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Comment by scarface74 | Hacker News Reader

So exactly how do they make money? Unlike Google and Facebook thier business model is very simple, they make stuff people want and people give them money.

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Not really. They do make stuff that people buy, but often they take out loans to buy those things ("free with 2 year contract") which changes the economics a bit. They sit in the middle of every transaction on those devices you bought, telling you which applications you can and cannot use. They sit in the middle of any content you purchase; instead of your New York Times subscription supporting journalism, 30% of that goes to Apple instead for the privilege of owning "your" device. They intercept your text messages to provide iMessage. Who knows what happens to things I've stored on iCloud after I delete them.

I don't have a problem with any of this stuff, but Apple is hardly a just a scaled up lemonade stand. They are just Google and Facebook but better at brand image.

They sit in the middle of any content you purchase; instead of your New York Times subscription supporting journalism, 30% of that goes to Apple instead for the privilege of owning "your" device. They intercept your text messages to provide iMessage. Who knows what happens to things I've stored on iCloud after I delete them.

The content producers have choices.

- they can force you to pay for content outside of the App Store (Spotify, Amazon)

- they can allow you to pay for content either in the App Store at a higher price or outside of the App Store at s lower price (CBS All Access)

- they can allow you to buy content in or out of the App Store for the same price (Udemy, Hulu, Netflix).

As far as “intercepting your text messages”, they are end to end encrypted where neither Apple nor your carriers can see the messages. Unlike Google’s latest text messaging app.

But as a user, I know my transaction cost - the price I pay to Apple. With Google and Facebook, the price is tracking, embedded ads, crapware (in the case of Android phones), etc.

The App Store makes up about 5% of Apple's total revenue. The vast majority of their revenue comes from selling products to consumers. Their business model is not comparable to Google's, because Google gets most of its revenue from advertising.

Google and Facebook models are pretty simple too: they make stuff people want and companies give them money to put inject their ads in the service.

How many people know that a third party can for instance give Facebook a list of emails then FB matches that list up to thier subscribers for ads? How many people know that Google records every time you open any app on Android and logs the activity? I found out when I logged into my dad’s account.

How many people knew that third parties can get information about you if your friends sign up to something?

Okay...in this particular instance you can find and you can opt out of certain things but not a lot though. Something that rarely gets mentioned in the discourse is that Facebook is offering a product to 1billion+ people for free. At somepoint you have to think that there is a cost someone where. Very few people work for free...I fail to see how they don't realise that companies produces products at a cost and they must make the money somehow. In the case of Facebook it is from data. As an aside I wonder if people knew what goes on restaurant kitchens, processed supermarket foods, they'd still buy it. My guess is yes...:-)

Yes. Everyone knows that Facebook makes money from advertising. I’m sure most people know that they make money by targeting advertising based on your expressed interest and the profile you create. But how many people know that FB follows you around the web?

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