You Can Like One and Not the Other

Something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is that you can like a product that a company makes and not agree with everything the company does.

This thought has absolutely been on my mind because of the Apple vs Epic battle that’s going to be going on in court for, probably, the next couple of years. I’m a big fan of the products that Apple makes — I returned to using an iPhone right at the start of the pandemic (some of the best timing I’ve ever had) and have used MacBooks and iPads even in the interim. Apple makes a great ecosystem.

I love the security and I love the simplicity. Sometimes, I love the things that you don’t even think about, like the ability to copy something to my clipboard on my iPhone and paste it on my Mac, no extra steps required. Just cut (📱 ) and paste (💻 ).

But Apple isn’t perfect — I’ll be the first to admit that. You could look at the Microsoft xCloud issues (I’ll be writing about this at some point on That Jersey Gamer) or the Prepear lawsuit, or any number of other poor decisions the company has made. I can look at the company, despite my love for a lot of their products and say “There’s somethings that you need to change.”

Maybe it’s because I’m a lifelong fan of Nintendo. I’m used to supporting a company that, by all rights, makes some incredibly poor decisions related to their products, but they’re still loved by so many. Or even a company like Amazon.

I love my Kindle — it’s how I do most of my reading these days. I don’t know what I would do without it. Or Amazon Prime — I’ve grown so used to needing something that I’ll immediately jump online, order what I need, and have it at my front door two days later. It’s really convenient.

But that doesn’t mean that Amazon is perfect — sure, their pay is decent, but it isn’t great. Their treatment of their works gets a failing grade from me. And the fact that Jeff Bezos had his wealth continue to go up despite the world being in the middle of a global health crisis? Please, do not get me started.

Does that mean I’m going to cancel my Amazon Prime subscription and crush my Kindle with a hydraulic press? Absolutely not. It means I’m going to be vocal about telling Amazon what they need to change. It’s up to them if they ultimately decide to listen or not, but it doesn’t always have to be 100% support or don’t. There’s a middle ground for a lot of things in life.

I don’t say this to come off sounding like a shill or a sheep or any other term you want to throw at me, but to better explain my thought process on subjects like this. Sure, X company is crap at this, but they excel at Y.

The world isn’t going to end if we apply some rational thought to things before we grab the pitchforks.

PS
I’m very hard on Epic on a regular basis on my gaming blog. I have major issues with their lawsuit against Apple and the reasons they’re doing what they are — but I’m still having a hell of a great time playing season 4 of Fortnite, filled entirely with Marvel content in the Battle Pass. Just another instance of me illustrating my point.

That being said, if you’d like to share, I’d love to hear your take on this in the comments. Let’s just try and keep it respectful. There’s enough negativity in the world without going to war in a comments section of a blog post that meaningful to myself, but meaningless in the grand scheme of the universe.