Apples actual response to the Flash issue

[Richmond Mathewson]

  (2 can play at that one)

> (I removed the poster's name from this quote because my post  is not
> directed at the person, but the idea that we are all equal)

No; of course we are not all equal. BUT we are all dependent on other 
people;
no man is an island. Therefore the image of workers being exploited by
socking great companies may not be all that useful.

> The tribesmen also forget that they can topple their chieftains quite
>> easily; they wander around with their mouths
>> hanging open in awe of the mighty chief - forgetting that s/he is,
>> ultimately, no better than they are.
>>
>> Hmmm, and far too often one thinks of oneself as being just as good if not
> better than someone else, when everyone else knows that isn't the case.
>

I am quite sure I could neither write a symphony or do what Steve Jobs does
(luckily this doesn't make me feel that I have missed out on something), and
in those respects Mozart and Jobs are better than me.

What I am also aware of it that if parents of kids who attend my 
language school
stop sending their kids; buying my product; the effect will be similar 
on a personal
basis as if people stop buying Apple products on Jobs. So, however 
brilliant Jobs is at
his work, and me at mine; if we don't keep the punters happy (whether 
they actually
know anything about computers or EFL teaching or not) we are done for.

Now I (like Jobs) offer a service, and if my client base don't like what 
I offer they can
either bring pressure to bear to change or they can leave; therefore, 
while I know far
more about teaching EFL than all the parents of the children I teach, I 
am, nevertheless,
at their mercy.

The problem, and it is a problem, is that people in some position of 
authority tend to
forget how dependent on their clients they are, and clients forget that 
even though authority
figures have acquired some sort of mysterious glow they are still 
essentially there to serve them.

I sincerely hope that Jobs and the chap at Adobe are aware of how 
dependent they are
just as much as I do. All it would take is for another respected 
authority figure (David
Pogue ???) to rubbish the iPad and the shares would go into freefall.