Though I'm an Apple fan, it bothers me the way they seem to skate just along the border of evil. Can you imagine Google shutting down a Google rumors site?

Theory: Steve Jobs is overreaching to the point of evil, but he's also smart enough to hire hackers who are more than yes-men, and they push back when he wants to do something too bad.

I suppose this is ultimately what keeps Google honest too. If so, then being good and hiring smart hackers are inseparable; and that means as companies increasingly can't win without smart hackers, they'll have to become increasingly good.

(By "become" here I mean in the sense that populations become a certain way through evolution. I'm not proposing any given company will get nicer. Just that good companies will increasingly triumph over evil ones.)