Jon22: The Website of Jonathan Dobres

Not everyone is thrilled about the Apple/EMI deal.  These people are idiots, mainly, and you can feel free to disregard them.  There is, however, a common thread to the few negative articles about the deal that I’ve read.  These people, never satisfied with the reality presented to them, contend that the Apple/EMI agreement is nothing but a façade that masks an ulterior motive.

From Fast Company’s Alex Pasquariello:

Jobs’ recent rants against DRM are a ploy to distract us from the increasing number of legal challenges to its business practices.

Engadget’s Ryan Block says that these DRM-free songs, which are also encoded at a higher sound quality, give users “the illusion of greater value.”  I fail to see how the release from software restrictions and a doubling of the song’s audio quality is anything but a real increase in value. If Steve Jobs had also used the opportunity to launch the Unicorns for Music Rebate Program, then okay, that would be illusory.

Take note of the language that these two writers have used.  Ploy?  Illusion?  Aside from the galling petulance of complaining about such a huge and important change in business policy, there’s a hint of conspiracy in these articles.  In these writers’ opinions no CEO can ever mean what he says.  Every good chairman knows the Jedi Mind Trick and, since Pasquariello is alleging that Apple is using this as a ploy to sell more DRM, everything they say must mean the opposite of what you think it does.

I am getting tired of it.  Over the past few years our society has become over saturated with the idea of the far-seeing superstrategist whose machinations and manipulations border on the psychic.  Dr. Gregory House, President Bartlet, anyone from CSI, any episode of 24–they all revolve around the idea that the real payoff of is actually seven steps ahead of where most people are right now.  This kind of thinking used to be limited to a small, paranoid circle of people who long ago pulled out all of their fillings (or alternately, were elected to national office).  The idea of conspiracy has become so pervasive, so accepted, that no one seems able to appreciate anything for what it looks like anymore.  Accepting anything at face value is seen as stupid, even pitiably naïve.

People who believe in vast conspiracies or who think that every visible action is nothing but an ingenious lie are seriously misguided about one thing.  They all vastly underestimate the stupidity and laziness of the human race.  Haven’t you people ever had a job?  I work with some very smart people, but sometimes they can barely pull it together long enough to schedule a meeting, let alone mastermind some ominous Path to Victory.

So let’s all just take a deep breath, shall we?  Your songs are now unlocked and will sound better on high quality speakers.  That’s what this is.  Does Steve Jobs have a greater goal in mind?  I’m sure he does, but I’m also sure it won’t lead down some weird hairpin alley where ultimately Jobs gets to sit on top of a throne built of gold ingots and human souls.   There’s no Jedi Mind Trick at work here.  Jobs’s reality distortion field, however, is well documented.  Thank God he uses that one for good.