How is this anecdote at all analogous? I'm not seeing it.
> For companies like Apple, these acquisitions are more about killing competition than they are about improving their own services or user interfaces
You definitely see this with not just Apple but any big tech company. Either they acquire a company for their tech, for their people who work there (talent), for their data or finally, just to be able to kill their company/product.
To make the list more complete I've seen large tech companies acquire another tech company for their users and/or their brand. Think about Microsoft buying Github or Skype.
Skype was almost certainly some sort of scheme to kill Skype and bring lawful intercept to the platform. Skype at one point owned consumer voip globally.