Apple does have a very anti-cooperative business practices that which goes against the spirit of cooperation of communism. Would a company like Apple event exist in a post-capitalist world?
By “a company like Apple”, I mean a company that it is extremely secretive, doesnt open source anything and doesnt cooperate with any other companies, and tries to make everything proprietary and have closed ecosystems.
No iPhone? Sign me the heck up. Good products are made with passion, not corporations. The fact we have things like Pine64 in a world where iPhones and Android dominate show what just a couple people who have spare time can do.
Edit: I mean let’s make it even easier. What do the iPhone, PS3/4/5, Android, and the Steam Deck all have in common? They were built on top of BSD/Linux, which has been driven primarily over the last 30 years by community entities
unfortunately pine phone sucks ass… i bought one about 3 years ago now and it’s still nearly useless
I spend a lot of time reading about old technology, because I am a giant nerd. One thing that occurs to me after seeing so many different approaches to essentially the same problem, is that certain things are kinda inevitable. Especially in the communications space, because most humans inherently crave connection. A lot of actual innovation in this space comes from places fairly divorced from capitalism like academia and hobbyists; people who will build a thing either for the technical challenge, or simply because they believe a thing should exist.
If we didn’t have the internet as it is today, we’d probably have something similar. FidoNet was huge, and it basically just a bunch of people who decided to hook up all their BBSes together. Linux was just a guy who decided to put his college project up on usenet. The whole computer scene for a long time was a hobbyist thing. Some of the most influential computer systems were just guys building shit in their garage.
Now I’m going to speculate a bit. If telecomms infrastructure hadn’t played out the way it did, with massive carriers having central control of the network and selling you the device you use to access it, maybe we’d have some evolution of packet radio. A decentralised, volunteer-run mesh network based on the old HAM or CB systems. Your device probably wouldn’t look the same, but it’d fulfill the same basic functions of calls, messaging in realtime and non-realtime with groups and individuals, and maybe some light gaming.
So no, probably no iPhone, but definitely something functionally similar.
I doubt it. They also wouldn’t be able to charge eye watering amounts for their products, which is another good thing.
What I imagine is some sort of state technology company that produces a range of different devices that serve different ends. maybe a low powered, large battery device for people who don’t want fancy features, a medium one and also a more high powered one. with centralised production they can make it more efficient, and also it removes the waste produced through endless competition and one-upping between different companies.
No, but a truly post capitalist world (wherein private business and markets no longer exist) isn’t likely to actually happen either so it’s sort of a moot point.
Why are you here?
