Apple is addicted to growth. It is as big as it should be, but it acts like an early stage startup always trying to build some new flashy thing to attract the next customer.
So you get rid of removable batteries so customers have to toss their phones away more often, you gimp other feature, you spend more money on advertising than you did actually developing the product (read this bit several times until it sinks in how crazy it is, yet that's how we are with every major phone, every major movie, etc), and so on.
I don't doubt that after 2020 the advertising budgets far outstripped the production budgets - multiple times; I am curious if that trend continues now, now that production isn't hamstrung by covid restrictions.
Capitalism works this way because its customers, the investors, want it to work this way, because growth is how you get compound interest. Investors include anyone with an interest bearing bank deposit, a 401k, stocks, bonds, etc.
No growth means it would no longer be possible for an investment to appreciate.
I think of a similar thing when I see people complaining about how companies don't want to pay good wages. When you go shopping do you buy the $10 product or the $5 essentially equivalent alternative? Most people will buy the $5 one. If you do that, you're putting downward pressure on wages.
It's in your (purely economic) best interest for your wages to be high but everyone else's to be low. That's because when you're a worker you are a seller of labor, while when you're a customer you are an (indirect) buyer of labor.
Everything in economics is like this. Everything is a paradox. Everything is a feedback loop. Every transaction has two parties, and in some cases you are both parties depending on what "hat" you are wearing at the moment.
Equity returns ultimately come from risk premiums. (Which are small now in US equities BTW).
I’m invested in a microcap private equity fund that has returned >20-25% for years. They have high returns because they buy firms at 3-4x cashflow. You will get the high returns even with no growth. And with no increase in valuation. The returns are a function of an illiquidity premium.
With Apple explicitly, growth is expected given the valuation level. If it doesn’t grow, the share price will decline. So yes, in their case, firm is certainly under pressure to grow.
I also don’t agree with your “best interest for wages to be high and everyone else’s lower”. That is one aspect. It is more complicated. Consider Baumol Effect for starters.
Things like retirement, 401ks, etc., are society-wide institutions subject to macroeconomic rules.
There are also entire "industries" designed to shield people who want to find quality content from big 'A' advertising.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGKsbt5wii0 For context John Sculley said "Apple was the marketing company of the decade" in the 80s and Kicked Jobs out of Apple
Today engineers have to put up a fight to do anything resembling craftsmanship.
Regardless: that kind of message doesn't feel like HN-worthy productive discussion.