So, no more votes?

Ok, gonna give it 10 more minutes.

...

Quote Originally Posted by Tiki Snakes View Post
Yeah, its an episode and issue that comes up now and again. I'm going to strongly reject your central point though.

Cider Squeezy is broadly pro-technology. No, really.
The machine works. And what's more, it turns out cider comparable to apple family cider. And quicker, it took the whole apple family and mane 6 to out produce it.

So, what let the Flim Flam's down? What happened to prevent them using this fabulous machine to con the apples out of their land?

They didn't care about the quality of the cider. They had no love for it. The machine is blameless, technology comes across well, but smiley jerks who are only after money fail, not because the machine wasn't as good, but because they didn't understand what matters, they had no integrity and that, their inherant dishonesty let them down.

The machine itself is almost entirely shown as a good, positive thing except that the flim flams are using it to muscle out the apples.
No. It's not.

Case in point - had F&F really didn't care, they wouldn't make a machine that makes staunchly conservative, criticizing grandma go into shock after one tasting. They would just settle for 'good enough' seeing quality costed them volume, and go for Coca Cola business model. F&F only started to water down final product in desperation after they were tricked into complete change of agreed deal. They clearly understood what they were doing, they had just no other options left.

You know, how can anyone say they were con men when a good swindler just had to dispense all the good cider they made at first to quieten criticism? Especially seeing that despite their names machine worked exactly as advertised? They sucked as con ponies, their machine building skills were top notch... To me, it says wandering inventor, not con artist. Inventor that wasn't recognized in any way.

And the final nail to the coffin of that episode - was extremely rude, obnoxious letter at the end, insulting both Celestia to which it was sent and her friends that worked their sides off to save Apples. AJ doesn't acknowledge new ideas can be good, she just says "lernud nufin" and still considers her ways to be the best and only. There isn't even a glimmer of understanding what just happened, both on sociological and technological front. She doesn't even thank RD for help, help that came despite how AJ treated RD in the beginning of episode.

From protagonists perspective, all the cheating they did was okay, and the machine was evil like its owners. I fail to see where there is even a iota of praise for it outside of granny's reaction. AJ stance goes even further than most extreme luddists, there is no saving it. At all.