Hello?

Okay, going to rant for a minute here now. 

About this iPhone business, people. Really. Come on.

If you have the extraneous 600 dollars around that enabled you to buy an iPhone a couple of months ago, I do not feel sorry for you. So please stop complaining about a two-hundred dollar price break, and also you need to buy me a drink because clearly you have some money to burn. And also, there are several million people in Africa who would like water, some water, please? Water? GIMME SOME FUCKING WATER OVER HERE, WILL YA? And you’re complaining about Steve JOBS and how MEAN he is, and how he sucks because now he’s not selling any (a million is “not any”?) phones and now he’s going to go and drop the price so all the unwashed masses (water? Did someone say water?) can have one, and not just your cool early-adopter self. And that’s really shitty, Steve Jobs. It’s not just another one of your diabolical, mad-genius plans to keep us hooked. Could it be? You’re just not that into us, Steve Jobs. I get it.

Sorry to go all cantankerous here, but I really feel like we’ve gotten to an insane point. A, we’re thinking that Steve Jobs owes us something. I would love it if he did, because I would truly feel fine about cashing in, but the truth is he doesn’t owe me shit. This nation of millions is walking around with his ear buds in their ears, twirling their fingers around a plastic circle so we CAN HAS THE MUSIK NOW!!!!! You know, the music we used to have to cart around on cumbersome silver discs and actually pop into a player, like, one at a time. And sometimes you’d need cruel implements to help you play it, like batteries that didn’t plug into anything.

Is this an accident, these jillions of people with the gadgets, paying all the money and standing in line with their white plastic drawstring bags, standing around in the Mac store, blinking in the fluorescent light? I don’t think so. I’m not a business major by any means, but even I’m a crazy Mac geek at this point, and I really don’t think anyone could have foreseen that five years ago, when I was dorking around on geocities sites and instant messenger on a series of terrible pcs.

 I blame this VERY EXPENSIVE and oddly addictive transformation on an odd confluence of people and events that have put me in the shiny Mac path so many times I just couldn’t avoid that white, glowing light anymore. I got a MacBook, and went into a bit of debt for it for a few months. I also have a nice camera, and a cellphone. I don’t need an iPhone. I’d like one, sure, and would have LIKED one on the first day or so very much, thanks. I was in the mall the day they went on sale, and inwardly mocked the people waiting in line by the AT&T store, but really I was jealous. I admit it. I wanted to be sitting there in front of the PacSun knowing I’d be holding one of those gorgeously simple Mac boxes in my hand. It’s pure geek adrenaline, right? And it’s given me a bit of a pang to watch some of my internet people post lovely photos on Flickr that are cruelly tagged “iPhone” while I sit there taking my calls on a piece of crap LG that’s been replaced twice in six months, currently only takes photos with inexplicable tiny lines running all through them, and is generally one of the worst electronic devices I’ve ever owned. In fact, I think I’d have more luck taking calls on my long-dead grandfather’s ancient police scanner, but that’s another story.

Anyway, so yes. I have a phone, and a contract with Verizon for another sadly long number of months. Even with the price cut, I don’t have the money to put out for the iPhone, plus moving to another service provider (and do not speak to me of hackers. What kind of service plan do they offer? Things break. I need to know someone will fix it, because I am a slave to my gadgets. Hack that.) I know I’ll get one eventually. I’m not worried about it. What I don’t get are the complainers. This is the United States, center of capitalist everything. If I own a company, I can charge whatever I want, for whatever I want. Even if the price sounds absurd, it’s my absurd price. You can do whatever you want in response to that. You can pay it, or move along. Steve Jobs set the price for the iPhone at 600. I thought, “Dude, that’s crazy. That’s a ridiculous amount of money for this device,” and I knew I wouldn’t buy it. It had passed my single income, going back to school price point. But the thing sold, scads of them sold. Some people bought two! One girl I know got one for a graduation present. PEOPLE WERE BUYING THEM, and giggling over them. Geeks were arguing online about the relative merits of the iPhone vs. two soup cans tied together with string, and all the other senseless arguments that geeks have online. Response seemed to be good.

 Then the price cut. “Good for you, Steve Jobs,” I thought. Go ahead. Play with their minds. Don’t call. Then call. Promise you’ll come see me in the school play and then don’t show up. Whatever. I still won’t buy the phone yet. I want one, but I won’t. And to the people complaining, who are claiming Mac shouldn’t do this to loyal customers? Who do you think those initial exorbitant prices are for? Do you think maybe they’re testing the waters to see how much you’ll actually pay for a first-line product, especially a medium the company has never dabbled in before? Hmm? Like I said, not a business major, but that kind of actual data seems worth pissing you off for. Because guess what, if you’re a Mac person, especially of the more hardcore, more disposable variety than I am, you’ll be back. You just will. And I think that’s what bothers you. Become a second-stringer like me, and you might save a few bucks, but you’ll never get that first-day rush that just might be worth the cash.

Comments

[Grace]

That was a rant worth reading. It made my morning.