"Evil" companies you love anyway

[The Curmudgeon]

In the world of big business, some companies tower over others, they take the margin share of the profits and the rest have to fight among themselves for the scraps. That's life. Most companies remain unscathed, but some companies, particularly with the rise of the internet, have become more notorious than some and it even becomes "cool" to hate on them, and that's even without the idiotic "illuminati" theories that come attached to them. Well friends, today I buck that trend and stand up for some of the most hated companies out there and show my support. Those poor billionaires need our help.

Such as..

Apple



Oooh, Apple! They're too restrictive with their hardware! They over-charge their customers! They make minor changes to their current phones and call it something else! Their customers are either ignorant technophobes or rich douchebags!

I own an iPhone 5. Before that I had an iPhone 4s. Before that I had a Blackberry, and it was laughably basic compared to the other smartphones on the market, so when I finally got my iPhone it was like something from another world. I now own an iPad, and it's a joy. I was initially sceptical of getting a tablet, but I now use it more than my actual PC. Do I want an iPhone 5s? Nope, because it IS pretty much identical compared to a few cosmetic changes, but the products Apple have released that I own I love. Are there better phones our there? Yeah, probably. Do I want them? Nope.

Coca Cola



As Scroobius Pip once commanded, "thou shalt not buy Coca Cola products". You can kinda see why; there are entire websites and campaigns dedicated to highlighting Coke's dubious, and if these websites are to be believed, shocking and deplorable, labour practice. There's an entire Snopes page dedicated to debunking anti-Coke rumours. People fucking hate Coca Cola.

But look at that image, man. THAT is America, right there. Delicious, cool, refreshing America. They could make it from the tears of African slave babies and I would still drink that shit up if it tasted that good. OK, it's not good for you and it rots your teeth, so don't drink it all fucking day, then.

Speaking of things that are bad for you..



Hey, did you know that if you eat nothing but McDonald's you'll get really fat and unhealthy? Those evil BASTARDS are poisoning us. Did you know that if you leave a McDonalds meal untouched for 10 years it still looks "exactly" the same because it's made from weird, artificial ingredients? Creepy, right?

As entertaining as the documentary "Super Size Me" was, I never really understood the overall point of it. Of COURSE if you eat nothing but McDonalds you'll get fat and unhealthy. I enjoy Budweiser and a few whiskeys at the weekend, but I don't drink them every single day with every single meal because, guess what? I'm not an absolute imbecile. Everything in moderation, right? Plus, McDonald's is awesome. Big Mac Meal, fries, Coke.. perfection.

What's interesting is that the biggest immediate rivals of these companies (respectively, Samsung, Pepsi, Burger King) remain pretty much scandal free despite doing or being many of the same things that their bigger rivals are criticised for. How many scary stories have you read about Burger King? How many Snopes pages are dedicated to Pepsi?

So yeah, I'm willing to sell out my morals and remain off the high horse when it comes to these three brands. What terrible, terrible companies are you willing to give your money to?

[trashcanman]

I'm all about people recognizing the evil of the corporations that are taking our valuables in exchange for smallpox blankets, but I'm also about living your fucking life. There is no getting away from these corporations in the First World. Disney is racist, monopolistic, and evil in every possible way a company can be but what good is me by myself depriving myself and my family of their entertainment? It make me unpleasant and removes a lot of joy from my life and the Mouse is not going to fucking notice so unless my goal is to come off as a pretentious pseudopolitical asshole, there is nothing to be gained there. It's part of the world we live in. Would I join in if the entire country said "fuck Disney"? Yeah, but you know goddamn well that isn't happening so I'm going to put to be bed ideas of slaying the dragon with my social conscience and just do what I want to do to make myself happy. And if Disney has some things that make me happy, I'm doing it, scruples be damned.

[Ben]

Pepsi and Burger King take a fair amount of heat in America (periodically, anyway), but they're always overshadowed by the "true American" brands you mentioned. A lot of that hate isn't legitimate anyway- it's just a bunch of lazy losers trying to cash in by launching retarded lawsuits.

Apple, though? Apple can eat shit and die. Every MP3 player I've ever handled from a non-Apple brand has been way cooler and way better than any Ipod, yet they almost don't exist at all anymore because Apple's entire shitty line of Ipods has taken over, strategically backed by Itunes. That company has caused me so much grief and anguish with the Ipod I've vowed never to buy another one of their products again. I got the Windows Phone last fall and it kicks the Iphone's ass.

As far as other shitty corporations go, I'll stand up for Wal-Mart all day long. "But they take advantage of their employees! But they exploit foreign workers!" ...But I can get everything I need there in 15 minutes for a fraction of what it would cost me anywhere else. Until I see pictures of the shackles they use to enslave African children and a locker full of corpses of employees who've tried to unionize, I'm going to keep shopping there.

[trashcanman]

I believe it's Chinese slaves and I'm pretty sure they use Minority Report-style psychics to weed out possible unionizers at birth there. I do actively avoid Wal-Mart because I prefer Target and I often grab a CD while I'm shopping and Wal-Mart's are all fucking censored. It's easy for me to avoid Wal-Mart so I do. I'll pay a couple bucks extra. I only buy shit when it's on sale anyways.

