You may have also seen the announcement that Apple pre-sold 1 million units of its new iPhone 4S on the first day it was available, blowing away previous records. This positive news comes after many people (especially those in the media), expecting a completely new iPhone 5, greeted last week’s iPhone 4S announcement with disappointment.

Meanwhile, over at Facebook, privacy concerns continue to mount as the latest site enhancements caused some to question the addition of cookies that would supposedly allow Facebook to track users’ movements even once they log off the service.

I put these three events together because they showcase how three of the most successful and powerful brands of our time interact with their brand communities as they innovate quickly and aggressively.

What do all three companies share? First, confidence. They can see their destiny, they have a plan in place to control it, and no one—not even their customers—is allowed to slow their innovation engines down. What else do all three share? They all also have passionate communities of people who care deeply about them and watch every move they make closely.

In each case, these two forces—the company’s own self confidence and the pressure and expectations that a deeply engaged and passionate brand community brings—can lead to highly-charged, high-risk announcements, communications, and interactions.

So why is Apple so successful at keeping the relationship with its brand community healthy? Why is Netflix stumbling so badly? And why is Facebook in a dangerous spot?

In my view it comes down to a difference in the way each company approaches the give and take transactions with their brand community, the way they manage their community karma.

Creating a healthy brand community is a lot like managing a bank account. In order to remain in good standing, you must make more deposits in the karma bank than withdrawals. And this is where Apple, Facebook, and Netflix begin to differ.

On one end of the spectrum is Apple. The company showers us with delightful new products and innovations. Apple surprises us. Apple entertains us. But most of all, we’ve come to expect that almost every product Apple makes is going to fundamentally change the way we work and play. By creating great, impactful stuff that really does improve our lives in meaningful ways (I haven’t used a computer that runs Microsoft Windows in more than a decade… but I still remember EXACTLY how it felt), Apple is constantly making deposits in the community karma bank.

And while many folks were upset that Apple didn’t launch an iPhone 5 last week, I’ll point out that it was a stronger karma decision to launch an upgraded version of the iPhone 4 and call it a 4S than to launch an upgraded iPhone 4 and call it an iPhone 5 (as many other companies would have done). When an iPhone 5 is ready, we will know it, I’m sure.

That’s not to say that Apple doesn’t make karma withdrawals too. It does. Apple, you annoy me with your crappy restrictions on what I can do with music I download from you. I dislike your anti-competitive app store practices, and you scare me every time I have to click through a new version of your license agreement.

But when it comes right down to it, you give me more than you take, Apple, so I must admit I still love you.

On the other end of the spectrum we have our friends at Netflix. For years, Netflix was a dutiful investor in the karma bank. The company made their site elegant and easy to use, the social functionality and ratings were helpful, and, when streaming came along, it was like Christmas.

Personally, I loved Netflix. I loved it so much that I even bought a new TV last year on the strength of one feature—I could seamlessly stream Netflix movies directly to it.

But something changed. Over the last six months, I’ve noticed that Netflix has started making more karma withdrawals than deposits.

First, the Netflix site quit getting better. I don’t know about you, but I found it harder and harder to search for new movies. Netflix has always tried to push you toward the backlist titles and older movies, and I get why that made sense with the DVD-by-mail system. But why not make it easy for me to find your newest on-demand titles? I got frustrated and quit using it as much because it seemed like the site was actually losing searching/browsing functionality rather than getting better (was that my imagination?).

Then Netflix hit me with the price increase. Now I don’t mind paying more when I’m getting more, but at the time the price increase was announced it had become clear that Netflix’s agreements with distributors were souring and that they might even lose access to many on-demand films. This on top of my frustrations with the site, created my first negative Netflix experiences.

Still, Netflix had enough positive karma with me, built up over years, that we remained buddies.

Then, on September 19th, Reed Hastings sent me an email (under cover of night, at 3:31 AM, mind you) that started as an apology and quickly turned from mea culpa into double down. If you got the email, you were likely either A) angry or B) wondering if Reed might soon have an opening to hire you to help with his communications strategy.

Not only was Netflix going to keep the price increase, they were going to significantly degrade the customer experience by splitting the business in two and forcing their customers to log in to two completely different sites if they wanted to stay a customer of both the streaming and DVD-by-mail businesses. I understood the business strategy and why it made sense… but the communications strategy and the way the whole thing was positioned was just plain terrible. As someone in the communications business myself, I felt the need to look away.

And that was the moment Netflix made one more karma withdrawal than I could take. In the weeks since I received that email I have 1) bought a Roku box so I can stream on my TV from someone other than Netflix if I want to 2) started using the free streaming I get as a member of Amazon Prime and 3) made the decision to go on a break from Netflix until it gets its karma account back in order.

Apparently, I’m not alone. Since the announcement, the Netflix stock has fallen off a cliff, down from just over $200 to around $110 a share (and it was at $300 a share this summer). The announcement today may not have come soon enough, only time will tell.

Netflix, I still think we might have a future together, but man do you have some work to do.

