Before smart phones and generic hardware was a thing, I worked at a company that wrote software for field services (“sending people places to do things”) we had to resell and maintain custom ruggedized windows mobile devices, mobile satellite receivers (cell phone data wasn’t reliable), etc. We were glad to transition to generic smart phones. At later jobs, when I worked in the same space, we used generic Samsung Android tablets.
Microsoft doesn’t even really care if you buy an XBox, it’s a loss leader. They would be more than happy if you bought their subscription gaming service and ran it on someone else’s hardware.
You're right, but it's a strategic mistake. Hardware comes with more loyalty and brand awareness. How many consumers are aware of Square (cute little hardware squircle) vs Stripe? That brand awareness allowed Square to launch Cash App.
I think this extends to the rest of big tech too. Amazon and Facebook would do well to learn from this. Amazon and Facebook's most favourably viewed products are all hardware (Alexa, Kindle, Oculus)
Apple is bad for business. When they come to your industry, be afraid.
Software companies like MS, Adobe and most of the streaming services don’t even allow you to pay for access through the App Store.
Anyone selling physical good if they are using any sort of Apple payment, they are using Apple Pay and paying standard credit card processing fees like Uber.
As far as Tap to Pay, they are charging the standard merchant amount that all other payment facilitators charge.
As far as “owning your customer”, I don’t want every Tom, Dick and Harry to have my personal information. I use “Hide My Email” whenever possible. Owning your customer also means jumping through hoops to cancel (see NYT).
Yes, Apple is huge multinational company that pays a little taxes as it can legally get away with; however, as of 2017, it was the largest tax payer in the world: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/11/the-facts-about-apple...
Stripe's bread and butter is payment backends, while Square was the point-of-sales system