Standards

From the Oxford dictionary...

"Standard": 1. A level of quality, especially one that people think is acceptable. 2. A level of quality that is normal or acceptable for a particular person or in a particular situation.

So this is a follow up to my post on the iTunes ruckus going around.

Shortly after I posted that, there was a posting on Slashdot.jp about this with headlines saying "Apple claims "Our privacy protection and customer satisfaction level fulfills the highest standards in the industry""....

And with no surprise, the first comment to this posting was...
"Even if it is the highest standard in the industry... if it below the social standard then it doesn't matter!"

Indeed, Apple and many American companies (and unfortunately too many Americans as well) out there need to realize that there is a world outside the U.S. and that if they are going to do business on a global scale that they need to adapt to other countries standards, and not the other way around... (Although this is indeed a sticky issue and after trying to hear out both sides of the debate on censorship in China, I am still not sure what the right answer is... on one side I believe transparent governments, freedom of speech, and no censorship is the right thing and needs to be employed in every country.. but on the other side, if China allowed that then there would be a good chance of a civil war and rebellion.... which would result in deaths, etc... which would not be good either... )

So I won't say anything more on that issue because I can not say for certain what is right or not, etc... But in this case, I can say for certain (at least in my mind) that Apple needs to respect the standards in Japan or else it is going to end up pissing off a lot of people for no good reason...

For those that have lived in Japan for any period of time, you will know that the standards in service are worlds apart from other countries and that by far the service here is probably better anywhere else in the world. (Unless you are working in a 6 star hotel somewhere...)

A little too meticulous sometimes but for the most part high quality service is not a bad thing.

So what Apple meant to say is.. it "fulfills the highest standards....in America!"...

which unfortunately sometimes (as in this time) doesn't even meet the lowest standards here in Japan.


and I think that is the main problem here...