Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2004/02/10/ipod_owners_open_letter/

iPod owner's open letter to Apple

Pepsi child shame threat to sales?

By Andrew Orlowski

Posted in Bootnotes, 10th February 2004 01:16 GMT

Letters Our Pepsi/Apple/RIAA Superbowl poll has generated a wonderful range of responses. [Vote here]. And quite unlike last week's postbag, these seem to bear none of the hallmarks of AstroTurf.

This one is typical.

I was planning on purchasing a new Ibook, it would have been my 5th Mac. Tell Steve he can take this "Jobs" and shove it. Putting that obnoxious Pepsi ad on the website was not a good decision.

Jack Del Croix

However it's a new Apple user, who loves her iPod, who we highlight, as she wrote this to the computer company.

I was recently given a 20G iPod as a Christmas present---my first Apple product after 30 years in the technology business---and it has totally changed my way of listening to my music collection.

This little gadget has not only enabled me to use my collection in a way that makes it many times more enjoyable to me, it helps me cover up muzak in supermarkets and I even bring it along on my car FM with a iTrip.

Imagine my disappointment at seeing you guys in bed with Pepsi, which exists solely to rot the teeth of its consumers (if you don't believe me, try putting a nail in a glass of Pepsi and watch it disappear) in your Superbowl ad. Not to mention in bed with RIAA, which believe me, is no friend of the artist either. In fact, your technology (including iTunes) is going to disintermediate (read, ream out) the large record companies, which have continued to dun us for 15 bucks or more per disc as unit prices of CDs have dropped through the floor in the last ten years.

The only thing you have to do to be in the front of the NEXT revolution is lose Pepsi and the RIAA. It is a brutal irony to me that you chose the 20th anniversary of the most famous Superbowl ad of all to totally reverse your own image, team up with big brother, and most indefensible of all, participate in the exploitation of underaged alleged "criminals" in a literal public stoning. Shame on you!

Lindsay Gillies

"Even if it's true that the kids are cocking a snoot themselves at the record biz," adds Lindsay, "RIAA's insistence on using "real" accusees is basically child abuse. "I'd like to see them try it in the UK".

It's too early to say if this advertisement has lost the computer company sales. We very much doubt it; but it's certainly tarnished the wholesome iTunes Music Store image.

We'll tabulate the poll results as soon as we've fed through our G3 iBook SuperComputer. Stay tuned! ®

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