Way to go, Apple.

It's pretty safe to say that we're all (uncomfortably) familiar with the monopoly Google has over the Internet, from its massive search engine to YouTube and Blogger. I personally dislike how much I rely on Google to constantly look things up, but I hadn't really realized that I've also been the prey of another new media monopoly - Apple.


My relationship with Apple-branded media is relatively simple, so I never really noticed this phenomenon before. I typically buy hard copies of CDs, load them onto iTunes, and then sync them to my iPod. Occasionally I download a free song from iTunes or Amazon, but that's about it. I do have a MacBook Pro laptop, but iTunes and iPhoto are the only apps I've ever really used on it.


However, just today I decided to treat myself for my birthday and download Angry Birds for my Mac (I only have the Beta version, and I need more!!). But the only way for me to (legally) download it is through the Mac App Store. 


The Mac App Store is only available to Mac users whose OS is 10.6.6 or higher (OS X Lion). Mine is 10.5.8. Guess how much it costs to upgrade? $29.99.


Considering I don't really use apps on my MacBook, I think this is ridiculous. I'm not paying $30 for the App Store just so I can then pay another $5 each to download the Angry Birds games. Even when I try to download the game from another site, like the official Angry Birds site, it just redirects me to an Apple page telling me how to pay and upgrade to Lion to get the App Store.

"Simple," perhaps. Free or fair? Think again.

I think that after paying the purchase price of a MacBook, you shouldn't have to keep paying more and more just to upgrade the system ("first sale doctrine"). If you're going to go out and buy another whole laptop, then fine - it makes sense that you should pay for that. But paying $30 to upgrade a system I already "own"? I don't think so. 


Maybe Apple thinks that for anyone who can afford to buy a Mac in the first place, $30 is merely chimp change. Well Apple, I happened to get my laptop on a student discount and to me, $30 is nothing to sneeze it. I am a college student, after all.


Oh well. It looks like I'll either have to upgrade to Lion or forget about playing Angry Birds for a while. Way to go, Apple.