Maybe Microsoft didn’t get the memo but when Apple retroactively decided to clean up it’s app store deleting any apps which may have inappropriate content, people were up in arms.
Many people thought and probably still do that the anger being expressed was just that of a bunch of sweaty little perverts who wanted yet another way to access content to whack off when mom wasn’t looking.
Let me state this as clear as I can. The anger was (is) not about the lack of porn, it’s about being told what we can and can’t do.
Apple is closed. Apple is restricted. Buy Apple and you are forever restricted to living by the mandate of Steve Jobs. The iPhone has excellent hardware but is crippled in a software and development sense because Of apples restrictive development and content policies.
That is not what we want for Windows Phone 7.
Unfortunately, it looks like Microsoft is taking it’s first steps down the same road that Apple has traveled judging by the Windows Phone 7 MarketPlace application certification requirements (PDF):
Images that are sexually suggestive or provocative, Content that generally falls under the category of pornography, or Content that a reasonable person would consider to be adult or borderline adult content.
I fully understand, oh god how I understand, that Microsoft is targeting Windows Phone 7 at corporate users as well as the consumer and want to keep it’s image squeaky clean but that does not mean they have to restrict the choices of consumers.
Put the porn and any other objectionable content into a separate, section of the store. Hide it away if you must, but do not restrict peoples choice.
For developers being open will be the one trump card that Windows Phone 7 will have against the iPhone as the cost of membership and revenue spilt are the same.
I know some of you are saying, “but it’s just porn”. Yes it it, you’re right. But once you start regulating what is not acceptable in one area, it’s a rapid and slippery slope to regulating other areas.
Once a company like Microsoft begins the regulation of certain types of content (outside of those which are illegal) it becomes very difficult to justify not regulating others when they come under pressure from lobby groups. Frankly it’s better not to get involved at all.
Even worse than the actual regulation is the belief that they should regulate as that belies a mindset which simply doesn’t belong in a company looking to innovate and become a market leader.
What ever happened to companies developing a product or service and then adapting to the consumers user of the product? What happened to delivering a platform that was the best it could be and allowing the developers and users to guide it’s direction?
These days it seems to be more about shoving what they (Apple, Microsoft etc..) want a product to be down our throats and the market share winner being the product which was most capable of “kind of doing” what we wanted at the time.
No company, be it Apple or Microsoft should ever tell us what we can or can not do with the hardware that we have purchased or with the products that we own.
We are windows users. We are not children. We do not need to be told what we can and can’t do or what we do or do not want. We are not Apple fanboys. We purchase Microsoft products because they allow us the freedom to choose and do what we want.
We get to make up our own minds about what is acceptable, objectionable or appropriate in our lives. It is not dictated from on-high.
The Windows desktop environment has never sought to restrict what we can and can’t run on our own computers so why start now with Windows phone 7?
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