I will never understand why some companies turn away from some of the core principles that got them to their position.
If it’s market pressure, it tells me that Cook doesn’t really believe their future roadmap is good enough for growth, so he needs to hedge with other things that make the product worse. Of course those very things will hurt future growth. That’s how an upward spiral turns downward.
I feel this strongly. From a business perspective, when your competitors expand their revenue avenues through ads you have three options: copy them to catch up, do nothing and perish, or lobby the government for increased consumer protections. The third option isn't being taken, but I believe its the right one for many companies that want to remain customer-centric, and that have real values.
This is where the person at the top of the ladder needs to be the voice of reason. Cook has no more rungs on the ladder to step to. He left his mark already with his supply chain skills to get where he is. Apple silicon, watch, and Vision Pro were also released with him at the helm. Does he really need to add pollution of the user space to his resume? That would hurt his legacy, not help it.
Following Jobs was not an easy task, and Apple had done better than most probably expected in a post-Jobs world. It feels like Cook is getting dangerously close to throwing it all away.
the thing that you're missing here is that Cook is gonna get roasted if he doesn't take every opportunity to maximize growth. That means the future roadmap as written PLUS ads in maps and other decisions like that. There's no such thing as enough.
Not having ads was the thing that separated Apple from Google. Apple was winning by selling hardware with software that didn’t need ads to support the business model. Ads just feel greedy, especially when they are still charging a premium price on many things. How tolerant will people be of high prices when the resulting product feels cheap? This is a race to the bottom, which was a race Jobs was unwilling to compete in.
it's not a race to the bottom, it's a zero sum game. someone is gonna lose money but everyone who currently has a stake thinks they can bail out before the crash (or if the people in charge try to abort the game and initiate a more sustainable but less immediately profitable model). Stockholders essentially hold a company hostage like that: maximize short term growth of my asset value right now or I tank the entire org, then when the bad decisions you made today come back to haunt you I dump stock, pull up stakes and haul ass right before the whole thing explodes. These people kill sheep for wool.
If it’s market pressure, it tells me that Cook doesn’t really believe their future roadmap is good enough for growth, so he needs to hedge with other things that make the product worse. Of course those very things will hurt future growth. That’s how an upward spiral turns downward.