The cliche "beauty in the eye of the beholder" is so overused but is so universal. A better phrase would be that value is in the eye of the beholder.

This past week, Apple updated the iPhone and the iPod Touch. Apple is charging existing users $19.95 to get some of the new features. Thus ensued a lot of bitching and moaning about the price. 

Maybe it's because I'm a sick, scummy, evil capitalist who eats babies when I'm not on here flaming web hippies but what is it with non-producers constantly asserting that other people are greedy for not working for them for free.  When I bought my iPod Touch (best purchase of 2007) I knew it didn't have email or map features. The Apple is letting me have these cool and extremely useful features for 20 bucks is great.   (here's my quick review of it)

So what if new users don't have to pay the $20. They had to wait longer. If the iPod Touch were a video game, it would be priced at half the price it launched at by now. You don't hear people screaming that they had to pay $50 for their favorite game a year ago and now it's available for $30 at Best Buy do you? 

That's one of my biggest peeves with the Internet. We now have an entire generation of web hippies that not only expect other people to work for them to be free but have the audacity to accuse those producing stuff of greed if they refuse to behave like proper slaves. 

In an age where there are fewer and fewer people making stuff (skins, software, you name it) it strikes me as extremely ironic that anyone who doesn't make stuff thinks they're in any position to be demanding others work for free for them. 

I can't make an email applet for my iPod. I'm glad Apple did. And I will happily trade $20 that I earned through my labor to those who produced it.  When I can't produce something for myself, I don't mind paying those who can produce a thing I want if it's of value to me. If it's not worth it, I don't purchase it.

Aero Executive

I see the same thing with skins too. Someone makes a cool skin and you inevitably have some people come out and crap on it. Last week on our tech partner site, Neowin, a user posted about Aero Executive (a new theme).  Within minutes, users came on and started crapping on it. Now, a wood-textured version of Aero may not be for you but it's a good skin from a design perspective.  But in the age of entitlement, the people who don't actually produce anything not only expect an unlimited right to insult those who do make stuff but become incredulous if called out for their criticism (i.e. they recognize their right to free speech but become amazingly intolerant of the right of others to defend themselves). It got so bad I had to close the thread.

So here's the deal: If you produce stuff then good for you.  If you don't produce stuff, then you are either reliant on the good will of others to produce things for you or you will have to pay evil capitalists to labor on your behalf to produce the product, good, or service you want.  And while you are free to criticize what others produce, so too are other people free to criticize you in return since, after all, criticism is a form of product too.