Consumerism's King
Steve Jobs was no deity: Just a smart guy who manipulated people into buyingexpensive stuff
It's sad to see anyone die of cancer at age 56. But Steve Jobs didn't save theworld. He made a lot of money — much of it for himself.Photo by Tony Avelar/AFP/Getty Images
Steve Jobs convinced people with modest means to spend $500 on a phone. Andmore. Congrats?
Steve Jobs was the master of using smoke and mirrors to hype products that hadobvious flaws.
At 56, Steve Jobs was at the height of his tenure as dean of digital culture in the 21st century. The sadness and tributes heaped upon his death are worthy of a man whose ideas intersected the daily lives of an astonishing number of people.
A fair reflection on Jobs’ legacy, though, requires looking beyond his personality as a CEO, beyond a death brought too soon by a senseless disease, to the company he created. To do so is a revealing study of American consumerism.
Apple’s early iMacs were prone to crashing, the original iPod’s hard drive frequently failed, the screen hinges of the MacBook Air broke easily, and the last iPhone launched with an obvious antenna flaw.
Jobs’ integrity lay in his uncompromising commitment to design and user experience, yet every Apple product is a practical MBA thesis on planned obsolescence. Your old MP3 player’s functioning fine except for the battery? Suck it up. Apple’s business model relies on you buying a new one.
The company’s deft marketing and mod design commanded a premium for devices available at half the price from competitors. Yet Apple’s early iMacs were prone to crashing, the original iPod’s hard drive frequently failed, the screen hinges of the MacBook Air broke easily, and the last iPhone launched with an obvious antenna flaw.
No company without Apple’s almost religious consumer following would dare release a mobile gadget without cut-and-paste or Flash functionality.
Apple’s smartphone was deemed revolutionary, yet Jobs still paired it with the extortionate two-year service contract that only American wireless customers seem to tolerate. In the process, Jobs somehow made it unquestioned that people of modest means ought to spent $500 on a phone. Yet he contracted the assembly of those devices to Chinese factories so miserable workers were throwing themselves off roofs.
The company single handedly created one of the world’s largest digital marketplaces then proceeded to lord over it like a factory owner in a company town.
Apple’s influence in the realm of “content” is no less conflicted. iTunes brought digital music to the fore, and the App Store similarly gave form to the explosive demand for mobile software. The company single handedly created one of the world’s largest digital marketplaces then proceeded to lord over it like a factory owner in a company town.
If some prude in Cupertino finds, say, theChive.com’s app too childishly risqué, then that site’s owners are effectively barred from one of the fastest growing forms of media. Apple also seems to fancy itself an expert at pricing products it doesn’t own, for example, by initially barring Conde Nast from charging its subscribers less than the single-issue price for iPad magazine downloads or by fixing the prices of MP3s.
Jobs’ legacy represents beautifully America’s innate drive to create, to build and to face the risks necessary for innovation. Sadly, it’s also a perfect example of a culture that worships consumer goods, is blind to manipulation by marketing and obsessed with looks, branding and the hollow pleasure that comes from buying something new.
