Opposition. Competition. Blocking Maneuvers. Resistance!
Apple blocked the iOS app @damusapp from the app store because it allowed for people to directly send value (in the form of bitcoin sats) to the author of a note on Nostr. They did this because if someone “pays for content” (their self-serving interpretation) using an iOS app, Apple wants its piece of the action. Damus had to remove that feature which was done in order to return to the iOS app store.
What gives them that right!?!?!?! Pissed me off. I don’t enjoy such contrast with how I want the ecosystem to flow.
And it created a conflict in me. I use Apple products, and they work for me as essential tools for my work. Yes, I’ve looked at alternatives, and they are simply not as good…
I’m also an investor, but not necessarily because I “want” to be. Apple, as one of the premier companies revenue-wise and technology-lock-in-wise, is “a good investment” (generally) compared to something like cash or an S&P 500 index. That’s been shown this year and most past years that stocks like Apple’s do better than the average big company. Since inflation is sucking energy out of the dollar, it’s for “survival” that I put some our our family freedom funds into Apple stock (for now).
(Bitcoin is where my savings-heart is focused, of course.)
As an investor, Apple’s “walled garden” and “predatory app store policies” end up… keeping value in their stock. So, them blocking Damus unless they get “their cut” means they are protecting their revenue streams. But AT THE EXPENSE of the part of me that is a customer… and the me that is part of the freedom kin and wants value-for-value (people paying for what they value when not REQUIRED to do so) to grow!
Absolutists would say that I am “wrong” to continue to use Apple products if they behave this way! But as if Google/Android is different, really, at the end of the day. Or, that I am “supporting” such policies by being an investor. Well, no, I am trying to help my savings keep up with inflation enough so I can feed and homeschool and make a home for my family. But I can also see their point.
In my emotional world, the acceptance of ‘reality’ without losing hope for greater safety, respect, and freedom requires a lot of active, spiritual energy. I need to see what is natural as… natural… including the evolution of thought, the awareness of blocks and impediments and competing incentives, and the engineering of workarounds.
Zapplepay is one of those workarounds, and the fuck you the name itself sends to Apple for blocking zaps in Damus (and all other iOS Nostr apps now) tickles the Freedom Maximalist in me. Now, instead of a zap button, a “like” is translated by an entirely outside-of-Damus system to pay the value I once did directly in Damus itself.
Admittedly, the freedom-desiring part of me wishes that the Big Apple didn’t have the power to force Damus to remove that feature. But they do. At least for now.
What rises, and activates, through this act by Apple is a kind of resilience in the face of Apple’s resistance. It says, “How can we… anyway?”
This morning in my meditation I saw a gorge, caved by eons of water having its way with the earth. The dirt and rock resisted directly, but were literally “worn down.”
What about for those of us who want to get to the other side of the gorge?!? Without being forced to go many miles out of our direct path?
I saw this steel cable with hand wires across. I saw myself strong and skilled and bold enough to latch in and get to the other side. I saw the Stewards who walked across every day, who knew every step, who paid deep attention to the anchors on both sides and the cable itself.
As I walked the Mountain to Sea trail this morning, I saw the stewards there, too. To walk these mountains WITHOUT the trail builders and maintainers would be possible… but hard. Once the trail was built, Nature started to adapt – sometimes trying to take it back, and the stewards needing to tend it back into shape.
At a time when I truly want more emotional freedom for all, I’m humbly recognizing that resistance – whether to change or to clear out and cut through or to upend incentive structures (like our current monetary power structures), resistance hones the power of the builders, the early adopters, and the stewards of today and the tomorrows to come.
“Overcoming resistance” has, if I look at it from the right angle, been the foundational process for my own evolution and thriving.
Resistance feels as natural an essence as gravity. I “object” to gravity when I dream of leaping across the chasm or flying to the top of the mountain. But gravity is damn useful if one wants to sit without floating away…
Exploring this concept of savvy relating and engaging has me asking how I might use the resistance to clarify and shift my navigation. How can I support those crafting dirt trails that speak to where my soul wants to dance even while, at times, using the paved highways that help me get from one place to the other?
Savvy in this case accepts what is, for now, while putting more and more of my life force where it supports What Matters to me.
I’m curious where you find this kind of resistance and “savvy conflict” you have to navigate for now, too…?
Warm smiles,
Rick ~ ThrivingNow