I don’t really mean the title as snarky or mean-spirited – it really is just a way to describe a practice as free market capitalism.
I have a measure of sympathy for the present reaction to the big tech companies – Facebook, Google, Apple, etc. They have gotten themselves in trouble (or at least should have) for their business practices. However, they are all doing what they need to do to make money. What I find offensive is how they defend themselves in explaining their business practices. They should just say – we need to make money and we did what we had to. Perhaps they could have done a little less of what they did, but stockholders want more and not less.
Here is how I see the various players:
Apple – makes money on hardware and selling stuff (music, apps). Apple is not good at social (I am not counting person to person tools such as Facetime here). The business plan includes overpriced hardware and a closed system that tries to keep you within the Apple environment. Rather than explaining that over pricing and a closed system are to boost profits, Apple has taken to position their tactics as privacy oriented. Of course, this is true, but Apple users still want to use the services that have privacy concerns and Apple cannot provide these services.
Google – the company promoting the “don’t be evil mantra” makes money most by providing a superior ad experience. The experience is better for the consumer because they see ads targeted to their personal interests and for those who purchase ads because their money on ads is spent in a better way. Of course, to provide this targeted service, Google must harvest information about users and their online activity. Google supports a more open experience and products such as Chrome have become the basis for hardware that other providers use to offer lower-cost products.
Facebook – Facebook has a similar business model to Google, but has found itself in trouble because it harvests personal information beyond user experiences within Facebook (now to change if I understand the newest proposals) and allows services to use information obtained within Facebook outside of Facebook (e.g., Cambridge Analytica). Of course, Facebook users do not pay for Facebook activities by subscribing for a fee and the power of the “free” service has made Facebook popular with users.
So, I can find fault and benefit in the behavior of all of these companies. I can also see how these companies conveniently focus on the faults of the other companies when promoting themselves to the public. The information collectors may end up subject to federal regulation and the adjustments they will have to make will reduce their profits and the benefits to stockholders (probably why their market value has been decreasing). Apple will likely continue to overcharge for their hardware until enough consumers find they can do what they want to do with equipment running Chrome and Windows.