Ah, the lifecycle of a company. I think of the first rounds of funding as a sort of puberty. Going public is the mid-life crisis, signaling the downward spiral towards inevitable death. Of course, being bought out is like God taking Enoch directly to heaven, where who knows what happens. Those large companies with unnatural lifespans have somehow tapped into the deep, dark magic of the Elder Ones (usually government contracts).
>Those large companies with unnatural lifespans have somehow tapped into the deep, dark magic of the Elder Ones (usually government contracts)
Or, you're Apple, and your cloud hosts the digital lives of all your users from teenage years to adulthood, so they're not gonna switch to any competitor no matter what.
Yeah This happens with google too. I have a friend who has so many business/personal docs (she's a writer) on google as well as gigabytes upon gigabytes of photos both for professional and her family. I have tried many times to go over on a weekend and help them degoogle at least their stuff after having seen reports on here of google just locking down accounts or deleting them wholesale (can't say i've seen that with apple? but it has to happen there as well) .
Sure, good on you, but once you got that position, what's stopping you from monetizing your users by selling their personal data to advertisers?
I don't understand why anyone would celebrate and worship monopolies? Publicly listed companies are not your friends. You're just a dollar sign for them.
The same thing that stops anything: terms of service.
Also: no one is worshipping, and no monopoly has been mentioned. Nor has companies being anyone's friend. There is more non sequitur than content here :)
Selling some thing would be nice, but most of what Apple sells me is a license to my own stuff, sold in perpetuity. They don't want you to own anything. They want to own it all and have you pay them for the privilege of using their stuff. With their documented planned obsolescence., they don't even want us owning what little bit we do have for any extended duration of time.
(Above statement applies to most consumer technology and "digital media" companies, social networks, etc)
My point was "buying" typically implies ownership in conversations like these, when these corporations are actively resisting you actually completely owning their products. We are more like temporary renters. And this has unfortunate consequences for the rest of the goods economy. Won't be long, as an example, before Samsung doesn't want you to actually own your refrigerator, TV, or washer, or Tesla and GM not wanting you to own your vehicle, and instead, pay them a monthly service fee for the pleasure of using your own car you "bought" (spoiler alert).
The whole idea is the thing you "buy" is really just an ephemeral vehicle of consumption and steady revenue stream for the corporation. Good for them, bad for you.
> Those large companies with unnatural lifespans have somehow tapped into the deep, dark magic of the Elder Ones (usually government contracts).
Or they are simply in businesses with enormous barriers to entry such as designing some of the most complex microchips, writing some of the most complex software, building huge facilities all over the world, and, of course, being prepared to take advantage of a new opportunity at the right place at the right time.
