this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/6745228

TLDR: Apple wants to keep china happy, Stewart was going after china in some way, Apple said don’t, Stewart walked, the show is dead.

Not surprising at all, but sad and shitty and definitely reduces my loyalty to the platform. Hosting Stewart seemed like a real power play from Apple, where conflict like this was inevitable, but they were basically saying, yes we know, but we believe in things and, as a big company with deep pockets that can therefore take risks, to prove it we’re hosting this show.

Changing their minds like this is worse than ever hosting the show in the first place as it shows they probably don’t know what they’re doing or believe in at all, like any big company, and just going for what seems cool, and undermining the very idea of a company like Apple running a streaming platform. I wonder if the Morning Show/Wars people are paying close attention.

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[–] [email protected] 331 points 1 year ago (49 children)

Bummer. That’s some weak and feckless megacorp bullshit. Just like something Stewart would cover, which is why this show was such a great power move. And yet? Infinite profit over all else, so never mind.

Look at John Oliver, he talks shit about HBO constantly. Do they care? Nope, because he has more Emmys than anyone could know what to do with. Respect your talent and reap the rewards. Pretty basic stuff, Apple.

[–] [email protected] 75 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (47 children)

The difference is HBO is a media company that largely operates in the US, and Jon Oliver making fun of them isn’t going to hurt their business at all. Apple is a hardware company that also makes media. And selling hardware in China is critical to their business. Since the CCP owns China, they can get their panties in a twist and just ban Apple. Like they did with government devices.

As a publicly owned company they have a legal responsibility to maximize profit for shareholders. It’s the same reason why Twitter had to agree to the sale to Elon Musk and why they had to force it. It was a terrible move overall but since Elon was buying all outstanding shares and taking it private, the board literally had no legal choice but to take it since he was offering well over market value.

Public companies don’t get to take moral stands when there’s money on the line. They legally have to put shareholders first.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Nah, Apple is an ad aggregation company same as Google. They use hardware and software to lock users into their products so they can show them ads and collect their data to make the ads more targeted. In return ad companies pay them to serve ads to their users. That's how they make money.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The fuck you smoking. 80% of sales are hardware and 20% is services, ie music, tv, and their cut of App Store sales

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Ad revenue from running ads on the app store, their news app , podcast app, etc.

I didn't claim they were making most of their money that way, but that's absolutely the business model they've been shifting to for the last decade as their hardware sales decrease pretty much quarterly, especially their phone sales.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/strong-ad-sales-stable-enterprise-spending-wind-beneath-big-tech-earnings-2023-10-23/

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