Bill’s Content

One of the things that has always annoyed me about Mac users is these sense of moral superiority. It’s as if they think Bill Gates is evil because he has more money than Steve Jobs, when the fact is Steve Jobs wants very much to be in the position Bill Gates is in. The only difference is that Bill Gates won the competition.

Everything about how Apple markets itself suggests that it wants to be seen as a more progressive, people-friendly company than Microsoft and the companies that use Microsoft products in their PCs. Hence, those annoying Apple ads that portray PCs as a guy in a suit and tie, while Macs are represented by a 20=something guy who dresses in an unbuttoned shirt over a t-shirt. Young, hip and socially conscious v. corporate sell-out. In other words, Apple is Good, Microsoft is Evil.

With that in mind, I ask Apple lovers: Did you read about the two Chinese reporters getting sued because they reported on the almost slave-like condidtions at a plant where Apple iPods are made?

The reporters said they followed up stories published in the U.K. and the United States that alleged 60-plus-hour work weeks, low pay levels and overcrowded dormitories at an iPod factory in southern China’s Shenzhen, just across the border from Hong Kong.

After the reporters wrote several stories about conditions at the factory, Foxconn, which assembles the iPod for Apple, claimed that its reputation had been severely damaged. A Foxconn subsidiary filed the libel suit in Shenzhen, where it is one of the city’s biggest employers and most powerful economic players.

[Reporter Wang You] said although she has come under tremendous pressure, she “will never give up writing about problems that hurt society and social progress.”

Goodness. It’s almost enough to make you spit out your Cappuccino Grande onto your iBook.

My nephew just looked over my shoulder and told me that this story will blow over. If people didn’t like their iPods so much, there would me more moral outrage. I say he’s a fool. Certainly America’s celebrity musicians — so quick to tell us how to think and feel about everything — will immediately take to their airwaves and demand that their music no longer be made available for download to these devices.

It will happen any time now.

Yep. Any time.

Hello?

Waiting ….

Hat tip to Kiyoshi Martinez.

[tags]Bill Gates,Apple,Microsoft,Steve Jobs,slave labor,China,Foxconn,Wang You,Weng Bao,iPods[/tags]