> As a result Apple missed out on the user-generated content wave, which was owned by YouTube and then TikTok. Apple already had some of the basic infrastructur

> As a result Apple missed out on the user-generated content wave, which was owned by YouTube and then TikTok. Apple already had some of the basic infrastructure in place with podcasting, but a middle aged outlook meant it missed the (mildly but interestingly) anarchic possibilities. Apple has stores for music, for books, for video and also nice recently includes subscriptions for periodicals, news and podcasts. Go ahead and add "apps" to that if you like, although people tend to not think of software as "generated content". Apple doesn't really have it in their DNA to be a social network and provide free hosting in exchange for monetizing people's content with ads. Podcasts existed before Tim Cook; Apple jumped on the chance to promote it but always considered it more a way to people get further use out of their Apple hardware. This has changed recently with the focus on services, which means Apple is competing for people's attention and free time. Making it easy for people to pay for premium content (and providing Apple's own premium content through subscription costs) is pretty much a necessity. However, they are still continents away from say the algorithm-driven video maelstrom of TikTok. And even if they made hosting user content easier at the same tier as professional content, I would suspect they would sooner do revenue sharing of a monthly subscription than they would leverage advertising for monetization.