> The broadening of the MacOS market would more than make up for the initial loss in hardware sales.
Why? I mean Android has a much bigger market share than iOS yet Google isn’t making any money (after costs) from it if we exclude ad revenue.
> At the end of the day, Apple would be selling more Macs
I really don’t think that would be the case unless Apple significantly reduced its profit margins to remain competitive. They would be making way less money. So again, why?
> So Steve Jobs came back, shut the clone program down (which, again, would have succeeded for Apple AND other players in the end, IMHO), and the rest is history.
Which was one of the smartest things he did (if we’re prioritizing Apple’s longterm financial success). Apple can only charge excessive premiums for its products compared to everyone else because there is no other way to use their software.. which is why they are a multi trillion dollar company it’s that simple.
> I discussed the idea with ChatGPT and here's how that went:
I’m sorry but that discussion seems to be worthless (also what’s wrong with it? Why is it using such a weird style?).
Apple would have to throw away their entire business model to do this which is a massive risk on it’s own. Considering that Apple has been the most successful consumer hardware/software company in history in large part because of their current business model throwing that away to try and do something that many companies (including Apple) have tried and failed would be an extremely bizarre thing to do.
In 100 years from now, there's going to be only 2 ways to run any piece of software:
1) If it was DRM-secured, via a hack, which effectively "opens" at least the compiled binary form of the code.
2) If it was open source, via some Nix-like tool running on some virtualization of the hardware platform of the time.
Everything else will essentially be "lost", including (probably) every piece of iOS software ever (for example). I already have no more access to many games that originally ran on earlier iOS devices, and it's been years since and no one's stepped up to emulate or jailbreak those somehow, probably because it's still too hard. They will ONLY run on my first generation iOS devices (some of which I retained), to this day.
> I really don’t think that would be the case unless Apple significantly reduced its profit margins to remain competitive
I think they'd be able to retain premium branding and sales with only a moderate reduction in such. Look at any other product market that doesn't have "lock-in" with regards to closed ecosystems; there's usually a range of players and price points.
I'll give you that they have been successful with their current model, but remember that they also very nearly died with their current model (1997 with 2008 followup: https://www.wired.com/2008/03/bz-apple-ourbad/) and it was only the introduction of the iPhone that saved them. macOS has basically been having a long slow death for 15 years since. The reason why this model was successful may thus have more to do with market entrance timing and market creation timing and nothing to do with the model characteristics itself.
Why? I mean Android has a much bigger market share than iOS yet Google isn’t making any money (after costs) from it if we exclude ad revenue.
> At the end of the day, Apple would be selling more Macs
I really don’t think that would be the case unless Apple significantly reduced its profit margins to remain competitive. They would be making way less money. So again, why?
> So Steve Jobs came back, shut the clone program down (which, again, would have succeeded for Apple AND other players in the end, IMHO), and the rest is history.
Which was one of the smartest things he did (if we’re prioritizing Apple’s longterm financial success). Apple can only charge excessive premiums for its products compared to everyone else because there is no other way to use their software.. which is why they are a multi trillion dollar company it’s that simple.
> I discussed the idea with ChatGPT and here's how that went:
I’m sorry but that discussion seems to be worthless (also what’s wrong with it? Why is it using such a weird style?).
Apple would have to throw away their entire business model to do this which is a massive risk on it’s own. Considering that Apple has been the most successful consumer hardware/software company in history in large part because of their current business model throwing that away to try and do something that many companies (including Apple) have tried and failed would be an extremely bizarre thing to do.