I have to ask: when you say "what planet are you from?", do you find it impossible (or at least very hard) to model someone thinking what the poster said? I guess, more precisely, do you think that the average person -- not educated with comfortable background, just average or low income -- is much more likely to share your opinion, than that of Steve Jobs and Apple being broadly positive?
My guess is that the majority people think of Jobs and Apple as being neutral to good, if they think of them at all. At the very least, lots of people who don't fit into your privileged categories of Jobs apologists, still don't think of him as bad.
Do you think those people have been misled? Why do you think you have more insight into the truth than them?
I don't find it impossible, and it requires no modelling. From my anecdotal experience, it does seem that most people would have a neutral or positive view of Jobs and Apple.
When I said "what planet are you from", I meant simply that what the poster was saying (Jobs did "marvellous things for the advent of human-centric tech") isn't true on this planet. That's all.
I do think people have been misled, yes, but I wouldn't have guessed that would be a controversial point? Advertising is the art and science of misleading people, and we've never been so saturated in ads, morning til night.
And finally (you asked a lot of small questions) I think I've more insight into the matter because I've read books and articles about this issue and related issues.
On the actual question of whether on this planet Apple (Microsoft, Google, etc) have been a "boon for regular people", the book that struck me the hardest was probably "La Fabrique du crétin digital" by Michel Desmurgets, but I don't know if there's an English translation. There's lots of good stuff from Cory Doctorow. Ivan Illich, Neil Postman, etc.
In summary - I wasn't saying it's a popular or majority opinion. I was saying that it's really true though, and I was even implying that people working in tech-related fields have no excuse for lying to themselves about it (although they've tons of incentive to do so, of course).
