Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/21/steve_jobs_made_us_sad/
Key quotes:
“The consumer society was laid down by the late Steve Jobs coming down the mountain with two tablets, iPad one and iPad two, and the result is that we now have a culture of iPod, iPhone, iTunes, i, I, I,” .
“When you’re an individualist, egocentric culture and you only care about ‘I’, you don’t do terribly well.”
“What does a consumer ethic do? It makes you aware all the time of the things you don’t have instead of thanking God for all the things you do have
“If in a consumer society, through all the advertising and subtly seductive approaches to it, you’ve got an iPhone but you haven’t got a fourth generation one, the consumer society is in fact the most efficient mechanism ever devised for the creation and distribution of unhappiness”
Interestingly, the office of the Chief Rabbi had to issue a clarification: See here:
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/11/20/3090363/sacks-blames-steve-jobs-for-selfish-society
At the end of the day, I find his comments rather spot on. And this is unrelated to the fact that I don’t have the latest iPhone…. 