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Definitely not altruistic. The Pixel phone was always a defensive position, not Google's profit center. From the position of Apple, the Google Pixel was alway

Definitely not altruistic. The Pixel phone was always a defensive position, not Google's profit center. From the position of Apple, the Google Pixel was always a poison in the profit pool so that the monopoly would be held in a different part of the value chain (the Search versus the Hardware). In this regard, Apple's loss is the consumers' gain. By making the Pixel really repairable and parts exchangeable, the Pixel can be shown as a shining beacon of right-to-repair. Techies will applaud how great it is, and have an object to contrast the iPhone with. However, if the iPhone is forced to go the same path via right-to-repair laws (or due to consumer sentiment), their profits will be a lot lower. People won't need to replace iPhones as much. They couldn't price discriminate using different size SSD drives as much, etc. And that's the whole game to Google -- again to reduce the hardware part of the profit chain, and to increase the search part of the profit chain. It's basic MBA stuff / Michael Porter's 5 Forces.

londons_explore 5y ago
> , not Google's profit center. Google of 2022 is run by more MBA's than ever... Everything is now a profit center. They don't do anything big 'just because it's cool/useful/good for society'.
- alphabetting 5y ago
  > They don't do anything big 'just because it's cool/useful/good for society' Their published AI research over past 10 years has been hugely beneficial to the field and society. While true they probably wouldn't be spending so much on this R&D (100B last 5 years, 31B last year) if they didn't expect a future profit, it's hard to deny the value of the research.
- aix1 5y ago
  That's just not true. I work in Google Research, and there's tons of stuff that's not driven by profit. https://research.google/ https://research.google/
abirch 5y ago
What % of Apple's revenue is on phone repair? How less frequent would people upgrade their phones? This is about Steve Job's obsessive need to control everything and no-one at Apple wants to challenge a dead prophet.
robocat 5y ago
> right-to-repair laws [snip] their profits will be a lot lower. People won't need to replace iPhones as much. I suspect Apple could tweak other factors to adjust e.g. software lifetime more like Google, or changing styles more frequently. Also it really depends on the cost of parts — especially the screen: if a screen is truely expensive then consumers will prefer to upgrade than fix. I have usually had to replace my Android phones due to breaking the screen (also USB connectors - fucking unreliable things).

londons_explore 5y ago

> , not Google's profit center. Google of 2022 is run by more MBA's than ever... Everything is now a profit center. They don't do anything big 'just because it's cool/useful/good for society'.

alphabetting 5y ago
> They don't do anything big 'just because it's cool/useful/good for society' Their published AI research over past 10 years has been hugely beneficial to the field and society. While true they probably wouldn't be spending so much on this R&D (100B last 5 years, 31B last year) if they didn't expect a future profit, it's hard to deny the value of the research.
aix1 5y ago
That's just not true. I work in Google Research, and there's tons of stuff that's not driven by profit. https://research.google/ https://research.google/

abirch 5y ago

What % of Apple's revenue is on phone repair? How less frequent would people upgrade their phones? This is about Steve Job's obsessive need to control everything and no-one at Apple wants to challenge a dead prophet.

robocat 5y ago

> right-to-repair laws [snip] their profits will be a lot lower. People won't need to replace iPhones as much. I suspect Apple could tweak other factors to adjust e.g. software lifetime more like Google, or changing styles more frequently. Also it really depends on the cost of parts — especially the screen: if a screen is truely expensive then consumers will prefer to upgrade than fix. I have usually had to replace my Android phones due to breaking the screen (also USB connectors - fucking unreliable things).