alt Hacker NewsI feel like you're getting at something different here, but my conclusion is that maybe the problem is the approach of wanting to monetize each interaction.
Almost every company today wants their primary business model to be as a service provider selling you some monthly or yearly subscription when most consumers just want to buy something and have it work. That has always been Apple's model. Sure, they'll sell you services if need be, iCloud, AppleCare, or the various pieces of Apple One, but those all serve as complements to their devices. There's no big push to get Android users to sign up for Apple Music for example.
Apple isn't in the market of collecting your data and selling it. They aren't in the market of pushing you to pick brand X toilet paper over brand Y. They are in the market of selling you devices and so they build AI systems to make the devices they sell more attractive products. It isn't that Apple has some ideologically or technically better approach, they just have a business model that happens to align more with the typical consumers' wants and needs.
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I feel like this is 5 or so years out of date. The fact that they actually have an Apple Music app for Android is a pretty big push for them. Services is like 25% of their revenue these days, larger than anything except the iPhone.
Call me a naïve fanboy, but I believe that Apple is still one of the very few companies that has an ideologically better approach that results in technically better products.
Where everyone else sells you stuff to make money, they make money to create great stuff.
I know you're saying that Apple's business model is selling devices but it's not like they aren't a services juggernaut.
Where I think you are ultimately correct is that some companies seem to just assume that 100% of interactions can be monetized, and they really can't.
You need to deliver value that matches the money paid or the ad viewed.
I think Apple has generally been decent at recognizing the overall sustainability of certain business models. They've been around long enough to know that most loss-leading businesses never work out. If you can't make a profit from day one what's the point of being in business?
> I feel like you're getting at something different here, but my conclusion is that maybe the problem is the approach of wanting to monetize each interaction.
Personally, Google lost me as a search customer (after 25 years) when they opted me into AI search features without my permission.
Not only am I not interested in free tier AI services, but forcing them on me is a good way to lose me as a customer.
The nice thing about Apple Intelligence is that it has an easy to find off switch for customers who don't care for it.