whittonm

So its OK for Facebook and Twitter to propagate vaccine lies that hurt people but Amazon can get Fakespot removed because it says that it does not perfectly identify fake reviews?  Oh, I get it, "show me the money"

The PC business was quite different at the beginning (mid 70s) when Woz and Jobs started Apple.  Unlike today, you had to have good engineering - there were tens of different microprocessors (RCA, TI, Intel, AMD, Zilog, Motorola..), few standards, and no software other than some different crude OS's and compilers.  Most PCs were built from scratch or kits.  To succeed, Apple had to choose the right chips, do a complete design from scratch, choose to sell their product as a completed unit (something new to the industry), get software, etc.  

On top of that, there was no tried and true way to market your product.  There were a few magazines like Byte and probably less than 100 computer stores in the world.  Businesses did not buy PCs, they bought mainframes, time sharing, or had no computers at all.  Someone like Jobs had to make the right calls on who was their market (education, home users, small businesses), where to sell, how to advertise, etc etc.

Without this complimentary pair of innovators, Apple would have gone away like the other PC startups of their day: SWTPC, Altair, IMSAI, SOL..  Apple was not the first to market, but it had good engineering and good marketing and some good luck.

You can live without Facebook.  I dropped it 3 years ago and filled in the community social need with Reddit and did not miss the family pictures because I get enough updates by email.

Facebook is the monopoly to end all monopolies.  The entire world that is online has one choice for a general social network: Facebook.  Your other choice is bupkis and FB will not let anyone interface their social network to Facebook.

Be thankful that Apple does not outsource as much work to India like all the other tech companies.  WFH is going to backfire when the MBAs figure out that you can cut costs by laying off Americans and letting people from home in India, Vietnam, El Salvador..

Maybe Trump will ask for Truth Social replace Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit in the Apple Store and Apple pays Untruth Social $5 a month per person for the privilege of being exempted from Tariffs.  Also, Russia's RT should be the featured news source in Apple News and first on the menu in Apple TV.  

I bought my first Mac in 1986 so I am a little worried.  Low cost computers are low margin computers.  Can Apple make money selling products like this?  Last time they went after the low end high volume market, in the late 1990s, they almost went under and thankfully Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Johnny Ive saved them.  It is different now with high volume high margin Iphones and services supporting the company but I'm still a little worried.