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Apple’s Social Network

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Re: Apple’s Social Network

#201
post #160

I don’t think he mentioned it, but the easy way for Apple to grow to a $2T company is to get my household, a typical locked-in Apple household with an iPad or iPhone for every person and a computer for each adult and an AppleTV at every TV, to start paying for ever more services through those Apple devices. TV service. Ubiquitous internet service. Financial services like payments but grow into banking. manage all my…

This is why I have been calling for them to buy SNE. It has everything AAPL needs...all the movie content, music content, Playstation, High Scale TV's, best mobile camera components, etc, etc. Mr BuyBack Cook could have bought Sony 3 times over already.

This, I don't understand why Apple hasn't brought SNE as well. In the pre Apple TV original production era it makes less sense, now literally everything SNE has could argument AAPL. I wonder if Steve Jobs were alive would he have bought it, he loves SNE!

Re: Apple’s Social Network

#202
One way Apple could continue to grow their revenue would be iPhone as a Services, or basically the Apple upgrade programme but available world wide. For a basic monthly price, you get iPhone, AppleCare+ Theft, Your iPhone Storage Size iCloud Backup. You can choose whether you want to spread this as 24 months or 36 months, interest free. This makes good uses of Apple's constant overflowing of cash, and no other players on the market could easily copy such programme because of their cash flow and cost of money. Apple are also earning extra on iCloud and AppleCare+ which is also high margin services.

Apple could then offer options on top of the basic services, AirPod, Apple Music, Apple TV Subscription, and may be even your monthly iTunes Store Credit ( Apple save more on less per-transition cost ), all in one monthly bill.

This way Apple could transition into a Services company, and services tends to be very sticky and can be valued as such, while the current Apple Stock, despite all the brand loyalty it is still valued as a hardware company based on unit sales. Apple would have been 2T company if it were valued anything like Microsoft , Google, or Amazon.

I also believe iPad Pro being able to have an external monitor, and hopefully someday keyboard and mouse will take over the current PC market with little to no competition right now. That is assuming Apple wants the iPad to do that, a replacement as Desktop. iPad Pro, being portable for field sales and mobile, iOS security and double as Desktop could be the perfect fit for All businesses. The TCO in managing these must be dramatically lower than Laptop or PCs.

Re: Apple’s Social Network

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not exactly sure what the market share is for iPhones, but Android is much larger. For computers, they are a tiny portion. If they cracked 10 percent I would be shocked. That is awesome they are profitable. But yes they do have an insignificant user base for computers. A reasonable but nowhere near dominating position for phones. Apple is always going to be a relatively small player regardless of market cap in t…

Apple is absolutely dominating phones. When the competition is copying your design choices unnecessarily, you are essentially dominating the market. That Android has dominated the $50-150 smartphone market is pretty meaningless. Those customers don't have much business value.

Having 19 percent of the smartphone market isn't dominating. The Samsung s8 and pixel 2 xl pretty much beat the iPhone x on most features at a lower price point. Higher ppi, battery size. And I think it doesn't even have USB c.

Re: Apple’s Social Network

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm speaking from Apple's perspective But why? It greatly puzzles me how many "consumers" now think in terms of "brands" and dream up and discuss strategies on behalf of them. Companies should concentrate on fleecing customers, and customers should concentrate on not getting fleeced.

> Companies should concentrate on fleecing customers This mentality is a problem. Companies have many valid motivations, and certainly profit is one, but long-term success is rarely predicated on gouging customers.

> This mentality is a problem.

How is that a "mentality"? How is it a problem?

> but long-term success is rarely predicated on gouging customers

It being predicated by gouging is not a claim of mine, success being accompanied by gouging it is enough. Would you say fleecing customers is "rare"?

Re: Apple’s Social Network

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm speaking from Apple's perspective But why? It greatly puzzles me how many "consumers" now think in terms of "brands" and dream up and discuss strategies on behalf of them. Companies should concentrate on fleecing customers, and customers should concentrate on not getting fleeced.

Companies and customers are just people wearing different hats, not distinct groups. Most of us spend our day fleecing and then go home to be on the receiving end. If thats the terminology you want to use for the production/consumption cycle. There's nothing that says one has to be wearing their consumer hat when using hacker news. In fact given the context of both the forum and article, it makes far more sense to me…

> Most of us spend our day fleecing

Yet another poster berated me for considering it anything but rare... what gives?

