> But Apple's growth in market value since – from $175B at the end of November 2009, to $2.73T today – at least raises the possibility that Apple wasn't making a "mistake" [...] Still a drag on human progress & welfare, sure.
Basically highlighting the issues of capitalism unchecked.
Initially it can be beneficial to society - I'm confident in saying Apple empowered individuals and other companies in the early years through to pretty much around the time this article was written. For all it's flaws it was an overall force of good for society, for humanity... it didn't suddenly stop doing that, but changed focus, and started to erode it.
Over time a market winner, or winners are picked, and then it seems to be just a matter of time until user exploitation starts, without natural pressure to produce the best product, with the best experience, for the user beyond basic tolerability; it slowly devolves into a venture into wealth extraction as the people who originally cared enough about the companies original values either leave, retire or die. Finding ways to lock in users, creating artificial dependence and tricking people into subscriptions are all just optimisations on this path to wealth extraction from the average person.
It sounds a bit conspiracy theorist when I read that back, but it's hard to say it's not true... this just seems to reliably happen to these incumbent corporations.