In which case, it sounds like there was no need for Apple to buy this.
I think the simpler explanation is one you'll find in many comments here: Dark Sky was unusually good, and Apple bought it to get all that goodness to themselves.
[1] E.g.: https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/8/23343336/apple-tim-cook-im...
If this is anti-consumer in your mind I would really like to hear what acquisition is not an antitrust problem from your perspective.
In a related vein, it's exciting that Apple is investing in Apple Maps as a competitor to Google Maps, especially since Google bought out Waze a few years ago.
https://www.androidpolice.com/dark-sky-api-android-weatherki...
Would I be better off dependent on Google? A company that has the attention span of a crack addle flea?
Would I be better off depending on a small private company?
The parent said that the data Dark Sky uses is public and that anyone could start their own alternative. They did not claim that it would be easy to do so.
They also said that it was probably cheaper for Apple to buy Dark Sky than build it themselves. That does not mean that Apple can’t build it themselves if sufficiently motivated.
I don’t see any inconsistency here in the above statements.
Saying that anyone can accomplish a task posits some level of triviality or easiness that enables anyone to be able to accomplish it.
If I say anyone can lose weight, it is safe to assume that I mean losing weight is easy enough that anyone can do it.
I would interpret “anyone can lose weight” to mean that anyone has the capability to lose weight, not that it is easy. On the contrary, I find losing weight to be pretty hard!
I do recognize that the phrase “anyone can do x” can often carry the connotation of being easy. But it depends on context.
Since we’re talking about a proprietary weather forecasting model and accompanying UI, I see no reason to assume it would be trivial. But rather that the data is available for anyone to use, should they decide to attempt to build the next Dark Sky. This is in contrast to building the next Google Maps, for example, where just getting a hold of the necessary data would probably cost a good deal of money.