But what a transformation! And it's all driven by money.

In the 14 years since Steve Jobs returned to the company and Apple challenged us to think (and buy) different, the company's share price has gone from just under $40 to over $360 while the company's valuation has rocketed from about $7 billion to just over $312 billion!

Sure, Apple's been very successful, but their ethical downfall has been pretty transparent and I blame iTunes.

Prior to 2003, the year Apple launched iTunes, the company was ... well, hardly humble ... but they were rather more modest. They believed in themselves, sure, maybe with what you might call "a passion," but their arrogance was centered on the idea that they made better products and served their customers better than the competition.

Contrast that profile with today's Apple: Totally immodest, buoyed by a legion of overwhelmingly supportive fanboys, flushed with more success than they ever dreamed of back in those pre-iTunes days, and apparently forgetting they once thought that we, their customers, were to be respected. Today's Apple treats us, their customers, like while developers and publishers are treated as pawns in their marketing games.