What Steve Jobs Isn’t Remembered For

“You know, there’s a porn store for Android. You can download porn, your kids can download porn. That’s a place we don’t want to go – so we’re not going to go there.” – Steve Freaking Jobs

I was at least 300x more likely to go out and buy a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, a Starbucks gift card and an iPad when I first read this. It’s a thing that Steve Jobs probably won’t go down in history for, but even so, I’d like thank the man for his stance against pornography. Christ, remember it and reward him.

The reality is that pornography doesn’t even pretend to be the great product of a brave, liberated world anymore. Porn is just easy cash. Mr. Jobs knew it, just as any one working in the field internet technology knows it: You want clicks, you need naked women. But Apple – despite the obvious financial benefits – has consistently not allowed pornography onto their App store, and is constantly under fire for pulling magazines that run pornographic spreads, and otherwise being the big, bad censoring power in a world that thinks freedom is slavery to vice.

In a “interview” with Ryan Tate of Gawker.com, which really was more of a email exchange, Steve Jobs said that Apple represented a movement towards “freedom from porn.” This was particularly awesome, because the man, despite being a something-like-a-Buddhist-capitalist, could see the slavery of sin and wasn’t afraid to call it out. And so Ryan Tate blustered:

“I don’t want ‘freedom from porn’. Porn is just fine! And I think my wife would agree.”

Lol – “think”. To which Steve Jobs replied, probably from some computer that allows him to download coffee into his iMug and type with his mind, “”You might care more about porn when you have kids . . .” Which, all things considered, was a very sensible answer.

Ryan Tates later claimed to be drunk. I wonder whether that was at all the result of a confrontation with his wife. But regardless, Steve Jobs, the end of the era, a giant in an age in which we don’t know our giants, saw something in the evil of pornography. He saw that it enslaves men, corrupts children, and he said no. To which I stand and applaud. And the other truth worth pointing out – which I am being more and more exposed to every day – is that virtue rewards. Yes, yes, it is it’s own reward, but it also rewards. If you’re chivalrous towards women, you may just get yourself a woman. If you’re courageous, you may very well win the battle. And if you – as a business – take a stance against porn, you’ll make up for your losses by the trust you gain from the people.