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> They want people to buy expensive devices and they don't want to process user data on their servers. > Users get privacy. Apple gets money. Apple also gets

by flutas 4y ago

> They want people to buy expensive devices and they don't want to process user data on their servers. > Users get privacy. Apple gets money. Apple also gets users to subsidize the cost of compute indefinitely (by buying the expensive phone), rather than using their servers.

blululu 4y ago
It’s not a subsidy. It’s a pricing structure for a commercial transaction. Fundamentally a business can not just give out free compute. In the long run the user of computation needs to pay for it. It’s a question of whether people feel more satisfied paying for it in a lump sum bundled with a device or through a subscription plan on the cloud. For frequently, on demand, low latency applications I would suspect that people will always be happier running the computations locally.
saagarjha 4y ago
Apple also runs an OS on that device, so they can't just offload infinite computation for it: it would use too much battery.
GeekyBear 4y ago
> Apple also gets users to subsidize the cost of compute indefinitely (by buying the expensive phone), rather than using their servers. Subsidizing the smart speaker hardware and running everything on their servers hasn't worked out well for Alexa and Google Assistant. > The Alexa division is part of the "Worldwide Digital" group along with Amazon Prime video, and Business Insider says that division lost $3 billion in just the first quarter of 2022, with "the vast majority" of the losses blamed on Alexa. That is apparently double the losses of any other division, and the report says the hardware team is on pace to lose $10 billion this year. It sounds like Amazon is tired of burning through all that cash. Google expressed basically identical problems with the Google Assistant business model last month. There's an inability to monetize the simple voice commands most consumers actually want to make, and all of Google's attempts to monetize assistants with display ads and company partnerships haven't worked. With the product sucking up server time and being a big money loser, Google responded just like Amazon by cutting resources to the division. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/11/amazon-alexa-is-a-colossal-failure-on-pace-to-lose-10-billion-this-year/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/11/amazon-alexa-is-a-co...

by flutas 4y ago

blululu 4y ago

It’s not a subsidy. It’s a pricing structure for a commercial transaction. Fundamentally a business can not just give out free compute. In the long run the user of computation needs to pay for it. It’s a question of whether people feel more satisfied paying for it in a lump sum bundled with a device or through a subscription plan on the cloud. For frequently, on demand, low latency applications I would suspect that people will always be happier running the computations locally.

saagarjha 4y ago

Apple also runs an OS on that device, so they can't just offload infinite computation for it: it would use too much battery.

GeekyBear 4y ago

> Apple also gets users to subsidize the cost of compute indefinitely (by buying the expensive phone), rather than using their servers. Subsidizing the smart speaker hardware and running everything on their servers hasn't worked out well for Alexa and Google Assistant. > The Alexa division is part of the "Worldwide Digital" group along with Amazon Prime video, and Business Insider says that division lost $3 billion in just the first quarter of 2022, with "the vast majority" of the losses blamed on Alexa. That is apparently double the losses of any other division, and the report says the hardware team is on pace to lose $10 billion this year. It sounds like Amazon is tired of burning through all that cash. Google expressed basically identical problems with the Google Assistant business model last month. There's an inability to monetize the simple voice commands most consumers actually want to make, and all of Google's attempts to monetize assistants with display ads and company partnerships haven't worked. With the product sucking up server time and being a big money loser, Google responded just like Amazon by cutting resources to the division. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/11/amazon-alexa-is-a-colossal-failure-on-pace-to-lose-10-billion-this-year/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/11/amazon-alexa-is-a-co...