6 ms·

The HN commentary on this article is amusing to me. Every story about a big tech company on this forum is a lecture on our degenerate age of failed antitrust la

The HN commentary on this article is amusing to me. Every story about a big tech company on this forum is a lecture on our degenerate age of failed antitrust law, but when it comes to Apple we're treated to a litany of "so what?". Honestly, I don't mind Apple's acquisitions (though I do wish I was living in a world where I could buy an M1 the same way I can buy an i7), but I just felt compelled to drop this little nugget of off-topic meta-commentary. Carry on.

ralfd 6y ago
Because of this: > Measured by value, Apple’s acquisitions are actually far more restrained than those of many of its tech rivals. Microsoft paid $26bn for LinkedIn, Amazon paid $13.7bn for Whole Foods and Facebook paid $19bn for WhatsApp. Apple’s ten largest purchases put together would still be worth far less than any of those deals. Actually I wouldn't be surprised if ALL of Apples acquisitions were less than $13 bn.
- root_axis 6y ago
  I don't see why the price Apple paid matters at all. What Apple does with the acquisitions I think is far more relevant. LinkedIn, Whole Foods, and WhatsApp have continued to thrive after acquisition, all of Apple's acquisitions are gutted and scavenged for parts to incorporate into their locked-down walled garden. Don't get me wrong, it's a great business strategy and the reason that Apple products are typically superior to the competition, but it's far more hostile and anti-competitive compared to the cited examples.
  - PierceJoy 6y ago
    Is this a distinction without a difference? LinkedIn's tech is wholly owned and funded by Microsoft. If you are competing with LinkedIn, you are competing with Microsoft regardless of the name on the website. Since more diverse competition is the goal, I don't believe these situations are actually different.
    - root_axis 6y ago
      The distinction is that the other examples listed continue to exist in their original form with their original vision and use-case intact, without disrupting the user experience by being shutdown and reconstituted as part of an Apple exclusive product or service.
      - PierceJoy 6y ago
        That's a fair point, but I think you've cherry picked a few very notable examples and made an apples to oranges comparison. The other tech companies acquire hundreds of small companies and shut them down. Google is notorious for this. The examples you used were big companies with massive user bases before the acquisition. I suspect Apple's most notable acquisition to date is Beats, and it continues to operate under it's own brand today.
        root_axis 6y ago
        I didn't cherry-pick anything, those were the examples listed in the article and quoted to me in response to my original comment. As I already stated, I don't have a problem with acquisitions, I am aware that Apple isn't the only company that does this, I'm just pointing out the contrast in tone and rhetoric when it comes to Apple vs pretty much every other big tech company on this website.
        PierceJoy 6y ago
        No offence, but this latest comment doesn't fit with the original comment I replied to. You were clearly commenting on what Apple does with their acquisitions, not the tone of the response, and that is what I was replying to. You said "What Apple does with the acquisitions I think is far more relevant" and then went on to detail how you thought they handled their acquisitions differently. That said, I don't agree that the tone is different for Apple vs any other company. I would have agreed years ago, but it's not longer my observation today.
        6y ago
  - cmdli 6y ago
    It's not the price that necessarily matters but the market share, which is often represented in the price. A company like Facebook (a large social media corporation) buying WhatsApp (a large messaging app) creates an even bigger company in terms of influence on the market. Apple might be buying companies for their tech, but their acquisitions don't just automatically increase their influence or market share through consolidation. For example, I would be a lot less worried about Exxon buying small petroleum tech startups that don't own any oil fields than I would be about Exxon buying Shell, a major competitor in terms of market share.
    - mikepurvis 6y ago
      You're getting downvoted, but I agree. I think Apple buys much earlier on in the process, like when it tried to buy Audion and then eventually grabbed SoundJam [1] as part of creating the original iTunes. A more typical brand-preserved acquisition for Apple might have been when it bought Siri (originally an app) or if it had succeeded in buying Dropbox (which probably also would have retained the name). [1]: https://panic.com/extras/audionstory/ https://panic.com/extras/audionstory/
    - root_axis 6y ago