At any rate, fleecing, exploitation and deception of all kinds are externalizations of costs that will always bite the groups and individuals who do it in some form, and the ecosystems that choke on it.

> here's nothing that says one has to be wearing their consumer hat when using hacker news.

Is there something that says you aren't allowed to wear it? I mean, the comment I was responded too sure is be written from that perspective. And as you say, everybody is also a customer. So why not always be in mind of that, why not refrain from fleecing people simply because you don't want to be fleeced? These hats aren't actual hats, they don't actually make you different persons.

Re: Apple’s Social Network

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies and customers are just people wearing different hats, not distinct groups. Most of us spend our day fleecing and then go home to be on the receiving end. If thats the terminology you want to use for the production/consumption cycle. There's nothing that says one has to be wearing their consumer hat when using hacker news. In fact given the context of both the forum and article, it makes far more sense to me…

> Most of us spend our day fleecing Yet another poster berated me for considering it anything but rare... what gives? At any rate, fleecing, exploitation and deception of all kinds are externalizations of costs that will always bite the groups and individuals who do it in some form, and the ecosystems that choke on it. > here's nothing that says one has to be wearing their consumer hat when using hacker news. Is ther…

>Yet another poster berated me for consdiering it anything but rare... what gives?

A matter of perspective on how you see the modern economy I guess. Fleecing generally means some kind of fraud or poor trade. When you used it to describe Apple just hypothetically moving in to a new market (without any fraud being mentioned) and then backed it up with a statement about how that's just the natural way of things, I took it as a criticism of the market as a whole. That the provision of new products and services is an overall fleece as it doesn't really improve the human condition. Just a general comment on consumerism.

So because I see just economic activity as a whole as one big fleecing, I consider fleecing to just be what we all do for our 9-5. I call people up and tell them about software they don't have. You make software it is you do and then people find it some other way or whatever else it is you do. Apple is charging more for phones than they did last year making them less attainable or whatever it is they do. It's all part of the same game. Making people feel bad about their current situation by either showing or creating a better one.

Other guy almost certainly doesn't agree with that. I don't know where you stand. I mean, as far as things go Apple moving in to billing/banking doesn't seem particularly evil. It's a "problem" a great many people face that could do with some "it just works" design. At least in the US by the sounds of it. So if you're against that it makes me think you align somewhat with me. However if you think it's possible to exist in society and not fleece then probably not!

>will always bite the groups and individuals who do it in some form, and the ecosystems that choke on it

Absolutely! My opinion of society as it is now or its future are not high! We're creating new needs and standards for others to live up to in order to meet the new needs and standards created by others. A circular flow of hustle where the steps we take power the very machine we're on! That's a huge negative externality.

>Is there something that says you aren't allowed to wear it?

No, I just took your question as a challenge to that way of action as much as a genuine question, just because of the context of it. The comments section of an article discussing business strategy, on a forum filled with business owners and aspiring business owners, ran by an investment firm. It's fleecer central.

>So why not be in mind of that why not refrain from fleecing people simply because you don't want to be fleeced?

Because there are core things I want, that if not biological which I suspect they are, are so deeply ingrained from whatever other source that they might as well be biological anyway. I can't attain those thing by not playing the game. I can't be a forest hermit and also be a well respected big deal with plenty of access to pretty women. I need to produce great economic gains and capture tons for myself, because that's what everyone else is doing. That's the standard to meet. Awareness that you're playing a prisoner's dilemma game doesn't do anything to change the outcome if you can't organise with and trust the other players to agree to outcomes. It can be hard to pull off with only two people,. It's certainly not going to happen with 7.53 billion.

Me abstaining wont change the world to any noticeable degree while condemning myself to a less content life than I already am.

Re: Apple’s Social Network

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of us spend our day fleecing Yet another poster berated me for considering it anything but rare... what gives? At any rate, fleecing, exploitation and deception of all kinds are externalizations of costs that will always bite the groups and individuals who do it in some form, and the ecosystems that choke on it. > here's nothing that says one has to be wearing their consumer hat when using hacker news. Is ther…

>Yet another poster berated me for consdiering it anything but rare... what gives? A matter of perspective on how you see the modern economy I guess. Fleecing generally means some kind of fraud or poor trade. When you used it to describe Apple just hypothetically moving in to a new market (without any fraud being mentioned) and then backed it up with a statement about how that's just the natural way of things, I took…

> When you used it to describe Apple just hypothetically moving in to a new market (without any fraud being mentioned) and then backed it up with a statement about how that's just the natural way of things

[..]

