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It's rent seeking. It's what turns a $1000 phone into a $1500-2000 phone over the lifetime of a device (2.5 years)

by ProAm 4y ago

dymk 4y ago
"Rent seeking" is a weird euphemism for "provides a service that costs money to run" Here I am, enjoying my 4 year old iPhone, happily paying Apple $3/month for iCloud storage.
- ProAm 4y ago
  Do somethings provide value? Yes? If I want to write an app for my own phone (and provide it to no one else) I need to pay them $100 a year. That turns my $1000 phone into a $1100 phone the first year, 10% increase. Is it providing me value? Services are rent seeking because its MRR and ARR, some worth it, some definitely not (an SD card slot would crush and kill iCloud)
  - dymk 4y ago
    You haven't needed to pay Apple to write your own apps and load them on your device for years now. Since iOS 9. You have to pay them if you want to put it on their app store. iCloud increasing the effective storage of the phone is about 10% of the value prop. Your point is like "dropbox is just rsync + a VPS".
    - ProAm 4y ago
      I dont believe you get access to all features and functionality if you do not pay for the developer subscription (maybe it has changed?) but things like push notifications, third party libraries....? Regardless their services strategy is rent seeking for one of the most profitable companies on the planet. (ex: making 5+ billion selling charger bricks after not including them when you buy a phone)
      - dymk 4y ago
        Here's the capabilities list of what you can do with a free account: https://help.apple.com/developer-account/#/dev21218dfd6 https://help.apple.com/developer-account/#/dev21218dfd6 No push notifications (this is unsurprising, Apple runs the push notification servers, and those cost money). I don't see anything about linking against third party libraries. --- More to the point, you keep using this term "rent seeking" to describe Apple selling optional services. Nobody is forcing an iPhone owner to pay Apple for services. Rent seeking implies once you have the thing, you have to pay rent on it. That's just not true for iPhones.
        ProAm 4y ago
        Oh its definitely rent seeking. They are trying to eek out more money from customers without adding additional value. Headphone jacks, no SD card for storage, no charger blocks, no ability to add music to your device without a windows or Mac computer, etc.... We can go on and on and won't agree so we do not need to continue to discuss this. No they are not forcing you, but they are absolutely rent seeking. (everyone is these days).
- paulmd 4y ago
  You could also get 256gb of storage from a $30 high-endurance samsung microsd card and not pay a recurring monthly expense. It's not just an apple thing, but the hardware from most manufacturers is clearly being designed to exclude that possibility in favor of pushing you to high-priced internal storage and cloud services with recurring billing.
  - dymk 4y ago
    Do you understand what the difference is between an SD card and cloud backup/sync?
    - paulmd 4y ago
      - dymk 4y ago
        Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. Don't cite the deep magic to me. Calling my comment "flaimbait" for asking if you understand the differences offered between an SD card an cloud storage is an extremely poor interpretation of my comment. Please refer to the HN guidelines. Cloud storage and a $30 SD card are in basically no way fungible. It's just not what fungible means. Calling an SD card fungible with cloud storage is more incorrect than calling Dropbox fungible with "rsync + VPS".
        paulmd 4y ago
        @dang
      - techpression 4y ago
        Everything you compare with is the complete opposite to what Apple is selling and what their customers want (I base this on their success selling what they’re selling). Apple is in the ecosystem business and their services are supposed to unify it. I’m a techy enough person in this context, using Arq for backups to Backblaze B2 for my photography stuff, I wouldn’t ever want to bother with that for the things I have on iCloud though, I just want that seamless and integrated. Paying for Apple One is probably the best deal of all my services, based on how much I use it and the value I get.

It's rent seeking. It's what turns a $1000 phone into a $1500-2000 phone over the lifetime of a device (2.5 years)

by ProAm 4y ago

It's rent seeking. It's what turns a $1000 phone into a $1500-2000 phone over the lifetime of a device (2.5 years)

dymk 4y ago

"Rent seeking" is a weird euphemism for "provides a service that costs money to run" Here I am, enjoying my 4 year old iPhone, happily paying Apple $3/month for iCloud storage.

ProAm 4y ago
Do somethings provide value? Yes? If I want to write an app for my own phone (and provide it to no one else) I need to pay them $100 a year. That turns my $1000 phone into a $1100 phone the first year, 10% increase. Is it providing me value? Services are rent seeking because its MRR and ARR, some worth it, some definitely not (an SD card slot would crush and kill iCloud)
- dymk 4y ago
  You haven't needed to pay Apple to write your own apps and load them on your device for years now. Since iOS 9. You have to pay them if you want to put it on their app store. iCloud increasing the effective storage of the phone is about 10% of the value prop. Your point is like "dropbox is just rsync + a VPS".
  - ProAm 4y ago
    I dont believe you get access to all features and functionality if you do not pay for the developer subscription (maybe it has changed?) but things like push notifications, third party libraries....? Regardless their services strategy is rent seeking for one of the most profitable companies on the planet. (ex: making 5+ billion selling charger bricks after not including them when you buy a phone)
    - dymk 4y ago
      Here's the capabilities list of what you can do with a free account: https://help.apple.com/developer-account/#/dev21218dfd6 https://help.apple.com/developer-account/#/dev21218dfd6 No push notifications (this is unsurprising, Apple runs the push notification servers, and those cost money). I don't see anything about linking against third party libraries. --- More to the point, you keep using this term "rent seeking" to describe Apple selling optional services. Nobody is forcing an iPhone owner to pay Apple for services. Rent seeking implies once you have the thing, you have to pay rent on it. That's just not true for iPhones.
      - ProAm 4y ago
        Oh its definitely rent seeking. They are trying to eek out more money from customers without adding additional value. Headphone jacks, no SD card for storage, no charger blocks, no ability to add music to your device without a windows or Mac computer, etc.... We can go on and on and won't agree so we do not need to continue to discuss this. No they are not forcing you, but they are absolutely rent seeking. (everyone is these days).
paulmd 4y ago
You could also get 256gb of storage from a $30 high-endurance samsung microsd card and not pay a recurring monthly expense. It's not just an apple thing, but the hardware from most manufacturers is clearly being designed to exclude that possibility in favor of pushing you to high-priced internal storage and cloud services with recurring billing.
- dymk 4y ago
  Do you understand what the difference is between an SD card and cloud backup/sync?
  - paulmd 4y ago
    - dymk 4y ago
      Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. Don't cite the deep magic to me. Calling my comment "flaimbait" for asking if you understand the differences offered between an SD card an cloud storage is an extremely poor interpretation of my comment. Please refer to the HN guidelines. Cloud storage and a $30 SD card are in basically no way fungible. It's just not what fungible means. Calling an SD card fungible with cloud storage is more incorrect than calling Dropbox fungible with "rsync + VPS".
      - paulmd 4y ago
        @dang
    - techpression 4y ago
      Everything you compare with is the complete opposite to what Apple is selling and what their customers want (I base this on their success selling what they’re selling). Apple is in the ecosystem business and their services are supposed to unify it. I’m a techy enough person in this context, using Arq for backups to Backblaze B2 for my photography stuff, I wouldn’t ever want to bother with that for the things I have on iCloud though, I just want that seamless and integrated. Paying for Apple One is probably the best deal of all my services, based on how much I use it and the value I get.