Hacker News Reader

What percentage of revenue do ads and hardware contribute to the bottom line in Apple and Google? That answer will tell you more about leadership incentives than just hand-waving away the discussion based on the fact that big tech companies tend to dip their toes in a lot of pools.

View on HN

All of you have joined an argument that is completely fictional. I am amazed that someone can still fall for “Apple is a hardware company” bait.

Both Google and Apple control enormous number of devices, the data on them (or data collected by them), their software, and their users. They make money by selling you tiny bit of access to that, directly or indirectly. End of story. Should I remind you how much being special to privacy restrictions costs Facebook?

Take advertising away from both. Which one would crumble vs contend with a few worse than expected quarters.

Google is something like 75% ad revenue, <5% hardware.

Apple is something like 75% hardware, <5% ad revenue.

It's expanding, which is all that matters: https://www.macrumors.com/2024/11/19/apple-now-directly-sell...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com