Message to Jason Calacanis from One Apple Fan
I promise to make this my last posting for awhile on this subject. Things have deteriorated to where there is no longer much space for any reasoned discourse. But I can't let Jason Calacanis' latest anti-Apple rant pass without comment. Originated on his This Week in Startups video podcast, found on YouTube, linked from Digg and titled "A Message to Apple Fanboys and Girls from Jason Calacanis", it is an epic screed that has all the useful semantic content of a wordless scream of childish pique.
You can always tell when someone has truly lost an argument when they fall back on just screaming "F—- you!" and Calacanis does that at the very beginning of his "message". According to him, everyone who disagrees with him on the need for Apple to completely and unrestrictedly "open" the iPhone platform to anything and everything is a "technology sellout". Only Calacanis is "mighty and just", while the rest of us who don't see things exactly his way are pitiful and "disgusting".
Calacanis calls Steve Jobs a "Communist" and says that he is "anti-democracy", apparently because he doesn't run Apple's business in the officially approved Calacanis Way. (Oddly enough, Calacanis doesn't run his business in that way either. At least, he doesn't seem to make decisions at Mahalo by taking a web poll and doing whatever the hell the loudest people on the forum scream from the sidelines.)
Jason compares the "Apple Fanboys" who disagree with him to the screaming and yelling corporate-sponsored bussed-in hordes of slogan-shouters at the various Town Hall meetings on health care. Like most analogies Calacanis seems to make in recent days, this one is 180 degrees away from the truth. In reality, it is Calacanis who is screaming and crying at the top of his lungs, substituting outrageous exaggerations and name-calling for reasoned discussion. Any fragments of true thought and reason he had to contribute have long since been lost in the din.
When Calacanis talks about "freedom" he is apparently only referring to the freedom to want exactly what Jason wants. Anyone else is just a fanboy, and unworthy of anything but his disdain. Calacanis has closed his mind, but he won't close his mouth — and all that is coming out of that mouth is insults and tantrums. He has become a troll, no longer worth the bandwidth he uses. I, for one, think that's a shame.
Whether you can stand the idea or not, Jason, the vast majority of technology users out there do not appear to want the anarchic crap you are trying to pass off instead of real "open platforms", "freedom" and "democracy". We will vote, as we always have, with our dollars. In a free market, that vote is always counted. Your rants only serve to drown out the people who have legitimate points to make about Apple and their relationship to their customers. You are not feeding the Tree of Liberty. You are just stoking the fires of ignorance. If you're going to cry like a baby, do it outside so the rest of us can hear each other and exchange ideas like reasonable men and women. I'm done with you.
I am sad to see another clown who joined in the rant like Calacanis and this one really took the cake by apologising to MS just because apple didn't approve a few apps for the iPhone.
Linking his rant here is an insult.
Reply to this
Honestly, I did consider ignoring the rant altogether, or commenting without giving Calacanis a link back to get just that many more hits on his pages. But in the end I decided the few hits I would give him would not matter much, as the majority of my readers here would see the piece anyway. You make a good point, though.
Reply to this
Wish I could have said it as eloquently. Agree 100%.
Reply to this
Really great article. Thank you. I could not stand to watch the entire Calicanis youTube rant. Your response is outstanding. You should use some of your comments more effectively in addressing the health care mess.
Anyway, I'd have never found you but for these comments. I'll stick around.
Reply to this
Glad to have you around, Bob. You'll find this isn;t updated on any sort of ultra-frequent basis, as I geneally try not to talk unless I have something to say. I have opinions on the health care mess, as most of us do. (Let's face it -- it is our lives and the lives of our families we're talking about here. Anyone who checks the "no opinion" box on this issue needs more than basic health care -- he needs a brain transplant.) But there is enough informed opinion running around (and far too much uniformed opinion) already. I feel on very solid ground discussing Apple after my long years of experience with their products from the inside out, as a consumer, retailer and network manager. I think I'll stick with that for now.
Reply to this