Like many/most public companies, Apple doesn't work for cash cows (it's the other way around) but their real customers - shareholders.

Shareholders are not customers FFS. Stop repeating that like it’s some grand insight.

Shareholders are owners and shareholders want money. The way to get money is from customers. You don’t make money from shareholders unless you’re running a Ponzi scheme.

> Shareholders are not customers FFS. Stop repeating that like it’s some grand insight.

Customer is a recipient of goods provided by seller or vendor in exchange for money or other valuables. User of free service is not a customer by that definition. Unless you would openly treat privacy as currency.

Investor who gave a company money is - in my view - a paying customer. They give a business some cash, expecting more in return. It is not paying for service but it is still paying and expecting something in return. A publicly traded company is a product itself and investor is buying that product.

Hmm. What public companies do you know of that don't work for their shareholders?

Fresh IPOs have products quality which made them IPOs. It gets downhill around that time and pro-user changes to pro-shareholder, which are very often in opposition.

I see so many ads for their own products inside their products. I hardly believe they don’t make any money from that.

They do make money from ads, but it's a rounding error compared to anything else they make.