Jesus to Jobs: you were wrong

I find, sometimes, that there can be a lot of good stuff in the bible. You can, like, learn from it.

Take, for instance, the recent kerfuffle around the price of the iPhone. It was released in a fanfare of publicity in June this year and put on the market at $599 for the 8GB model. This sold like hotcakes for a few months until everyone who really, really wanted one, had one. Apple then cut the price to $399.

This prompted a load of customers (and bloggers) to loudly cry unfair and accuse Apple of taking advantage of them. Sample quote taken from New York Times story:

“I just felt so used as a consumer,” he said. “They hyped up the iPhone for six months and built up our expectations, and then they grabbed our extra $200 and ran.”

Steve Jobs originally said tough crap, but given all the bad publicity Apple eventually agreed to give a $100 apple store credit to anyone who had paid the original price.

This story from Tennessee's Decatur Daily (I am a regular reader), goes to the Bible's parable of the workers in the vineyard to argue that those who complained were wrong to do so and Jobs was also wrong to back down. Here is Matthew 20:

For the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a man that is a householder, who went out early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the laborers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard.

And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the marketplace and said unto them, `Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you.' And they went their way.

Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour and did likewise.

And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing idle, and said unto them, `Why stand ye here all the day idle?'

They said unto him, `Because no man hath hired us.' He said unto them, `Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive.'

So when evening had come, the lord of the vineyard said unto his steward, `Call the laborers and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first.'

And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny.

But when the first came, they supposed they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny.

And when they had received it, they murmured against the master of the house, saying, `These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us who have borne the burden and the heat of the day.'

But he answered one of them and said, `Friend, I do thee no wrong. Didst thou not agree with me for a penny? Take that which is thine and go thy way. I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good?'

Or, to put it another way, them's the breaks.