      It's a smart business strategy to buy smaller companies with great potential, it probably has something to do with why Apple is the richest company on earth, but that strategy also snuffs out that potential company before it has a chance to reach the prodigious scale of a WhatsApp or a LinkedIn. Presumably, Apple knows how to pick winners, so it's likely that at least a small fraction of Apple's acquisitions would have gone on to become ubiquitous house-hold names had they not been sold. Alas, it was fated not to be, but who knows what could have been?
      - spideymans 6y ago
        > Presumably, Apple knows how to pick winners, so it's likely that at least a small fraction of Apple's acquisitions would have gone on to become ubiquitous house-hold names had they not been sold. Not necessarily. If you’re only interested in acquiring technology, the commercial success of prospective acquisitions isn’t particularly relevant.
  - coldtea 6y ago
    >I don't see why the price Apple paid matters at all. Because it's a signal of how strong the acquisitions are. Tech/talent acquisitions, like these, are far more benign than buying and killing strong rising competitors in your domain and consolidating power (e.g. Facebook and Instagram). >all of Apple's acquisitions are gutted and scavenged for parts to incorporate into their locked-down walled garden That's because they usually amounted to nothing end-user wise to begin with. They where just smaller specific technologies that, e.g. went to be incorporated into the OS or similar...
  - cafed00d 6y ago
    Having worked at Amazon’s retail division and at Apple probably gives me some credibility to share a different perspective. Perhaps? :) Companies that acquire smaller companies and let them run independently typically create a schism in the culture — a division of haves/have-nots and run the risk of overspending without justified returns (Twitch for example retains typically Silicon Valley perks but doesn’t generate as much revenue as Retail site does). Apple acquisitions on the other hand are solely about technology & integration. I can only think of Beats being their only acquisition that has some independence still. I don’t know what’s going on there though. But I work with a dozen or so teams that were all Apple acquisitions and their entire charter is build for Apple and shut everything else down. Makes it much simpler to organize people/teams and makes purpose of teams super clear from a product perspective. Amazon, Microsoft and others’ acquisitions make it seem very much like a conglomerate of sorts. I guess that has benefits too — typically not in core technologies though. Perhaps I just disagree that is hostile or anti-competitive from that perspective. It seem like FB’s acquisition of WhatsApp (and similar moves by others) is more characteristic of anti-competitive behavior (ie capturing potential competitors early etc)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
jackconsidine 6y ago
Well said. The HN crowd- normally critical and hyper-rational- is incredibly loyal to Apple, interestingly.
- okwubodu 6y ago
  I’ve noticed even I unconsciously look for more opportunities to give Apple leeway. Maybe developers do the same after being so entrenched in the ecosystem.
- PierceJoy 6y ago
  Maybe years ago, but I feel like this is the opposite of reality today. I've seen far more hypocritical criticism of Apple on HN than baseless support for a number of years now.
dang 6y ago
This sort of perception about community bias comes up with every $BigCo. Then the comments complaining about it get highly upvoted, undermining the supposed observation. I think it has more to do with how our emotions subtly influence how we weight what we read. We're more likely to notice the cases we dislike/disagree with and let the ones we like/agree with glide by without affecting our impression of the community. Because of this, negative impressions and overgeneralization are much more common than the data really support. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20notice%20dislike&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
- root_axis 6y ago
  Fair enough, and the search results are both illuminating and humbling, but I'll also offer that perceptions of community bias aren't necessarily wrong even though they aren't an absolute fact.
  - pvg 6y ago
    perceptions that aren't fact are much more likely to be actual bias rather than 'not necessarily wrong'
- throwaways885 6y ago
  Part of the concern is Apple spends a ton of money marketing themselves as "pro-privacy and pro-consumer, more than those "other" $BigCo's". I've seen people say they're immune to advertising and then beat the Apple drum many times.
  - kergonath 6y ago
    I am so tired of this “marketing” angle, as if anyone having different priorities must be an idiot manipulated by the communication department of a large evil company. It’s been a trope since the 1990s. Also, nobody is immune to advertising, so you can take these comments as seriously as the “sheeple” ones.
  - 6y ago

