5 ms·

Kneecapping your biggest (only?) competitor in a $500Bn market (and that’s just smartphone hardware) is a good incentive to turn down those measly $10Bn.

cmcaleer 3y ago
Add in the damage it does to your monopoly defense though and suddenly it's not as obviously +EV.
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  Accepting payment to not compete ... raises the question of collusion and conspiracy to maintain both monopolies.
  - ffgjgf1 3y ago
    But it’s not that. It’s like supermarkets charging suppliers to place their products in more appealing/visible shelf positions.
    - dredmorbius 3y ago
      Well, yeah, there are supermarkets involved. But that's hardly all of it. There are to vertically- and horizontally-integrated monpolies, both running their own supermarket chains (app stores), with their own real estate monopoly networks (brand A and i smartphones), each of which grows and processes its own food and consumable products (software apps), as well as the logistical back-ends for distributing and managing that (brand A and i smartphone OSes), in a market in which other independent vendors exist, and Brand G pays brand A (which offers OS and smartphones i, not A) an absolutely gobstopping premium to both not promote third-party products and refrain from developing and promoting its own product, not by buying preferential shelf placement but by buying all shelf-space, by default. Which suddenly looks a lot less copacetic.
IvanMilatForPM 3y ago
Google is debasing the quality of it's two largest products for no good reason (search and maps), angering every user of it's terminated former products, alienated the best employees in its workforce through random number generator layoffs, and the attention of its management is currently engaged in an antitrust trial that will go on for years. Apple can still crush them while pocketing tens of billions of their ill gotten dollars and undermining what is left of their reputation. They're just playing the long game. My money is on them buying Kagi not Bing. Kagi Orion was built on Webkit, so maybe they've already got an equity stake?
- jimbob45 3y ago
  What’s wrong with Google Maps? I’ve heard of and seen the problems with search but not Maps.
  - photonbeam 3y ago
    Its filled with ads now, and it’s features degraded when you’re not logged in
  - callalex 3y ago
    “Turn left at the McDonalds” is not a driving direction, especially when said McDonalds is not even visible from the other side of the street. It’s a complete joke. I’m never going back to it, good riddance.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    In Europe, it likes to use unpaved tractor roads, or roads barely usable for cars in small towns as shortcuts. When someone is not double checking, or thinks that is indeed the only way available to reach their destination, they are in for a surprise. Anecdote, yet it happens to me all the time specially since they got the green suggestions, when traveling in country side in Southern Europe or Mediterrean islands.
__blockcipher__ 3y ago
As a shareholder I’m not at all sure of that. I’d rather take the guaranteed profit of the $10B per year. Even at Apple’s insane levels of free cash flow, $10B is still enough to really move the needle.
mcphage 3y ago
Google isn’t their biggest competitor in the smartphone space, Samsung is.
- re-thc 3y ago
  It’s Google not because of Pixel but Android.
  - mcphage 3y ago
    In what sense? For instance, if Google stopped developing Android, do you think Samsung would stop making phones? Or would they switch to pushing Tizen forward instead?
    - re-thc 3y ago
      > if Google stopped developing Android Maybe someone else will try to make something from it or not. > Or would they switch to pushing Tizen forward instead? And it would fail. As much as Windows phones etc. The ecosystem isn't big enough. Phones are only useful because of what runs on it. Samsung only doesn't have the push to make it happen and it'd increase their already low margins. It's not like Samsung is making lots of $$$ at the moment. For context, the government had to give their leader a get out of jail card so Samsung can be fixed. In the past, they had to spy and steal from TSMC to make their fabs work. I doubt they have the ability to create a new ecosystem. Android collectively is still less attractive to developers vs iOS. What makes Tizen better with a drastic cut in market share?
jaimex2 3y ago
It's impossible for Apple or anyone to build a competing search engine in the last decade. The web is extremely hostile to web crawling to anyone but the Google bots. Apple couldn't pull off a competitor to Google Maps, it would have no chance in Search.
- bobbylarrybobby 3y ago
  Apple Maps sucked (liked, really sucked) when it first came out, but at least in the US I think most people would agree it is very competitive with Google Maps.
  - linkjuice4all 3y ago
    I guess…but it’s more than just map quality. Google Maps is good because it’s easy to navigate with AND it has a bunch of scraped search engine data behind it as well. Unfortunately the tentacles of advertising have been creeping into Google Maps for a while - but that’s one more input into the mapping space that Apple can’t replicate (for better and worse).
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      And Apple also refused to give Google real time continuous location data of iPhone users in exchange for turn by turn directions. That’s why they decided to introduce Apple Maps a year early.
  - jaimex2 3y ago
    In Australia the POIs are from Tom Tom it seems and they are ancient. A lot of businesses missing or long dead.
- toast0 3y ago
  Apple can blend their bot traffic in with their customer relay traffic. Blocking iPhones to block Apple's search bots means blocking your more valuable customers. Which is not to say I think Apple can pull off web search, but making the crawling work isn't going to be their problem.
ffgjgf1 3y ago
Apple doesn’t seem to have much interest in competing in the low-margin/“low-end” cheap smartphone market. On the high-end their relationship (in US and some other rich countries anyway) seems to be closer to what Apple and MS had in the 90s and 2000s (i.e. Apple completely dominates the market with hardly any threats). Also the fact that they don’t rely on ad revenue (their search engine couldn’t be profitable without it) seems like part of their appeal (privacy etc.). So getting $10 billion for not doing anything seems like a great deal compared to spending billions to undercut Google with limited return.