> So because I see just economic activity as a whole as one big fleecing, I consider fleecing to just be what we all do for our 9-5

Wait, clearly moving into a new market is economic activity, all economic activity is fleecing in your outlook, yet there is a problem with me being "critical" because there is no fraud being mentioned? Yet you say it's all fraud, so according to you it's clearly implied.

I mostly took it as implied greed, the inability to "leave money on the table". That's not what most people do, that's not what all economic activity is, if that were true, we wouldn't even have built the civilizations capitalism now gobbles up.

> I can't attain those thing by not playing the game.

Start with not referring to abstractions like "the game". People say "hate the game, not the players", but that's like saying "hate the group, not the individuals that form the group". It's your game, not "the" game.

I know for a fact, from my life and the people I read, that you're wrong. If what you said was universal there wouldn't be so many exceptions. It's just that the people who somehow started to chase external validation only hang out with people who do the same.

As for being a "big deal with access to pretty women" -- be attractive, or let pretty women be, period. The second they fuck anyone for any reason other than finding them genuinely hot, they cease to be pretty, and only the ghouls collecting them as trophy don't see that. There is no "problem" here that isn't better solved with a cold shower and people growing up.

> Awareness that you're playing a prisoner's dilemma game doesn't do anything to change the outcome if you can't organise with and trust the other players to agree to outcomes.

Maybe you personally can't. Maybe you should learn from those who are doing it, instead of making excuses and pretend "everybody can't do what I think I can't do".

> Me abstaining wont change the world

Look at the wall of text you just wrote to keep it as it is. Even not writing it would have been doing more.

> Of course it's extremely easy to say, the heck with it. I'm just going to adapt myself to the structures of power and authority and do the best I can within them. Sure, you can do that. But that's not acting like a decent person. You can walk down the street and be hungry. You see a kid eating an ice cream cone and you notice there's no cop around and you can take the ice cream cone from him because you're bigger and walk away. You can do that. Probably there are people who do. We call them "pathological". On the other hand, if they do it within existing social structures we call them "normal". But it's just as pathological. It's just the pathology of the general society.

-- Noam Chomsky

You can't have your rationalizations and also be a still in the company of people, intelligent or not, who never ever gave in, never gave up, never became accomplices. Can't serve two masters, made a bad choice, and if you can say "tough shit" in the context of exploitation and deception, I'll say "tough shit" in the context of that.

Re: Apple’s Social Network

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm speaking from Apple's perspective But why? It greatly puzzles me how many "consumers" now think in terms of "brands" and dream up and discuss strategies on behalf of them. Companies should concentrate on fleecing customers, and customers should concentrate on not getting fleeced.

> Companies should concentrate on fleecing customers This mentality is a problem. Companies have many valid motivations, and certainly profit is one, but long-term success is rarely predicated on gouging customers.

>long-term success is rarely predicated on gouging customers

Razor blades, Inkjet cartridges, sunglasses, broadband internet/telecom, most luxury goods, payday loans, the entire diamond industry

Re: Apple’s Social Network

#209
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha, I'm speaking from Apple's perspective thinking through how they could double in value. I don't think the current method of bills coming from everywhere with different payment requirements is all that great. If this new "middleman" provides value and protects me, then what's the problem? I wouldn't see direct integration with my apple device as a middleman but an endpoint. Furthermore, there are loads of whitelabe…

I think the single biggest thing they could do to get to $2T is build their own search engine, and ditch google completely. I think it's funny how some people (and Apple themselves) always say how Apple is so privacy conscious, while at the same time they made 9 Billion Dollars from Google by using Google as the default search engine in Safari (which most people don't change). So it seems they're willing to sell some…

Building a search engine to replace Google is too hard for even Apple to pull off. Maybe in the future there will be a different approach to solve the search problem and Apple could so sth about it. For now it is not possible.

Apple is not a small startup anymore, it can not even replicate DDG

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