That’s the subtitle of his Newsweek article. Here’s an excerpt of a really good read:
The bigger mistake some publishers seem eager to make is embracing an Apple-controlled marketplace. … If you want to play in Apple’s playground, the company decides what apps are acceptable, then takes a 30 percent cut. It collects the data about users and decides what it is willing to share with publishers (so far, none). It intends to sell the advertising, controlling the standards and taking what sounds to be a 40 percent cut. Such domination of the relationship with readers would be no less a disaster for publishers than it was for the music industry.
But the most alarming aspect of Apple’s vision is its censorious instinct. Where Google operates from a deep commitment to free expression—as evidenced by its heroic decision to challenge China’s Great Firewall—Jobs detests an open orifice. There couldn’t be a starker incident than Apple denying the editorial cartoonist Mark Fiore permission to launch an app on the grounds that it violated section 3.3.14 of Apple’s (secret) iPhone developer program-license agreement, which prohibits “content that ridicules public figures.”
Thanks to Bruce Wilson for the heads up.
Good to know. While Apple has a fiduciary responsibility to protect children from some kinds of content, I don’t see how it can justify censoring political content. On the other hand, it is a privately run company and it has a right to limit what it will accept as quality content. If you don’t like the rules of the house, move elsewhere.