>I expect information to continue to become more important and more lucrative.
whereas I am arguing for the opposite. I certainly don't know that I'm right or not, but I do think that the valuations of the companies that give away services in exchange for personal data are betting that you are right and I am wrong. Apple... I believe apple is betting my way. I believe (and certainly don't know for sure) that apple is being much more cautious about user's data because they know that, well, this is part of why they are getting my money, and I assume the same can be said for a fairly large group of consumers.
>Apple has had tremendous success with computer hardware, but they don't have a monopoly. I don't think the computer hardware business is as prone to monopolies as software and information.
I believe that apple is best thought of as a software company, like Microsoft. Apple gets involved in hardware because by controlling the hardware, they can make their software better, and charge more for it.
Modern Apple hardware isn't particularly amazing or innovative compared to the competition. I mean, it's not terrible (except the keyboards, but that's just a matter of taste.) - it's not behind the curve in terms of hardware, but it's not really ahead of the curve, either, unless we're talking about fashion (and personally, I think it goes both ways. You'd be embarrassed to use an apple in the '90s because they were kind of terrible. it's possible that they are cool now because they actually work pretty well. It's a "smart" thing to use - It's possible that fashion is following function here.)
It's interesting, because before last year, I had not owned or even seriously used an apple device in the 30+ years I've used computers. I really want to control my own software. I had a n900 for a long time, then one of the keyboarded android phones... and I worked so hard to install my own android build and control my own software for so long, but because the phone hardware market is so fractured, doing so on a phone is way harder than doing so on a laptop, so while I run linux or bsd on all my servers, desktops and laptops (aside from the one game machine) - I have an apple phone, because I have decided that I don't have the time to sysadmin my phone, and apple sysadmins my phone in ways that aren't annoying and offensive.
But yeah... things haven't settled out yet, so it's possible apple will go the 'mine user data route' - but the thing is, I don't think they can do that without significantly hurting the customer experience that their products provide.
A good example of the latter is using social graphs for very targeted campaigns to sway voters, which only appeared in the 2008 and 2012 elections. [1]
Apple does have all that personal data too -- your device usage patterns, location, app installs, browsing habits, e-mail, calendar, etc. It just seems like they use it less (for the time being). They have the potential to capitalize on that, but haven't done it to a great extent.
Your point is taken -- Apple has a more lucrative business in selling devices than Google or Facebook have in pure information. Although, I don't necessarily think this is fundamental, and it could easily change in the next 5-10 years. I expect information to continue to become more important and more lucrative.
I don't think the fact that Apple makes more money from devices necessarily refutes the idea that information is the new oil. I guess you could say that computer hardware is fundamental too, in that basically everybody needs it, but I don't really think it is as fundamental as information or oil.
I guess what happened with both information and oil is that a small group of companies monopolized them. If you choose not to use Facebook, there is not a great alternative, because your friends aren't there. Similarly, there are few alternatives to many of Google's services. In the case of oil, control was through mechanisms like OPEC and Western military power.
Apple has had tremendous success with computer hardware, but they don't have a monopoly. I don't think the computer hardware business is as prone to monopolies as software and information.
[1] Not sure if these are the best articles, but voter targeting as a new and advancing technology is pretty well documented:
http://bigthink.com/age-of-engagement/obama-2012-the-most-mi...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-the-obama-campai...
Also see : http://www.dailydot.com/politics/search-engine-manipulation-...