Google wants you. Amazon wants you. Apple wants you.

The real issue here is whether people understand what they're buying in to when they buy the various products.

* Do they understand that Apple are going to restrict you in certain ways? Do you understand what those ways are and what the consequences are?

* Do they understand Google's (financial) interest in your personal data and what that means?

* Do they understand that Amazon are only selling you this stuff as cheaply as they are because it's a down payment on more stuff?

As technology changes, business models change and the nature of the deals you're entering into is becoming more complex with greater consequences than you might have understood.

There's nothing wrong with any of these models and I think the OP is wrong in implying that Apple are in some way "better". The issue is that I don't think that the typical consumer is keeping pace with the changes and, as a result, is potentially entering into deals they don't understand and making choices that don't reflect what they really want or need.

Why is a kindle fire less than ideal - because they sell books on it? You could make the same argument about every video game system - it's less than ideal because you have to buy video games for it. This isn't because nintendo is evil or lazy, it's just how the system works. A video game system is a device for consuming other peoples' video games (and nintendo's too, if they want), and the kindle fire is a device for consuming other peoples' books.

Why is android less than ideal, because it's ad supported? You could say the same thing about facebook, twitter, and every other company out there that provides a free service supported by ads. Some people don't like this, and this leads to developments like app.net - we'll see how paid services like this do over the next couple of years. But the fact remains that if you don't realize when you sign up for a free service that people are being paid to make that they need to make money somehow, you aren't even thinking.

Then let's move on to all of apple's major devices. You get a iphone, but this relies on a contract with a service provider, which is in fact how apple makes most of their money off iphones. Oh no - immoral!

Or you may buy an ipod, apple's other big product. But what's an ipod without music on it from a third party. Hold up - third party pollution, the ipod is no good as a product.

Or perhaps you buy the only other thing they sell, a computer. But you'd better not put any software on it from a third party, because then it's just a means to an end, not an end in itself.

Overall, I understand the general idea, but this was very poorly thought out and needs more thinking and explanation, not to mention that at least to me, the statement about Apple's products all being an "end" is definitely false.

Edit: Reason for downvote? The person's infobox looks like [1]. For a person not so active on G+ to realize that the first line is a user defined string and not system generated tag, it is confusing. [1]: http://i.imgur.com/zvaDq.png