Apple’s new “subscription bundles” are a tacit admission that Apple is entering its tech-firm dotage.
According to Bloomberg, Apple plans to announce “subscription bundles” with its new line of iPhones slated to launch in October of this year. If true, it’s yet another sign that Apple is becoming the dullest of all tech businesses: a cash-cow-milking service provider.
The great American philosopher Eric Hoffer wrote that “every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” If he’d been a tech journalist he might have written: “Every great tech company begins as an innovator, becomes a de facto standard, and eventually degenerates into a service provider.”
Tesla: Vehicle Safety Report, Stock, Robotaxis and “Giga Wall”
IBM, for example, was insanely innovative, becoming the first company to make digital computing practical outside of a laboratory. By the 1970s and into the 1980s and the PC era, IBM completely dominated the computer industry. It was the company of which it was said, “You’ll never be fired for buying IBM” — in other words, the de facto standard.
Today, almost two-thirds of IBM’s revenue comes from “services” and only 8 percent from hardware sales. IBM still generates a lot of patents, but when it comes to having an impact on high tech, IBM has become practically a footnote.
Lucid Motors has ambitious plans to defy skeptics and take on Tesla
A similar process happened with Microsoft. It was spectacularly innovative in the 1980s, so much so that it was seen even then as the successor to IBM. However, after Windows and Office became de facto standards, Microsoft stopped innovating, and with its move to the subscription model for its software, Microsoft has become, like IBM, a service provider. Consider: When Congress recently investigated whether certain high-tech firms were dangerous monopolies, Microsoft wasn’t even invited to the party. That’s gotta hurt.
Which brings us to Apple. Remember when people lined up to buy the new Apple devices? When Apple was the most innovative company in the world? But then it became the de facto standard for smartphones and the innovation ground to a halt. For the past decade, Apple’s new releases have hovered somewhere between a shrug and a “meh.”
Saudi-backed electric car breaks through 500 miles range barrier
Apple’s new “subscription bundles” will simply serve to lock current Apple users into only buying Apple products in the future, at which point Apple can stop pretending to be innovative and instead release mediocre, overpriced products. Apple will still generate plenty of revenue, but it will become as boring and predictable as Microsoft or IBM.
INC / Balkantimes.press
Napomena o autorskim pravima: Dozvoljeno preuzimanje sadržaja isključivo uz navođenje linka prema stranici našeg portala sa koje je sadržaj preuzet. Stavovi izraženi u ovom tekstu autorovi su i ne odražavaju nužno uredničku politiku The Balkantimes Press.
Copyright Notice: It is allowed to download the content only by providing a link to the page of our portal from which the content was downloaded. The views expressed in this text are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policies of The Balkantimes Press.