ralfd 6y ago

Because of this: > Measured by value, Apple’s acquisitions are actually far more restrained than those of many of its tech rivals. Microsoft paid $26bn for LinkedIn, Amazon paid $13.7bn for Whole Foods and Facebook paid $19bn for WhatsApp. Apple’s ten largest purchases put together would still be worth far less than any of those deals. Actually I wouldn't be surprised if ALL of Apples acquisitions were less than $13 bn.

root_axis 6y ago
I don't see why the price Apple paid matters at all. What Apple does with the acquisitions I think is far more relevant. LinkedIn, Whole Foods, and WhatsApp have continued to thrive after acquisition, all of Apple's acquisitions are gutted and scavenged for parts to incorporate into their locked-down walled garden. Don't get me wrong, it's a great business strategy and the reason that Apple products are typically superior to the competition, but it's far more hostile and anti-competitive compared to the cited examples.
- PierceJoy 6y ago
  Is this a distinction without a difference? LinkedIn's tech is wholly owned and funded by Microsoft. If you are competing with LinkedIn, you are competing with Microsoft regardless of the name on the website. Since more diverse competition is the goal, I don't believe these situations are actually different.
  - root_axis 6y ago
    The distinction is that the other examples listed continue to exist in their original form with their original vision and use-case intact, without disrupting the user experience by being shutdown and reconstituted as part of an Apple exclusive product or service.
    - PierceJoy 6y ago
      That's a fair point, but I think you've cherry picked a few very notable examples and made an apples to oranges comparison. The other tech companies acquire hundreds of small companies and shut them down. Google is notorious for this. The examples you used were big companies with massive user bases before the acquisition. I suspect Apple's most notable acquisition to date is Beats, and it continues to operate under it's own brand today.
      - root_axis 6y ago
        I didn't cherry-pick anything, those were the examples listed in the article and quoted to me in response to my original comment. As I already stated, I don't have a problem with acquisitions, I am aware that Apple isn't the only company that does this, I'm just pointing out the contrast in tone and rhetoric when it comes to Apple vs pretty much every other big tech company on this website.
        PierceJoy 6y ago
        No offence, but this latest comment doesn't fit with the original comment I replied to. You were clearly commenting on what Apple does with their acquisitions, not the tone of the response, and that is what I was replying to. You said "What Apple does with the acquisitions I think is far more relevant" and then went on to detail how you thought they handled their acquisitions differently. That said, I don't agree that the tone is different for Apple vs any other company. I would have agreed years ago, but it's not longer my observation today.
        6y ago
- cmdli 6y ago
  It's not the price that necessarily matters but the market share, which is often represented in the price. A company like Facebook (a large social media corporation) buying WhatsApp (a large messaging app) creates an even bigger company in terms of influence on the market. Apple might be buying companies for their tech, but their acquisitions don't just automatically increase their influence or market share through consolidation. For example, I would be a lot less worried about Exxon buying small petroleum tech startups that don't own any oil fields than I would be about Exxon buying Shell, a major competitor in terms of market share.
  - mikepurvis 6y ago
    You're getting downvoted, but I agree. I think Apple buys much earlier on in the process, like when it tried to buy Audion and then eventually grabbed SoundJam [1] as part of creating the original iTunes. A more typical brand-preserved acquisition for Apple might have been when it bought Siri (originally an app) or if it had succeeded in buying Dropbox (which probably also would have retained the name). [1]: https://panic.com/extras/audionstory/ https://panic.com/extras/audionstory/
  - root_axis 6y ago
    It's a smart business strategy to buy smaller companies with great potential, it probably has something to do with why Apple is the richest company on earth, but that strategy also snuffs out that potential company before it has a chance to reach the prodigious scale of a WhatsApp or a LinkedIn. Presumably, Apple knows how to pick winners, so it's likely that at least a small fraction of Apple's acquisitions would have gone on to become ubiquitous house-hold names had they not been sold. Alas, it was fated not to be, but who knows what could have been?
    - spideymans 6y ago
      > Presumably, Apple knows how to pick winners, so it's likely that at least a small fraction of Apple's acquisitions would have gone on to become ubiquitous house-hold names had they not been sold. Not necessarily. If you’re only interested in acquiring technology, the commercial success of prospective acquisitions isn’t particularly relevant.
- coldtea 6y ago
  >I don't see why the price Apple paid matters at all. Because it's a signal of how strong the acquisitions are. Tech/talent acquisitions, like these, are far more benign than buying and killing strong rising competitors in your domain and consolidating power (e.g. Facebook and Instagram). >all of Apple's acquisitions are gutted and scavenged for parts to incorporate into their locked-down walled garden That's because they usually amounted to nothing end-user wise to begin with. They where just smaller specific technologies that, e.g. went to be incorporated into the OS or similar...
- cafed00d 6y ago
  Having worked at Amazon’s retail division and at Apple probably gives me some credibility to share a different perspective. Perhaps? :) Companies that acquire smaller companies and let them run independently typically create a schism in the culture — a division of haves/have-nots and run the risk of overspending without justified returns (Twitch for example retains typically Silicon Valley perks but doesn’t generate as much revenue as Retail site does). Apple acquisitions on the other hand are solely about technology & integration. I can only think of Beats being their only acquisition that has some independence still. I don’t know what’s going on there though. But I work with a dozen or so teams that were all Apple acquisitions and their entire charter is build for Apple and shut everything else down. Makes it much simpler to organize people/teams and makes purpose of teams super clear from a product perspective. Amazon, Microsoft and others’ acquisitions make it seem very much like a conglomerate of sorts. I guess that has benefits too — typically not in core technologies though. Perhaps I just disagree that is hostile or anti-competitive from that perspective. It seem like FB’s acquisition of WhatsApp (and similar moves by others) is more characteristic of anti-competitive behavior (ie capturing potential competitors early etc)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

