I wasn't defending Apple. I was merely pointing out that one of these, is not like the other.
Like I said, it seems that we have a hard time understanding business models other than "Harvest and sell data." Posts like the GP, seem to reinforce this appearance.
Upton Sinclair is known for a quote, referencing this kind of thing.
Hating on Apple is quite popular amongst tecchies. I understand. I've probably been more pissed off at Apple, than many folks, here.
But it does bother me, that people don't seem to understand the classic business model of making things, selling things, and supporting things. That's thousands of years old, and still very much relevant. Quite a few folks, here, do that. I spent most of my career, at companies that did it.
But they are nowhere near the scale of other companies.
I feel as if Silicon Valley has really forgotten its hardware roots, though, and that's sad.
Making things is really difficult, and extremely risky. Playing with data is really easy, and quite profitable.
I’m not sure who is right, Apple or these analysts, but either way: 2.5% or 7%, that revenue source isn’t large enough to be a corrupting incentive on Apple’s behavior.
Maximizing digital service revenue at the cost of user trust which drives their high margin hardware sales would be killing the golden goose.