Comment by pessimizer

11 years ago

Judging the success of Apple by its profit share is like judging a baseball player by his salary. I get that if you personally identify with the baseball player and want to see him have a nice life, but I think the most important metric for a baseball fan is the extent to which he helps his team beat the other teams. The only thing Apple wins is the mindshare of relatively wealthy (American) people and an enormous amount of hedge and institutional fund investment. It's an easy buy in an extremely precarious, but bullish, frothy economy and if it tanks it'll 1) start slowly, and 2) you won't get fired, because everybody's doing it.

1 comment

pessimizer

JohnBooty 11 years ago

  The only thing Apple wins is the mindshare of relatively 
  wealthy (American) people and an enormous amount of 
  hedge and institutional fund investment.

So they're only dominating in terms of profit share in wealthy countries. And also in most if not all customer satisfaction and retention metrics. And also killing it at retail.

But other than that, not dominating at all.

I hope I can achieve this level of non-domination in my lifetime. Seems pretty cushy.