Coffee shop conversation: Apple, Steve Jobs, and tech innovations

From a reader:

....As another coffee drinker expressed an interest in my new iPad Touch and the manner in which I was using it to study Japanese, the conversation soon turned to other devices manufactured by Apple and grew to include the young woman who was herself using an Apple laptop and expressed an interest in the iPad.

She allowed however that she would hold off until Apple (as she speculated) would do away with the display technology they are using now in flavor of some souped-up version of a Kindle-like display.

When I pointed out that this was unlikely to happen as Apple had too much invested in their current technology the conversation took an interesting turn. She proposed that Apple would drop their current display technology no matter the cost because the other technology is better and they are innovators.

I pointed out that industrial capitalists, rather than innovate, will do all they can to stifle a new technology until they have wrung every last nickel from the old one. Her answer, "Not Steve Jobs, he doesn't care about profit."

Self, "His employees in China are killing themselves for the insurance money so they can feed their family, because they can't feed them on the pittance that Steve Jobs pays them."

She, "Touché-- but he has his problems too you know."

Self, "Preserve me from the problems of billionaires, I do so weep for them."

She was by the end of the exchange owning that the perspective I brought forward was better supported by the evidence.