Which brings us to Facebook. Now Facebook is a very interesting case to look at because of one thing that makes it very different than the other two companies: it doesn’t charge me any real money.

Facebook is a free service, and typically our expectations of a free service are very low. Investments in the karma bank add up quickly when the service is free. For years, Facebook has earned our love by helping us reconnect with long lost friends and relatives, while allowing us to actively keep in touch with more people at once than we ever could with a pen, phone, or email.

The real price of using Facebook—our privacy and personal data—was one that was originally only too high for a fringe group of digital conspiracy theorists. But over the past year, Facebook has become more and more intrusive, less respectful of what little privacy it still allows us, and has at the same time claimed more ownership of our personal data, using it in ways that are less clearly in our own interests.

The double whammy is that at the same time, the service is becoming incrementally less valuable to many people. Now that you are connected to all of these folks that you haven’t seen in 20 years and know what their kids are having for breakfast… then what?

I’ve noticed more and more of my friends on Facebook are going largely silent. It is good to have the network there when you need it and want to reach out to someone. But my perception is that the regular updates are decreasing, the number of times I’m tempted to click the “like” buttons has gone way down as I wonder how Facebook intends to exploit my click, and I’m unlikely to upload any personal photos or videos until I am 100% positive they aren’t going to show up in some banner ad for deodorant.

I wonder if Facebook is nearing a critical juncture. Because the service is free, I think Facebook will likely be able to avoid the rapid depletion of the karma reserve that Netflix has seen over the past few months. But as more people become aware of the true costs of using Facebook—in terms of loss of control of our privacy and personal data—and the incremental value of Facebook begins to level off, could the karma bank for Facebook go negative, even as a free service?

I don’t know. But if I were at Facebook, I’d certainly be starting to worry about it. Especially if I had a competitor like Google (with its own karma stumbles, but an overall better track record of respecting personal data) lurking, waiting for Facebook to make one too many withdrawals.

I’m sure many of you have strong views about these three brands. If you do, and either agree or disagree with my analysis, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

About 2 years ago I went to see the movie Where The Wild Things Are with some friends and my girlfriend. We were sitting in the theater and trying to enjoy the movie, but there were people behind us making a lot of noise, talking, and just being obnoxious. Now, we’ve all endured this, I’m sure, but I take serious offense to people who cannot behave in a movie theater. To me, there is no better way to tell the world that you’re a low life than to ruin a movie for 50 or more people at once.

So these guys kept talking and kept ruining the movie for everyone, and about 20 minutes into the movie people start shushing them. They’re response wasn’t to check their behavior, but instead was to shush people back. Of course, this pushed me to the edge.

While I am not a very big person in a way that would frighten someone (unless you’re made of chocolate), I know that I have a temper and at times I can be intimidating, and after looking around and noticing that a lot of the people watching Where The Wild Things Are on opening night at midnight were hipsters, I thought I had the upper hand. I figured I could stand up, and in my most angry tone tell the hipsters to “Shut the fuck up” and all would be scared into being right in the world.

I gave them a chance to shut up, and they didn’t, so I mustered up the courage to confront them, balled my fists, stood up, and yelled out a strong and loud “HEY!” as I turned and saw what was not hipsters. They were thugs. I was shocked, and thrown for a loop, but I was, at that point, committed to finishing my sentence. I couldn’t sit back down. That would have only made things worse. I still had a chance, I thought, of being intimidating enough to get my way.

“Shut the fuck up!” I said, and sat back down, fully expecting a fist to crack the back of my skull at any moment. But the strangest thing happened. There was some banter at first from the thugs, but after a few seconds they shut up. They shut up and stayed shut up for the whole movie. After the movie they exited the theater without any issue and people around me started to thank me for doing what I did. I felt like a hero. I had won.

As I walked out of the theater with my friends, the situation changed. Two of the young men from the group were waiting for me in the hallway leading to the lobby. I was trying to defuse the situation by walking away. Admittedly, I was making a few comments like “Get out of my way” and “I don’t fight with trash” but mostly I was trying to exit the theater without conflict. In fact, most the comments weren’t coming from me or the thugs, they were coming from on my friend’s date. A very small woman, she was saying things like “you’re not going to do anything” and basically calling their bluff. I was the only person telling her to shut up.

My only hope, I thought for a moment, was that these guys would kick her ass instead of mine. I made my way outside and my friend’s date finally shut up. These are my last thoughts before getting sucker punched in my face:

• Good, she shut up.
• Where’d those thugs go?
• Where’s my friends?
• What’s going on?

Getting punched in the face is strange. It hurts like you think it would, but the sound is funny. I’ve been punched in the face a few times in my life and it always sounds like a four square ball being bounced on a trampoline. I immediately tasted blood. Looking around, I couldn’t find the guy who hit me. He was backing up steadily, almost hiding behind my girlfriend if I remember correctly.

My friends were MIA for the most part. One of my friends picked my glasses up off of the floor and handed them to me. I wanted to fight, but I would have lost and my girlfriend was already scared pretty bad. I walked to my car and we drove to a 7-11 where my bloody face gave the employee there a scare. His reaction was the first sign that sunk into my head that I might have to go to the hospital. I was cleaning the blood off of my face and I found it kind of hard to breath out of my nose. My shirt was ruined. My bottom lip was busted open.

