Something isn't a conspiracy theory just because it's an opinion that you do not like. I personally found the OPs take interesting, though obviously written a little tongue-in-cheek.

The relationship between Google and Apple is outrageous, criminal even. Yet for some reason it hasn't dawned on the Economist. Maybe some clear spoken shitposts on a popular tech site is what it takes.

it's a conspiracy theory because he presents it as facts without providing sources for his statements. it's about how not what. yikes.

How about a bit of critical thinking before yelling "Conspiracy!"? Concerning "sources", if Apple and Google are engaged in joint anti-competitive behavior, they'd probably not write press releases about it. But of course there is well-documented precedence of them doing exactly that, being caught and getting a mild slap on the wrist, so it's not a completely outlandish notion to entertain.

As for the officially stated reason: do you really think that there is an alternative search engine provider that Apple would switch to if Google didn't pay them 10 figures a year? If so, which one(s)? If not, what are they actually paying for? To mitigate the risk of a second Apple Maps? But is the case for entering the search engine market really remotely as compelling as entering the mapping space?

I'm not saying it's an open and shut case, but the idea that Google essentially pays Apple money a) as a "good-will gesture" b) to give regulators the impression that the search engine market is more competitive than it is seems possible to me. Whereas one of the alternative scenarios proposed here, that Apple would pick duckduckgo otherwise, really does not.

Personally, if I were Sundar, I'd be way more worried about anti-trust or Apple siding too much with the privacy of their users or stepping otherwise on my toes than say duckduckduckgo becoming a serious competitor because Apple anointed them default search provider after I failed to fork over enough money. I'd probably even do my best to keep a bunch of minimally viable competitors around -- not viable enough to ever pose a threat, but viable enough to keep anti-trust at bay for a bit longer. And both duckduckgo and firefox seem to fit that bill perfectly.

You are speculating as much as the op does. It's just not based in truthful statements. Ofc everything you and op are rhyming together can be true but at least don't state it as fact like op did.

Pretend that everyone that you interact with on the internet is expressing their opinion about the facts.

> A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.

https://wikiless.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory?lang=en

It's not a conspiracy when we know that GAFA works together: https://gizmodo.com/google-paid-apple-to-stay-out-of-the-sea...

It is because you can't validate it how is it that hard to distinguish between true statements and speculations. The same goes for your sources claims brought up in court are not true statements until they are proven to be factually correct.

No.

Google the definition of conspiracy, before presenting your wrong opinion as fact.

Do you even get the irony of what you've just done and I'm sure have been doing for years? Probably not.

You’re basically saying every comment here is a conspiracy theory, since (essentially) nobody here provides sources and everybody is convinced they’re spewing the unadulterated truth.

By your definition, it’s a conspiracy theory for me to say, “I’m sure JFK was shot!” Because I’m saying it as fact without source. But then it’s also a conspiracy theory to say, “I’m sure JFK was shot by aliens.”

The what is essential in defining a conspiracy theory.

It's about how not what at least follow the discussion you are answering. And nobody cares about your definition of conspiracy theories or your assumption of mine, normal human beings open for discourse care about the definition of the term in the general public. You can easily find it in a dictionary of your choice.

> E-commerce was an area where we saw a meaningful slowdown in growth in Q4. And similarly, we've seen other areas like gaming to be challenged. But on e-commerce, it's quite noticeable -- notable that Google called out, seeing strength in that very same vertical. And so given that we know that e-commerce is one of the most impacted verticals from iOS restrictions, it makes sense that those restrictions are probably part of the explanation for the difference between what they were seeing and what we were seeing.

> ... we believe those restrictions from Apple are designed in a way that carves out browsers from the tracking prompts Apple requires for apps. And so what that means is that search ads could have access to far more third-party data for measurement and optimization purposes than app-based ad platforms like ours.

> So when it comes to using data, you can think of it that it's not really apples-to-apples for us. And as a result, we believe Google Search ad business could have benefited relative to services like ours is based a different set of restrictions from Apple. And given that Apple continue to take billions of dollars a year from Google Search ads, the incentive clearly exists for this policy discrepancy to continue.

Facebook CFO on iOS change effects: advertising business is being driven to Google since they are mostly unaffected by the changes. This is the statement the article would be based on, but with most of the interesting parts left out.

This is unfortunately a remarkably well-documented conspiracy theory.

I think this was more shitpost than conspiracy.