It’s so not about the total amount of money. First off, if Apple had bought another streaming company, it would have cost way more than 6 billion. So relatively they have saved a loots dough.
And if Microsoft would have build up its own phone hardware business from the ground up, it would’ve cost way more than one Nokia. So relatively speaking Microsoft saved a lot of dough.
But if you follow Apple at all you know that they are about control, all the way up and down the supply chain, for any critical component. Which is why they’re building it from the ground up.
If only they would’ve done this instead of buying Beats. At least they could’ve bought a respectable headphone brand.
And to say they’re all the same is pure speculation. Hulu is very different from Amazon. Which is different from HBO.
No, it’s not. TV shows are either good or bad. HBO is known for a lot of good content, but that doesn’t mean everything they put out is good or others can’t match their quality. Even the first and last season of Game of Thrones are of vastly different quality.
Once Disney enters the market, they will have a very clear differentiation.
**** nobody cares about. Mickey Mouse, Spiderman and Luke Skywalker are just overused franchises. That’s not what the movie business is about. You’ve got to be able to tell an exciting new story and then do it all over again. HBOs Chernobyl was the surprise of this summer and there won’t be a second season next year.
And I’m guessing that Apple will as well, because they are likely building programming that is much broader, and for more of a general audience than the current streaming services do, with programming that tends be much more Balkanized with very specific, often niche audience demographics.
So far they haven’t hooked anyone, which is the most narrow audience possible. I haven’t watched Orange is the New Black, because I want to be a woman or in prison. It was a good story, some interesting new perspective. Narcos, Chernobyl, Game of Thrones. People don’t watch specific genres, they prefer good content over bad content. Make another show with zombies and people who liked the Walking Dead might not watch it at all.
Also, Netflix doesn’t dominate in profit. They have a decent lead in market share but there haven’t been many competitors until recently.
Only because everyone now tries to be like Netflix, doesn’t mean there wasn’t a subscription based tv business before. HBO and Blackberry had their heyday before the revolution came along.
That will all change in the next few years, along with their marketshare lead. And, Netflix is hemmoraging money—according reports they’ve never turned a profit.
And Android is not even charging a license fee for their software. Half of the US economy would disappear, if it was run for profit and not domination.
When Microsoft bought Nokia there were many other phone competitors, some of which were much older and more established than Apple, and the iPhone not only bested them all, it dominated them in ways rarely seen in modern business. It became the thought leader and the profit leader, by huge margins, while not having the dominant marketshare.
But despite its name the iPhone is not a phone. It’s a touch-based mobile computer dressed as a phone. It had no competition until Android copied it.
And lastly, not every Apple product is or should be, totally groundbreaking and unique.
But if you want to be the profit leader in a market, it must.
Sometimes, strategically, you simply need to be at parity in one area in order for you to remain relevant or dominate in another area. TV content may be one of those areas.
And this makes Apple Originals to Apple TV what Apple Maps is for the iPhone. A horrible mess that got better with time, but doesn’t turn a profit on its own. The difference is, Maps will be finished some day, most roads stay the same for decades. New tv content needs to be created every week, forever.
And Apple surely won’t quit the TV business in a few years. My guess would be that there’s maybe a 5% chance that Apple is out of the TV business in 10 years. They do things for the long haul.
Tenacity is how Steve Balmer described Microsoft’s approach to win back a market dominated by iOS and Android. So we’re back at buying Nokia, the last do-or-die move before Microsoft conceded the mobile OS market to competitors. Apple already lost to Netflix, now they waste a lot of money in a failed attempt to stay relevant in the TV market.
Overall, I’m just not sure your point holds water. In any way.
And I’m absolutely sure, you are completely wrong. Content creation is not like designing hard- and software. You can’t out-innovate competition. As proven by Game of Thrones, the next season is not necessary better than the one before. People get sick of superhero movies and no one wants to see another adventure of Mickey Mouse. Much like in the music industry stars and styles always change. The major labels survive by sheer size and buying up one tiny new label after another. Apple doesn’t know how to stay relevant in this kind of business. They force downloaded everyone a free U2 album and music fans were appalled.
