Comment by gumby
2 days ago
It’s CLV (customer lifetime value): the integral of the MRR. Something most companies mentioned on HN should understand though it feels like Apple is the only one that takes it seriously
(And with Apple’s new CEO, the early signs are that commitment is headed for the ash heap as well, but it seems the Mafia may have a longer horizon)
The Mafia may also have shorter horizon: - Fantanyl 'customers' have munch higher risk of sudden-death and then stop being customers. - Fentanyl is a much more debilitating drug than heroin and much cheaper. So Fentanyl customers are less able to gather the money for the next fix, and don't need as much (less revenue).
Also if the family has some addicted to “normal” drugs it’s acceptable; but if they get fentanyl from you and die the next mafia family reunion will be spicy.
Hence they have a shorter CLV.
More than simply being alive, they want customers who can stay employed and so continue to pay higher prices over a greater number of years. Cocaine and pot are horrible but their users can maintain a working life for years or decades, making them more profitable drugs in the long term.
> cocaine *and* pot
I don't think these very different drugs should be compared equivocally.
And while both drugs have the possibility of abuse; most issues stem from legality - not the chemical effects.
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> Cocaine and pot are horrible
citation needed
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lol. Whoosh
That's what CLV means, dude ... come on.
> Fantanyl 'customers' have munch higher risk of sudden-death and then stop being customers
The Mafia kills people directly. That's a sudden-death right there.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c39mr81j2j1o
though this is controlled and planned, I assume. As opposed to random numbers of customers dropping dead whenever they feel like it.
"The Mafia" is... many different things. From self-defense post-war southern-italian village organisations to pure-evil predatory psycho-clans, to anything in between.
For starters: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gomorrah_(film) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o44Zv4DY64
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At much much lower rates than accidental overdose rates assuredly.
It's not sudden to the person planning the hit
But they’re not killing their customers (unless they want send a message, of course…)
> with Apple’s new CEO, the early signs are that commitment is headed for the ash heap as well
He’s been CEO less than a month and everything that’s happening right now has been in the works for multiple years….
that doesn't mean the early signs aren't here that that commitment is headed for the ash heap.
What, specifically, do you find to be an early sign pointing in that direction?
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What do you see as signs? I was hopeful that Ternus’s hardware background was a positive.
Maybe this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49801939
The services ads at the top of the Settings app (when you get a new iPhone or add another device to your account) have been there for years and long predate Ternus.
Yes, this is the problem I was referring to. There is internal opposition but the exec team will clearly turn over in the next few years (due to retirement) which will inherently bring in a team more aligned with the CEO’s objectives.
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People will complain but ultimately won't actually move away from the Apple ecosystem for it to matter to Apple.
The dubious signs (which predate Ternus) are the focus on service revenue and advertising.
Both these make Apple worse.
I think the “early signs” are a reference to this? https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/06/phil-schillers-app-store-e...
Wait what are the signs that the new Apple CEO commitment is headed for the heap? Seriously asking
Ternus and Cue are full bore on increasing the number of ads shown in apps and otherwise scattered through their devices. This is explicitly the opposite of Apple’s philosophy until recently and Schiller is stepping back reputedly due to his opposition to this approach.
The idea appears to be to sell the devices as a vehicle for showing ads (incremental ARR) over selling them for their intrinsic customer value. You expect this kind of thing from shitty industries like cars or Google or Facebook. But this used to be an explicit “no go” for Apple.
> Ternus and Cue are full bore on increasing the number of ads shown in apps and otherwise scattered through their devices
There’s zero indication Ternus is onboard with that - Cue yes, but Ternus was not CEO when any of the stuff that is happening now was being developed
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where do you get info that Ternus is about increasing number of ads? i've missed that evidently, I was at Apple engineering for several years, so for Cue i believe it just from observation, but no sense of such for Ternus.
That is too bad - how do you get the reins of a company that size with something antithesis to their product and identity? I hope he doesn't start trying to monetize privacy.
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To be a bit critical, haven’t Apple software and hardware quality been getting worse for years even before the new CEO?
Apple Silicon was the exception, that was truly transformative. But other things, like how polished and snappy the OS feels, seems to have been getting steadily worse.
I think the hardware has improved a lot over the past decade, not always in visible ways. I think this is true even if you disregard the replacement of the butterfly keyboard.
Hardware has been improving a lot since the low point of butterfly keyboards and no ports. Jony Ive went out the door and things improved. Then on the software side they course corrected recently after Alan Dye left. I have hope the software improvements will start to accellerate.
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