Apple announced its this week and, just as people in Egypt and Wisconsin have taken to the literal streets to protest, pundits took to the virtual streets to rail against the establishment, man! And who turned the iPhone rumor machine on high?

TechCrunch's Jason Kincaid wants to know, ?

The first mistake people are making has been to focus on whether or not this move is Apple's prerogative. Ignoring the rumored antitrust issues, I really don't think it's worth considering whether Apple has the right to impose a 30 percent fee on applications, any more than I question whether Monster Cable has the right to sell their HDMI cables at multi-thousand percent markups, or whether cell carriers have the right to charge exorbitant fees for text messages. But that doesn't mean they aren't being obscenely greedy.

That's a rather quaint viewpoint, don't you think? This is capitalism. And, to be truthful, the Macalope's not at all convinced capitalism is the system, but it's the one we're stuck with, so expecting for-profit companies to play by imaginary rules you've made up about what's "fair" is simply not realistic.