jackconsidine 6y ago

Well said. The HN crowd- normally critical and hyper-rational- is incredibly loyal to Apple, interestingly.

okwubodu 6y ago
I’ve noticed even I unconsciously look for more opportunities to give Apple leeway. Maybe developers do the same after being so entrenched in the ecosystem.
PierceJoy 6y ago
Maybe years ago, but I feel like this is the opposite of reality today. I've seen far more hypocritical criticism of Apple on HN than baseless support for a number of years now.

dang 6y ago

This sort of perception about community bias comes up with every $BigCo. Then the comments complaining about it get highly upvoted, undermining the supposed observation. I think it has more to do with how our emotions subtly influence how we weight what we read. We're more likely to notice the cases we dislike/disagree with and let the ones we like/agree with glide by without affecting our impression of the community. Because of this, negative impressions and overgeneralization are much more common than the data really support. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20notice%20dislike&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

root_axis 6y ago
Fair enough, and the search results are both illuminating and humbling, but I'll also offer that perceptions of community bias aren't necessarily wrong even though they aren't an absolute fact.
- pvg 6y ago
  perceptions that aren't fact are much more likely to be actual bias rather than 'not necessarily wrong'
throwaways885 6y ago
Part of the concern is Apple spends a ton of money marketing themselves as "pro-privacy and pro-consumer, more than those "other" $BigCo's". I've seen people say they're immune to advertising and then beat the Apple drum many times.
- kergonath 6y ago
  I am so tired of this “marketing” angle, as if anyone having different priorities must be an idiot manipulated by the communication department of a large evil company. It’s been a trope since the 1990s. Also, nobody is immune to advertising, so you can take these comments as seriously as the “sheeple” ones.
- 6y ago