I don't think this is a fair take for massive businesses like Apple. When you spend $77B on stock buybacks, "money to survive" is very far out of the question. Apple does not
need to have increased profit margins every single year to survive. They could be very financially successful and also more consumer friendly in many areas. They do not
need to have a walled garden and locked-down messaging to survive. They do not
need to make components hard to repair and impossible to upgrade to survive. They do not
need to offer only 5GB of iCloud storage, or only 8GB of ram on new laptops to survive.
They could be more generous and friendly to their consumers, and would probably have an even happier fanbase as a result. But it would likely not be more profitable, so they won't.
The point here is that more profitable every year is not necessary for survival or for a company to be strong. It's simply a way to make shareholders very rich. That doesn't make it good for society. This is not about companies surviving. This is about companies needing to grow and grow and grow...
And as the author says, there is no real end state. You keep growing until you buy out every one of your competitors? And when you have a stranglehold on the market, you can severely cut costs and reduce quality to continue growing profits without needing to find more customers. This shit really happens in a number of industries! It's not good for society.
Sure, survival applies to small companies, startups, mom & pop shops. But many of these massive companies are operating at a completely different level, and "needing money to survive," is not at all what they are trying to do. They are trying to grow profits every year, to make the shareholders happy and wealthy. Not to help them or the company's employees survive. (We all know these companies are very happy to do a layoff if that's what will move the needle on profit growth.)