Yet from a business' perspective, the experience is really poor. Most have to rely on third party tools to sell and chat with customers.
The failure to capitalize on their userbase with accessory businesses probably has more to do with the VC/Silicon Valley obsession with the hot new thing and what they hope will be the next new hot thing. Commerce is boring, TikTok and VR platforms are much more exciting.
Progress is being made on this front, albeit slowly.
They did seem to make a push for more business API and more marketing messaging permissions. I invested some time in developing it for political campaigns.
Only for them to yank the more open permissions away.
And much of Europe.
They've tried these things - you mentioned an example of one yourself.
Apple won't lose but equally they won't dominate.
There will be a space for an open, collaborative market leader exactly what Meta is positioning for with their recent partnerships e.g. Microsoft.
And if you ignore the metaverse nonsense and extrapolate hardware advances over the next few decades AR/VR could be compelling. It could replace laptops. It could change what travel, concerts, arts events looks like. It could democratise education.
I understand Meta is trying to generate hype and attract talent but I also hope that we do get far more serious at what AR/VR could mean.
They're trying this in India through WhatsApp by patterning with Reliance.
https://about.fb.com/news/2022/08/shop-on-whatsapp-with-jiom...
Google didn't. They built Android and Chrome and ChromeOS to counter that issue and frankly it's been widely successful.
Microsoft tried (but failed) with Windows Phone.
There are a lot of cool things you could build on top of a verified identity.
Even if VR and AR pan out I doubt apple would lose. They just have too much control over the entire stack.
How Microsoft and Google, and Meta allowed Apple to slowly build over independent control of their entire ecosystem, from supply chain to software is baffling. They’re gonna get wrecked.