Put another way: Google's users are the product. Apple's users are the customer.
This whole "you're the product" thing gets repeated over and over again with no thought or analysis. Being the product instead of the customer has plusses and minuses. Have you worked with a recruiter? You're definitely the product there: they're selling you to employers, who are their customers. I've dealt with recruiters both as the product (prospective employee) and the customer (employer). In general, I prefer to be the product, though neither is entirely comfortable.
By far the more important dynamic is are you a valuable product/customer. That's what gets you treated well. The answer to that for any mass-market company is "no."
But there is a huge difference between recruiting for a factory employing 100'000 people (or in Googles case billions) or recruiting a more important person. I guess you were the latter.
Nonetheless, it changes nothing. Google needs good services so that is has products to sell (i.e. users). Apple skips a step by creating things for which their customer is the user. It's a subtle difference, but it's worth discussing.
Wow, that's a strong statement. If anything, your inital comment reeks of thoughtless-soundbite-repetition - I also find that statement meaningless and annoying in most contexts. What is it supposed to prove? That Google cares less about its users than it cares about advertisers? Obviously a company needs to take care of its products, or it'll lose the customers too. In fact, most companies invest more in their products than they "invest" in their customers - arguably, as soon as they get a monopoly (or lock you into their ecosystem) they stop caring about you as a customer, at all - and start thinking how to extract more value from you (as opposed to "provide more value to you")
> It's a subtle difference, but it's worth discussing.
Well, discuss it, don't just state it as if it means something obvious.
Another point - Apple has 100s of millions of customers, whereas Google has billions. Google literally has a 10x scaling problem, and correspondingly a far lower revenue per customer (or product as you like).
I love Google services, but I interact with them knowing I'm one of billions.
In any event there's no way that Google can provide the level of support that any company who's revenue is directly tied to the products that are purchased.
And it's obvious support is extremely expensive because companies that spend a lot on it give great support (like Apple) and companies that spend a little give very little or very limited support (like Google).
Well, yeah, if there was any thought or analysis, people would say “supplier” not “product”.
Even still, apple is still collecting data on you. If their business ever suffers, they can still sell your data. Apple still owns your data even if they aren't currently selling it.
Apple uses their data to make better product to sell to you. They don't sell their data to advertisers because they don't need to.
What is going to happen if iphones, ipads, etc don't sell as well?
Given their track record on privacy, particularly using it as a selling point, they'd be poisoning the well pretty badly if they did this. It's more likely they'd burn through their cash before even thinking of selling user data.
I can't see it happening on Tim Cook's watch or any of the existing executive team, but maybe an external hire.
The data that Maps collects while you use the app — like search terms, navigation routing, and traffic information — is associated with random identifiers so it can’t be tied to your Apple ID.
Or Apple Pay:
When you use Apple Pay we don’t track what you’re buying, so we can’t build a purchase history to serve you ads.
Or Siri:
If you give your explicit consent, Apple can improve Siri and other intelligent features by analyzing how you use iCloud and the data from your account. Analysis happens only after the data has gone through privacy-enhancing techniques so that it cannot be associated with you or your account
Note the word "can't" that appears over and over. Yes Apple necessarily records some data, e.g. for streaming services. But broadly speaking, Apple couldn't sell the data to advertisers even if they chose to, because they don't have the data.