4 ms·

What's incredible is the idea that an argument or a point of view is somehow invalidated purely because it happens to side with the trillion dollar company. Thi

• timtom39 3y ago
  > I do wonder what percentage of Apple stock is owned by pension funds and the like, i.e. The Regular Person, once you unwind the levels of indirection (mutual funds, etc). It is surely a double digit percentage, but high, low? No idea. Pretty high. The S&P 500 has ~7% apple stock which means many peoples retirement accounts have several percentage points of apple stock.
  • Podgajski 3y ago
    So Apple takes 30% of your money from one hand and gives you back 3% with the other?
    • kspacewalk2 3y ago
      "Apple" takes and gives nothing. "Apple" is a collective figment of imagination of its shareholders, which people typically picture as dastardly moneybags living in mansions, but often forget to also picture, like, themselves, in retirement.
      • fennecfoxy 3y ago
        So we should let every company charge 10000% what they currently do, because some of the shareholders might be relying on extra dividends for retirement. Hmmm.
        • kspacewalk2 3y ago
          Indeed, we absolutely should "let" them. We should let them charge whatever they wish, we should let them sink or swim, and we should apply our laws to them fairly and equally, including antitrust legislation.
    • crazygringo 3y ago
      More like the opposite. If you had $1,000 invested in Apple around ten years ago (a reasonable amount in a retirement fund), you'd have made around another $8,500 by now. While if you'd spent $1,000 on apps and subscriptions over 10 years, Apple would have taken $300. So Apple would take $300 of your money from one hand and give you back $8500 with the other. That's a difference almost 3x larger than the difference you suggested... but in the opposite direction!
• Me1000 3y ago
  Who said "purely"? The arguments in favor of Apple here are invalid for a number of reasons. OP is just saying you don't need to bend over backwards to defend them, they're not an underdog anymore and haven't been for over a decade.
  • docmars 3y ago
    Not to mention, Apple has been known to be too controlling and take it too far, to levels that are unfair enough to garner major public disapproval. Their anti-developer/consumer moves are worthy of backlash, especially since Apple isn't likely going to change their positions without enough of it.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
    • shri_krishna 3y ago
      [dead]
• amplex1337 3y ago
  Does this make them a better company? You are allowed to not like the way a company does business but still own an ETF that profits from their success. I still would never own an Apple item out of principal. Their marketing, hype and fanboyism are their prime success factors it feels like. It's funny but since the rise of the iPhone I feel like society has gone straight downhill, not that they have been the only player in the smartphone game, but they sure have profited well, are the biggest drain in the industry to the home developers that contribute to their ecosystem. They pay 0 tax and aren't contributing to the better of society through computing while convincing half the population they are protecting them, etc. It's a scam. Like many large corporations, they aren't ANY better and will plead that it is due to 'competition' while being ahead of the food chain and able to lead in any way they choose.
  • kspacewalk2 3y ago
    No, they aren't better, nor are they worse, they just are. Evaluate their behaviour on the merits of their behaviour, not based on their size or what kind of image their PR efforts have successfully projected into our brains (they're all about amazing design! and the other guys motto is don't be evil! and these guys over here have "open" in their name and they're basically like a non-profit with lofty, humanity-altering goals!). You're welcome to project general failings of society onto the emergence of the iPhone (but not Android because Google maybe isn't nearly as evil I mean it's in their motto). And there's tons of hype and fanboyism associated with their products. But they are good products. After ditching Windows back in 2008, I've haven't yet had a compelling reason to switch OSes again in my career as a software engineer. Their higher-end devices are absurdly priced but my employer buys them for me, maybe that's why.
• rchaud 3y ago
  It's invalidated because a real-world alternative already exists (Android sideloading) and hasn't required Google to hold everyone's hand or to use their toll roads to distribute the product.
  • zamalek 3y ago
    And the Play/Android store is still wildly successful.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• tivert 3y ago
  > What's incredible is the idea that an argument or a point of view is somehow invalidated purely because it happens to side with the trillion dollar company. What's incredible is how people waste their tiny amount of personal energy defending their exploitation by a corporation that has vastly more resources than them and objectively does not need their help. Apple is probably the poster child for effectively using marketing to brainwash their customers into identifying with them in a cult-like manner. That cult was close to the only thing sustaining them through the 90s.
