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Comment by lanza | Hacker News Reader

> We've seen this story before and it hasn't ended well for the folks in Mark's position.

Meta doesn't need to dominate the market. Being the Android to Apple's iOS or the Windows to Apple's macOS is way more than fine for Meta's business. iPhone's did $250b in revenue in 2022. Meta as a whole did $117b.

They aren't looking to replace Apple, they are just trying to find a way to get their revenue growing again. It's a huge win in their eye's if Quest3 contributes reasonably well to bringing their 2023 revenue to about $130b.

If there was a genuine third company competing with Meta then that would be a problem for them. Valve and Pico are roughly 0% the size of Meta and Apple. They just won't have the resources to actually compete. Google has been rumored to be working on a headset. If that's the case and they didn't fire that entire org then that would be Meta's only real competition for second place.

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> They aren't looking to replace Apple, they are just trying to find a way to get their revenue growing again

This is such an odd sentiment.

Meta was first in this segment, they've spent billions and billions, harmed their reputation as a company on Wall Street, etc. etc.. Apple comes in after them, with, from what we can tell, a superior product. This rationalization that this was all part of Meta's master plan all along is a little ridiculous. They're going to lose and get the crumbs, just like Android device makers get 30% of the profit (70% of it goes to Apple) but hold 80% of market shares. This wasn't Meta's aspirations and is a blunder.

Most products aspire to be the Apple of their category. Ending up as successful as Android is definitely not a blunder...

You're looking at this too abstractly. Meta's revenue grew by 0.6% last year. And that's up from shrinking by 1.3% the year before. Their social media platforms have reached the peak and don't really have any more users to gain. They aren't looking for 300% revenue growth. They'd be blissfully happy to get back to 5% by establishing themselves as a serious hardware/software company.

> They aren't looking to replace Apple, they are just trying to find a way to get their revenue growing again.

Thats like "they arent trying to be the best, they are just trying to be a little better.

Ofc they are trying to beat apple, and everyone else. Or you are saing that if they were magically given the opportunity to become most valued company, theyd simply pass with "no thanks, thats more than we want" attitude?

Every major corporation is trying their absolute hardest to grow.

They're developing completely different products. Apple's product is a productivity enhancing tool, the main use case is a mobile desk so that you can use your computer anywhere in the world and the monitor setup is always exactly the way you want. Meta is going for the console market. The type of product kids get for christmas.

> Apple's product is a productivity enhancing tool, the main use case is a mobile desk so that you can use your computer anywhere in the world and the monitor setup is always exactly the way you want.

Apple's initial use cases are around work, entertainment, and meetings. It's ridiculous to think they won't expand this and compete in every use case once they get market shares and a developer eco-system. They are not different products. That's like saying a MacBook Pro and a HP laptop are different products. No, one is a high-end, more expensive, more coveted product, and the other isn't.

It's more like saying macbook pro and chromebook are different products, and they are.

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