’d argue. What Apple did, was refining the existing solutions and innovating on top of that. Mobile computing existed back when commodore was still dominant in the US. Compaq brought mobile computing into mainstream, however primitive it was back then. Going all out with a touch screen when market was flooded with non-touch screen device with tons of buttons was a gamble, but a success one. That I give credit to corporations taking risk and pouring resources to materialise it.
Apple does not need to "invent" iPhone, in the tradition sense. You are thinking invention like the invention of radio waves. No. In businesses, "invent" is an abstract word to roughly mean the assembly of features into a product in such a way that is appealing to customers. That's all one needs to do. If you want to make the future of washing machines, you don't need to invent hydraulics and heat pumps and what not. No. You just have to find a unique combination of features (functions, style, look, brand, size, etc etc) that makes the customers love you. If you do that well enough, guess what, you get to charge whatever price you name. $5000 for a washing machine? Hell yea. No problem. Customers lining up to pay you. Is it greedy? Is it rent seeking? Nope. You just built a really great product. And that's exactly what Apple did.
Apple built a thing called iPhone that costed $500 with a contract (essentially over $1000) feels like a better deal than a $200 blackberry. When you do that, you get to name the price of every thing. Including IAP.
In short, corporation is not the only entity that can pour resources into something. But relentless profit seeking is harmful to the society. Apple definitely has the right to charge what they deserve to survive and thrive, but not at the cost of the entire society. I know you won’t agree with my point, but that’s fine.
Relentless profit seeking has shown to be massively beneficial to the society (but not without flaws of course) if you actually looked at human history.
Remember, I'm not arguing that corporations are perfect. Far from. And with many detriments to society. But on BALANCE, it's the best system we have. And the results speak for itself. There was a China that wasn't capitalistic, then there was a China that is. Ask a chinese which one they would prefer. Compare the quality of life on all measurable metrics.
