I actually like that Apple completely obliterates the fiction that people don't want a walled garden.
It's such a minority as to be utterly irrelevant. These insane numbers prove it.
It's such a minority as to be utterly irrelevant. These insane numbers prove it.
I enjoy a lot of things with Apple products, and I get them free via my job - but I absolutely hate their (walled garden) app ecosystem. But still - since Apple is the only thing I can get at work, we / I become one more positive statistic.
And on a different note, and this is an idea that can use some further development, the fact that a non-free, closed source, walled garden, subscription-based software rules our life when free software alternative exists but remain unused by the majority of people is in a way a demonstration of how anarchism (= free software movement) has no chance to take hold in human society. Humans will always be prepared to trade some freedom for comfort.
I use it frequently as I use f-droid, but let's face it: Android is a (less successful) walled garden too.
Nothing would change if Apple allowed third party stores either.
Had Android until about iPhone 6. By that time, iPhone has closed the gap on the dealbreakers for me (and continues to do so). And once I acclimated to the iOS flow it was (and continues to be) a net-positive move. Imperfect, but net-positive.
If anything Apple's own popularity proves that walled gardens should be dismantled at some point.
I don't think that's a real hidden premium. The android scene does worse on this front, and used to do significantly worse.
Socially, people go back to abusing spouses, practice deshumanizing religious acts, elect politicians that just lied to them and buy products that have let them down before.
We do a lot of things that bad for us, that doesn't mean it's a good thing.
If heroin was legal, I'm pretty sure the company selling it would make a good quarter report as well.
It doesn't mean apple doesn't do a lot of things right. It does. People are not very technical, they want sane default. They don't want to fiddle with tech. And apple provides that. In exchange, however, people accept the lock in.
That said, for non-techies like my parents, I recommend iPhone + MacBook. You pay a bit more, but their longevity makes them economical, the integration is top notch, they just work, have less bloatware, have excellent battery life, etc.
Apple’s revenue is what it is for a very good reason.