  • nailer 3y ago
    It's because people are defending the principle, not Apple. I think Apple is wrong, but I don't think they're wrong because they're successful - in fact I think saying Apple is wrong because they're successful is against the concept of objective reality and not appropriate for HN. The idea that Apple are wrong because they're successful is the same awful thinking that advocates for violence or systemic discrimination against people based on their skin color (because they're considered 'successful') and is abhorrent.
  • idopmstuff 3y ago
    > What's incredible is how people waste their tiny amount of personal energy defending their exploitation by a corporation that has vastly more resources than them and objectively does not need their help. Nobody here is trying to help Apple by posting on HN. They're just discussing their viewpoints on how Apple operates and its policies around taking commission on purchases. That's what this entire message board is about - talking about tech and the like. If they're wasting their time by posting in defense of Apple, you're doing the exact same thing with your response - neither is going to have any actual impact on the world, so either posting is a waste of energy or it's not. There's no valid argument that posting in defense of Apple is a waste of energy but posting attacks on Apple is a useful and productive thing to do.
  • kspacewalk2 3y ago
    None of this matters. Only the substance of the defence matters. It either makes sense, or it does not.
• rurp 3y ago
  93% of stock wealth is held by 10% of Americans; the amount of Apple held by The Regular Person is relatively miniscule. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38958534 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38958534
  • s1artibartfast 3y ago
    I suspect the number of app Developers is quite smaller than that 10%.
• eaglelamp 3y ago
  It's not incredible it is just a different view point. In your second paragraph you take a utilitarian point of view in which case the size of an organization is irrelevant so long as it produces a net gain for society. An alternative view values human freedom and autonomy. From this perspective the size of an organization is relevant - a large enough organization can impose its will on individuals who don't wish to associate with it. Neither viewpoint is wrong, but acting as if the one you prefer is somehow more correct or objective is.
  • itsoktocry 3y ago
    >It's not incredible it is just a different view point...Neither viewpoint is wrong Claiming that Apple is "stealing" their cut of commission is definitely wrong.
  • SllX 3y ago
    > An alternative view values human freedom and autonomy. That is some choice rhetoric with a particular bias, but not a distinct point of view from people arguing for freedom and autonomy for Apple’s business practices. The corporation is a legal fiction, but it’s still human owned, operated, and staffed, and reflects the millions (billions?) of choices that get made by individuals working together to accomplish whatever it is the corporation does. In Apple’s case, that gestalt includes running the App Store at a price to developers that they see fit who choose to do business with them.
    • eaglelamp 3y ago
      I didn't mean it as rhetoric, it's a simplified statement of a viewpoint. I think rhetorically "..who choose to do business with them" is doing a lot more work than anything I wrote. Once an organization reaches a certain size individuals start losing meaningful choice in how they interact with it. You can say that the "gestalt" will of the organization is more important, but you can't make other people concede that their point of view is merely a rhetorical stance.
      • SllX 3y ago
• mattmaroon 3y ago
  Big minds think about systems. Small minds think about individuals within the system, like corporations or people, because they can't comprehend the bigger picture or even that one exists. The people who think Apple is evil because of their size are simply not systems thinkers. They have an illogical view of the world in which the little guy is always right simply because they are the little guy, and thus the big guy must be wrong. It's very similar to the Amerika thing you said. If you don't think about the system Apple or America operates in, it's really easy to hate them. Which is not to say one can't be a systems thinker and still think this was a bad decision or that Apple is given too much power or does things that are unethical or bad for consumers or whatever else. I totally concur that the government should require Apple and Google to allow sideloading, payments they're not involved in, etc BECAUSE I am thinking about the system and how having two corporations own the device our world runs on is a bad one. And how there's essentially no way for governments to mandate a third viable mobile OS into existence. But the people who say "I can't believe you'd side with Apple" phrase it that way because they are not thinking of the system. They're thinking small. They think making ad-hoc decisions about individuals within the system is appropriate because they can't think any bigger. If they could, they'd lay out the argument as I just did (and, as many, many people in here did too) or something that was less about the individual. There's been a lot of this on display (not so much here) in what people say about the whole Israel/Hamas situation too. It's not so much what they say (systems thinkers don't agree anymore than anyone else) but how they say it that tips it off.