Comment by gigel82
1 month ago
Very likely yes. Why else would they add a feature that incurs costs for them as an update, at no cost to the users (and not even make a fuss about it)?
It is obvious they are monetizing this feature somehow. Could be as innocuous as them training their AI dataset, or feeding into their growing ad business (locations and other things identified in the photos), or collaboration with law enforcement for various purposes (such as notifying the CCP about people's Winnie-the-Pooh memes), or a lot more ominous things.
> Very likely yes. Why else would they add a feature that incurs costs for them as an update, at no cost to the users (and not even make a fuss about it)?
Erm, you’re aware of the whole Apple intelligence thing right? An entire product that costs Apple money, provided at “no cost” to the user (if you had an iPhone 15). Also every feature in an OS update has a costs associated with it, and iOS updates have cost money for the best part of a decade now.
Has it occurred to you that reason Apple includes new features in their updates is to provide customers with more reasons to buy more iPhones? Just because feature are provided at “no cost” at point of consumption, doesn’t mean Apple won’t make money in the long run, and selling user data isn’t the only way to monetise these features. Companies have been giving out “freebies” for centuries before the internet existed, and the possibility of large scale data collection and trading was even imaginable.
Of course, but those would be features in the product code deployed on users' devices (one time investment), not a service that has ongoing costs of operation associated with each call. They wouldn't just give this out for free (especially to older iPhones), it makes no business sense. If you're not paying for a product, you are the product!