So how are non-Apple MP3 players better? Ive gotten my iPods as gifts so I've never bought one before, much less other brands. iTunes is garbage anyways. They're like the Disney of music. It's cheaper to buy the physical CD most of the time. If you need further proof that we are being fucked, think about the the costs of physically manufacturing, packaging, and shipping out the discs and try and figure out how it could possibly cost more to put it up for download. Seems like there are a lot of services out there (Amazon for example) that do what iTunes does, but better. And some folks at work have free apps that let them download all the songs they want for free. Why the hell is iTunes still even a thing?

[Ben]

If I bought music at stores anymore I might prefer Target, but I really only patronize record stores and Amazon. I'm still a CD guy; no mp3 downloads for me.

Itunes is the most confounding thing in all of music. In addition to the stuff you're talking about, that "sync Ipod automatically" feature has fucked countless people out of their entire music catalogue when they accidentally hook up their Ipod to a computer whose Itunes is barren. You would think Itunes would act, you know, logically and not upload blank space to an Ipod full of music.

Amazon's cloud player is certainly better, but for whatever reason all the non-Apple MP3 players try to cater to Itunes, which is painful as fuck (try getting anything Windows to work with anything Apple and NOT end up shooting yourself in the head). I have to think Itunes only still exists because people know it, people are comfortable with it, and people aren't motivated to try anything new. But that doesn't make a whole lot of sense when Itunes will completely revamp itself every 6 months anyway with a big update. Yeesh.

As for actual MP3 players, it's been my experience that other brands have more and better features. I used to have a Zen player by Creative (the company has since gone belly up). It had AM/FM radio, you could record stuff from the radio while you were listening to it, it had an external mic in case you ever needed to record anything else, it had a calendar you could manage with your computer, the play-counts and "smart" playlists were more accurate, and it had an external battery so your device wasn't fucked if that thing ever ran out. It was basically a smartphone before smartphones were a thing.

It's also common knowledge that the Ipod is designed in such a way that any type of drop/fall has a good chance of killing its hard drive (I lost a Classic this way after it fell 2 feet off my lap onto the ground. Hard drive was wiped clean and ceased to function) which, if intentional, is clearly to get people to shell out cash for stupid cases that give Apple a 95% profit margin or, if unintentional, is just shitty engineering. My Creative was durable as hell, and I never needed to put a case on it. I've handled a few other MP3 players too (like the Jukebox), and they've all seemed way better. But there isn't even a market for them anymore.

[trashcanman]

In the pre-Reagan era Apple would have been smashed by the government for doing what they do and cutting off all competition at the knees. When you hear conservative pundits howl about how regulation is killing our economy, keep in mind that we've had an insane amount of deregulation and failure to enforce existing regulations in the last few decades and it has put us exactly where we are. Regulations made it so one company doesn't move production (jobs) to China, kill every company that is smaller than them (more jobs plus protection against price gouging), and then funnel the profits offshore so that they don't have to pay taxes (deficit), and then pay FOX to tell everybody that the only way to save America is make slavery legal again and call it news.

[Ben]

I don't know a whole lot about the economic aspect of major corporations being able to do what they do (and, like Apple, essentially become monopolies), and since most economists furiously disagree on even the most basic, fundamental principles of economic shit I don't devote a whole lot of time trying to educate myself on the matter. What I do know is consumers are fickle creatures. You could give an Apple fanboy a computer from the future, tell him Windows manufactured it, and he'd throw it away without even testing it. Even worse, the average person who doesn't know shit about electronics simply wouldn't take the time to figure out for himself that the futuristic computer is incredibly superior and would instead stick with his Apple out of convenience. People behave this way with everything. Even food.

[The Curmudgeon]

Ben, I swear you could be my brother in disguise right now, because you sound exactly like him.

I'm not a huge fan of iTunes but Mrs C swears by it. I prefer physical CDs as well, even if the CD single has pretty much vanished from the earth. When it comes to one off pop purchases iTunes is what gets used 100% of the time in our house. It's so easy; iTunes go onto iPhone and iPad, and we both have separate libraries of our music that we download to our phones. I've yet to see any other MP3 player that can do the same thing any quicker or easier,

We don't have Walmart over here, but Disney is a company I've read no end of bad stuff about. Just last month Meryl Streep went on record calling Walt a racist and an anti-Semite (different time, though..I'd imagine an awful lot of people were back then). Does it mean I'm not going to watch Toy Story? Snow White? The Jungle Book? Who loses out there?

[trashcanman]

Streep just fucking found this out now or what? That's been common knowledge since forever. Have you ever seen the cartoon where Donald Duck dreams he's a Nazi? It's meant as a satire, but it's so toothless it's practically a commendation of German work ethic. The whole premise was that America is better (for Donald, anyway) than Nazi Germany because the Nazis have to work too hard. All of the cruelty and genocide and fascism? No time for the small stuff, just be happy we have more time to nap and shit.

[Ben]

I've also heard Walt was a bit of a sympathizer (to put it nicely), but I'm don't see the Donald Duck cartoon as being ultra-weak. It's important to keep in mind people were seeing that in theaters right before feature films (which were also full of pro-American propaganda). Not really the venue to comment on genocide. Not only that, but most people were either still in denial of or didn't know about the Holocaust when the cartoon came out. I guess I just didn't read it the same way.