Comment by EGreg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by EGreg | Hacker News Reader

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It stands to reason that Apple is the second biggest stock in the world, and the largest tech company.

Steve Jobs basically made Apple into a MEDIA DISTRIBUTION company. Whether that media is music, podcasts, movies, apps, or now -- news.

The world produces a lot of media and pays a lot for it, and Apple wants to draw as much as possible onto its distribution network get a 30% cut of as much as possible. It curates the platform, and it calls the shots.

Clearly this is great news for Apple's stockholders. I think one of Apple's biggest competitors will be Netflix. Basically, content creators of all kinds, as well as publishers, will partner with distribution networks. I just hope these distribution networks won't have exclusivity contracts! If Apple forces exclusivity on publishers then THAT is when it will become evil -- because everything will be centralized. Until then, it's just another distribution channel, and it's pretty awesome. More than Nintendo, more than Sony, Apple has made a profitable platform from the ground up. It is the largest company partly because it's built everything up from the hardware, and cultivated its brand. When it learns about the internet, it will be a huge powerhouse to reckon with.

No wonder Google invested so much into open source alternatives to Apple's platform. This is turning out well for all of us :) The only way it could go awry is if patents get involved...

I think the media distribution is more important to Apple than anything else.

One of the few complaints I hear about the Apple experience is the requirement to install iTunes on a computer in order to 'activate' their hardware products. That's very telling. Why does a company famous for perfecting the user experience create this roadblock for its users?

It is to convert iX(Phone/Pod/Pad) users into iTunes users. You have a revenue stream from iX user for maybe 2 or 3 years . . but you've captured an iTunes user potentially for decades.

It's been a long term plan. I remember nearly a decade ago when Apple broke their iPod so that MP3 files couldn't be transferred onto it using the standard USB mechanism. It was no longer an MP3 player - it was a portable iTunes player.

The goal is no less than to acquire 30% of the price of every movie, TV show, book, game or any other digital product sold and to make them profitable long after they've stopped innovating.

>It stands to reason that Apple is the second biggest stock in the world, and the largest tech company.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_global_tech...

To what reasoning does your statement stand up to (namely the largest tech company part)?

OP probably meant by market capitalization:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_corporations_by_market_...

Is that even a proper metric for this if you consider that market cap "represents the public consensus on the value of a company's equity?"

The true total market value of a company is certainly a proper metric for comparing size.

He's going by market cap presumably

2009 is so two years ago.

> When it learns about the internet, it will be a huge powerhouse to reckon with.

I think you can argue that Apple is more self-aware than AOL with its walled garden was back in the 1990s. Apple treats its users better than AOL (or at least it gives users what they want - their content in a predictable manner - without having to deal with BitTorrent)

In one of the dot-com era books, I remember reading that an AOL exec boasted they could throw up one of those intrusive pop-up ads that you saw when logging in/logging off of AOL that said "Click here for $19.99, to get absolutely nothing!" and they would get click throughs - people would actually buy nothing. I doubt Apple is that pandering of its consumers (at least not in public). Though I did go to the Genius Bar the other day and I think the consumers may be condescended upon a bit.

I think that Apple treats consumers how they want to be treated - we want to buy, we want one-click gratification, we're willing to deal with DRM because most of us have no idea what DRM is (the non-geeks), we are scared of the Android Marketplace - it's more like a Chinatown bazaar where anything goes (live frogs and counterfeits galore) - compared to the safe suburban mall feel (marble floors and security guards) of the iTunes Store. Yes, the iTunes Store experience might not feel as inviting as an Indie book/record/knick-knack store and it may have a sanitized, strip-mall feel to it - but how many of us feel totally comfortable entering our iTunes password to get instant gratification - media snacks.

> I think one of Apple's biggest competitors will be Netflix.

Don't you think that one of the reasons Netflix is doing well is because it is not Apple? Yes, Netflix has done a remarkable job with execution (remember Blockbuster?) - the red envelopes (heck, my parents are Netflix addicts!), the cultural impact ("it's on my Netflix queue") but - the major content producers probably are scared to sign their soul (30% of revenues) away to Apple? They know once they do it, they can't go back (and lose customers that would be annoyed if they backed out).

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