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Comment by vacri | Hacker News Reader

> Between Apple and Google, you think APPLE'S business model is the harmful one?!

Google provides services to everyone in the world. Apple provides services to the social elite, and only them. A person of moderate means living in Ghana? Apple doesn't care about you; you may as well be invisible.

> I'm actually not sure I can even name a tech company with a business model as simple and honest as Apple's.

Because sending in the swat team when you think a journalist has a preview model of your doohickey is "simple" and "honest"? Apple does the same sort of shady stuff as any other BigCorp, they're just better at making things look fashionable, so people tend to give them a pass on it. After all, this is the same corp that patented the black oblong with rounded corners. There is nothing 'simple' about Apple's business model.

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Is Apple obliged to sell a product that a Ghanaian of moderate income is able to buy? I don't think they are, if you extend that argument to other products categories you end up criticizing BMW / Audi / Mercedes for producing cars that are out of the reach of others, when other cars are available at lower costs.

I think the best evidence of Apple having an honest business model was the FBI V Apple encryption case. Have you seen any cases where Google has done this? I haven't. Either Android is not as secure and the FBI can get into any Android phone they want or Google has complied with a similar order...

On top of that, premium brands are the opposite of harmful. They push non-premium brands to iterate. The features that were in BMW/Audi/Mercedes in 90s are now in affordable cars. If nobody made premium cars back then, most that technology would have never made it to market. Same about Apple and cheap laptops. Cheap laptops nowadays are times better than what was available a decade ago. If there were no Macbooks to look up to, why abandon flimsy plastic laptops?

I didn't say Apple was obliged. I said Apple didn't care about that user.

> Have you seen any cases where Google has done this?

I haven't seen any case where Google has sent in the police to raid someone's house and confiscate their stuff. I haven't seen any case where Google has manipulated the legal system to claim rights over "black oblong with curved corners". Google doesn't have a history of taking things other people have done and then claiming that they were first to market. I haven't heard people complaining of Google designing planned obsolescence to drive future sales. I haven't heard of a case where Google designed their antenna incorrectly, and then blamed the users for "holding it wrong".

Apple is a very successful company and has broken a lot of ground, but calling them "honest" is horseshit. Don't mistake "a greater focus on user privacy" for "an honest business model". They're orthogonal things.

Honest in the sense that they are upfront about how they make the majority of their money - through phone/computer sales, and not through the sale of your personal data to 3rd parties, or targeting adverts at you.

Having a greater focus on user privacy adds to their honesty in this regard in my opinion, as they are protecting our personal data and not selling it, and even defending access to it.

When has google misled about how it makes its money? It's been pretty upfront about the tradeoffs and how googlestuff is paid for.

This kind of argument has been going on for well over a decade at this point - to suggest that google isn't honest and open about its business model at this point is simply choosing to be willfully ignorant.

I've given you plenty of well-known examples of Apple behaving badly. This isn't to say "Apple is the Devil", but that they're not this shining knight that some people paint them as. They behave dishonestly when it suits them as well.

Here's another example: tax evasion. Apple is the doyen of tax evasion. Is it legal? Yes, but stretched to the limit. Is it honest? Nope; it requires fiscal shennanigans, and they're not afraid to throw their weight around to keep things cosy for themselves. If they truly were honest, they'd pay their taxes, like the general public expects of good citizens.

I do not agree that google are upfront with the users of their services that they collect their data and use it to target ads at them.

How many regular consumers are aware that their android phone tracks their location and stores this data on googles servers nearly continuously? And that every single google assistant query is recorded and saved on googles servers? And that all this data is used to target ads and refine google services?

I don't disagree that Apple has unpalatable aspects to their business, as do all business of that size, but in my opinion they are more honest and upfront about how they make their money when they are compared to Google.

> Google provides services to everyone in the world. Apple provides services to the social elite, and only them. A person of moderate means living in Ghana? Apple doesn't care about you; you may as well be invisible.

If Google wasn't dumping prices, there would be a local cheaper alternative. Now it's impossible to compete with them. Ad-supported will always be cheaper than pro-privacy and there is no enough people to pay little premium to have cheap-but-pro-privacy device/service. The only way to stay afloat is to sell with hefty premium like Apple does. But then it's not really affordable to poor people.

Apple doesn't care about "elite". They charge price they see fair and provide their services to anyone who can pay that price.

> If Google wasn't dumping prices, there would be a local cheaper alternative

Apple's not dumping prices. Where is Ghana's local cheaper alternative to Apple?

> The only way to stay afloat is to sell with hefty premium like Apple does

There are plenty of other companies that are surviving without the hefty premium Apple charges. Apple managed to reach $200B in liquid cash assets; clearly their path is not "the only way".

> Apple doesn't care about "elite". They charge price they see fair and provide their services to anyone who can pay that price.

... how do you think elitism works?

s/Apple/High-priced lawyers/, to see how empty that argument is against elitism.

> Apple's not dumping prices. Where is Ghana's local cheaper alternative to Apple?

Google is the cheaper alternative.

> There are plenty of other companies that are surviving without the hefty premium Apple charges. Apple managed to reach $200B in liquid cash assets; clearly their path is not "the only way".

Of course Apple could go a wee lower. But they won't be able to compete with $50 Android anyway. Very few people will pay even little extra for Apple's privacy-oriented devices if they didn't have premium style&hardware. Once they produce that style&hardware, they get to today's price. $50 or even $100 won't change much in terms of reachability.

> ... how do you think elitism works?

And how do you think elitism works? Elitism is working with select clientele based on some subjective criteria.

High-priced lawyer who charges premium is not elitist. Lawyer who works only for celebrities is elitist.

> Google is the cheaper alternative.

Google and Apple charge the same amount for maps, music, apps, mail, and operating systems. Google isn't seriously in the hardware game - it had a couple of smartphone handsets, but mostly left it to other manufacturers. Google does not make miniservers, desktops, general-purpose laptops, all-in-ones and so forth. Other companies do, and google does not set their prices. Google does not dictate that a smartphone must sell for $X.

So no, Google is not the "cheaper alternative". Their software sells for the same price, and for the most part other companies sell the hardware.

So, where is Ghana's local cheaper alternative to Apple? Come on, you started this free-market claptrap that every locale has the ability to make a Silicon-Valley-quality giant, so where is Ghana's?

> Very few people will pay even little extra for Apple's privacy-oriented devices

This whole 'privacy' angle is a very recent development in Apple's history. It wasn't much of a notable issue before.

Huh? We were talking phones. Modern phone is a bundle of hardware and software. Apple charges very specific fee for their bundle. Google is pouring a shit ton of resources into their bundle as well, which they basically re-sell as franchise to hardware makers.

I could start listing all the super cheap Android phones as Apple competitors. But that'd be very simplified story, because they'd be nothing without Google's software and promotion. And if Google charged for the software as well Android brand, those phones wouldn't be as cheap. Now end users pay that fee with their eyeballs.

I never said that every locale has ability to make a quality giant or whatever. I said that Google dumping prices make someone else hard to enter. Especially at the cheap end of the market.

Apple's 'privacy' angle was very clear for at least a decade. They didn't pay as much lip service to it, but they products are clearly very different from Google. And been that way for a looooooong time.

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