The Myth of the Karma Bank

I’ve always liked the idea that good things happen to people who do good things, and bad things happening to people who do bad things. So, that’s how I justified this in my head. These guys would get what’s coming to them. I didn’t get to kick this guy’s ass, but someone else will some day, or maybe he will just be a thug forever and never have much money, or whatever. I don’t know. I’m not sure exactly how it works, but I just rested on the fact that he would get his in the end

But when something like this happens, it forces you to really think about what you dismiss in your personal justification. The event lingers and it makes you try to figure it out. I walked through the scenario over and over. From my perspective first: I was in a movie theater. I told some loud people to shut up. I got punched in the face outside while I wasn’t looking and none of my friends said a word. Then from his perspective: Some asshole told him to shut the fuck up. He followed him outside and kicked his ass. My friends didn’t get a license plate number. They didn’t get a description of the people or vehicle. They didn’t get anything but ice for my face when I got home.

I’m not mad at my friends. They’re not the kind of friends who would get in a fight for me. I have friends who would, but these aren’t those friends. What really made me write this is something I came to realize a few months ago. See, I was content to think that these thugs were never going to be as happy as me in the future. I’m going to school, I’m getting a masters degree and I’ve decided to devote my life to helping others get a better education. These thugs would find some bullshit job somewhere, slave away for shitty pay, live in their broken down neighborhood, where ever that may be, and would live the lifestyle that they chose for themselves, as thugs, possibly gang affiliated and on drugs.

But then, a few months ago, something struck a chord with me. I couldn’t tell you what it was, but it made me reexamine the situation. These thugs chose that life style. They like it. They want to live in that shitty neighborhood. They want to drink and gang bang and use drugs. They don’t want to be anyone else, or live any other kind of life. They will be content making bullshit money at a bullshit job and living a bullshit life, making the world a miserable place and being obnoxious in movie theaters, teaching their many children to do the same.

The worst part is that after I get my degree and after I start working in education, I might not be making much more money than these guys, if I make more at all. I will probably be more stressed out since I will have a career and these guys will simply be working jobs that they could take or leave when they see fit. So, in the end, there is a much better chance that these mother fuckers will be happier than me at any given time in our lives.

This, of course, was a tough pill to swallow, and made me really look long and hard at my life choices. Maybe I’ve been in the wrong business. Maybe I’ve been living my life on the wrong side of the tracks. All my life I’ve done what I considered the right thing. I’ve never partaken in any illegal drugs, my first drink was when I was 20, only a month before my 21^st birthday, and I’ve always taken my education seriously. I drink and, while I’ve had my nights, I’ve kept things under control for the most part. I have made some bad choices, but I think I’m a pretty good friend and I always try to be there when people need me. Bottom line, I’m responsible.

Why did I do this? I suppose a better question would be “Why didn’t I (fill in the blank)?” Why didn’t I make more moves on women? Why didn’t I take a hit? Why didn’t I stay out later? Why didn’t I go to more parties where I knew there would be drugs? Why didn’t I hang out with a riskier crowd? I thought about all that, and I started to regret a lot of the choices I had made in my life because it looked like I had invested in something that didn’t exist. It was something I had been lied to about for years by my parents, teachers, the media, you name it. This thing that isn’t real is what I call the Karma Bank.

The Karma Bank is simple: Put in a good deed, and a good deed will come back to you with interest in the future. Put in a bad deed and something bad will happen to you in the future, with interest as well. It’s bullshit. Bad things happen to good people all the time and good things happen to bad people even more often. The trick here, and what stings, is that this very famous outlook on life is basically telling you that you will be rewarded for your good deeds. The universe is watching, and you’ll get yours, good or bad!

Not only is this bullshit, but it creates a sense of entitlement that really made me flounder when thinking of the guys who hit me in the face. I kept thinking that these guys lived their lives on the edge, had way more fun, ended up punching me in the face, and are going to end up being happier than I will ever be. When am I going to win? When am I going to get what’s coming to me?

It took a while, but what I realize now is that I’m not going to get anything that’s coming to me, and neither are they, and neither are you. There is no Karma Bank, there is no one in the sky keeping track of my good deeds.  I will not be cosmically rewarded or punished for anything I’ve done. The question then becomes, “Then why do good things?” and the answer is simple: “Because I’m not an asshole.” I don’t do drugs, I’m a good friend, and I treat people pretty well. I have my regrets, but all in all I think I’m an upstanding and responsible person. And while I don’t claim to know what happens when you die, I know that there is one afterlife we can all be sure of, and that’s how people will remember you after your funeral. So, you can go around being a dick and talking in movie theaters so that people might tell their children that they once knew a terrific asshole, or you can not be a dick and try to help people through this shit storm we call existence and maybe have some people talk about how they once knew a pretty cool dude who told some a-holes in a movie theater to shut the fuck up.