cmcaleer 3y ago

Add in the damage it does to your monopoly defense though and suddenly it's not as obviously +EV.

dredmorbius 3y ago
Accepting payment to not compete ... raises the question of collusion and conspiracy to maintain both monopolies.
- ffgjgf1 3y ago
  But it’s not that. It’s like supermarkets charging suppliers to place their products in more appealing/visible shelf positions.
  - dredmorbius 3y ago
    Well, yeah, there are supermarkets involved. But that's hardly all of it. There are to vertically- and horizontally-integrated monpolies, both running their own supermarket chains (app stores), with their own real estate monopoly networks (brand A and i smartphones), each of which grows and processes its own food and consumable products (software apps), as well as the logistical back-ends for distributing and managing that (brand A and i smartphone OSes), in a market in which other independent vendors exist, and Brand G pays brand A (which offers OS and smartphones i, not A) an absolutely gobstopping premium to both not promote third-party products and refrain from developing and promoting its own product, not by buying preferential shelf placement but by buying all shelf-space, by default. Which suddenly looks a lot less copacetic.

IvanMilatForPM 3y ago

Google is debasing the quality of it's two largest products for no good reason (search and maps), angering every user of it's terminated former products, alienated the best employees in its workforce through random number generator layoffs, and the attention of its management is currently engaged in an antitrust trial that will go on for years. Apple can still crush them while pocketing tens of billions of their ill gotten dollars and undermining what is left of their reputation. They're just playing the long game. My money is on them buying Kagi not Bing. Kagi Orion was built on Webkit, so maybe they've already got an equity stake?

jimbob45 3y ago
What’s wrong with Google Maps? I’ve heard of and seen the problems with search but not Maps.
- photonbeam 3y ago
  Its filled with ads now, and it’s features degraded when you’re not logged in
- callalex 3y ago
  “Turn left at the McDonalds” is not a driving direction, especially when said McDonalds is not even visible from the other side of the street. It’s a complete joke. I’m never going back to it, good riddance.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  In Europe, it likes to use unpaved tractor roads, or roads barely usable for cars in small towns as shortcuts. When someone is not double checking, or thinks that is indeed the only way available to reach their destination, they are in for a surprise. Anecdote, yet it happens to me all the time specially since they got the green suggestions, when traveling in country side in Southern Europe or Mediterrean islands.

__blockcipher__ 3y ago

As a shareholder I’m not at all sure of that. I’d rather take the guaranteed profit of the $10B per year. Even at Apple’s insane levels of free cash flow, $10B is still enough to really move the needle.

mcphage 3y ago

Google isn’t their biggest competitor in the smartphone space, Samsung is.

re-thc 3y ago
It’s Google not because of Pixel but Android.
- mcphage 3y ago
  In what sense? For instance, if Google stopped developing Android, do you think Samsung would stop making phones? Or would they switch to pushing Tizen forward instead?
  - re-thc 3y ago
    > if Google stopped developing Android Maybe someone else will try to make something from it or not. > Or would they switch to pushing Tizen forward instead? And it would fail. As much as Windows phones etc. The ecosystem isn't big enough. Phones are only useful because of what runs on it. Samsung only doesn't have the push to make it happen and it'd increase their already low margins. It's not like Samsung is making lots of $$$ at the moment. For context, the government had to give their leader a get out of jail card so Samsung can be fixed. In the past, they had to spy and steal from TSMC to make their fabs work. I doubt they have the ability to create a new ecosystem. Android collectively is still less attractive to developers vs iOS. What makes Tizen better with a drastic cut in market share?

jaimex2 3y ago

It's impossible for Apple or anyone to build a competing search engine in the last decade. The web is extremely hostile to web crawling to anyone but the Google bots. Apple couldn't pull off a competitor to Google Maps, it would have no chance in Search.

bobbylarrybobby 3y ago
Apple Maps sucked (liked, really sucked) when it first came out, but at least in the US I think most people would agree it is very competitive with Google Maps.
- linkjuice4all 3y ago
  I guess…but it’s more than just map quality. Google Maps is good because it’s easy to navigate with AND it has a bunch of scraped search engine data behind it as well. Unfortunately the tentacles of advertising have been creeping into Google Maps for a while - but that’s one more input into the mapping space that Apple can’t replicate (for better and worse).
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    And Apple also refused to give Google real time continuous location data of iPhone users in exchange for turn by turn directions. That’s why they decided to introduce Apple Maps a year early.
- jaimex2 3y ago
  In Australia the POIs are from Tom Tom it seems and they are ancient. A lot of businesses missing or long dead.
toast0 3y ago
Apple can blend their bot traffic in with their customer relay traffic. Blocking iPhones to block Apple's search bots means blocking your more valuable customers. Which is not to say I think Apple can pull off web search, but making the crawling work isn't going to be their problem.

ffgjgf1 3y ago

Apple doesn’t seem to have much interest in competing in the low-margin/“low-end” cheap smartphone market. On the high-end their relationship (in US and some other rich countries anyway) seems to be closer to what Apple and MS had in the 90s and 2000s (i.e. Apple completely dominates the market with hardly any threats). Also the fact that they don’t rely on ad revenue (their search engine couldn’t be profitable without it) seems like part of their appeal (privacy etc.). So getting $10 billion for not doing anything seems like a great deal compared to spending billions to undercut Google with limited return.