Mark down March of 2017 as when it became official that words have no meaning anymore.
Okay, it was probably well before now, but it’s pretty clear that we have abrogated our mutual agreement on what words mean.
The fine people and hideous anglerfish and alien face-huggers at Business Insider bring us the lowdown:
“A prominent UBS analyst explains why he thinks Apple is a monopoly.” (Tip o’ the antlers to Philip Speicher.)
Ah. Yes. Certainly. That makes sense and is not at all antithetical to what Business Insider has been spittle-spewing for years.
[wades into the ocean, lives in the magical undersea kingdom of the crab people forever]
Look, the crab people don’t have video games and such but they also don’t have any way of reading Business Insider. Just sayin’.
Apple only holds 17.9% of smartphone market share, but one prominent analyst still thinks the world’s most valuable company may function like a monopoly.
Rejected headline: “Prominent UBS Analyst May Not Know What A Monopoly Is.”
Okay, to be fair to UBS’s Steven Milunovich, this is mostly Business Insider taking his musings about how Apple manages to get the benefits of a monopoly by making good devices and then making their usual jerk rub out of it and putting it on the Internet instead of on chicken where it belongs. LEARN HOW TO COOK, BUSINESS INSIDER. Your syndicated web pieces are Apple-bashing nonsense and your Jamaican chicken is unseasoned and bland.
Really, the Macalope blames himself. All those years that Business Insider trumpeted “IPHONE MARKET SHARE DEAD IN THE WATER” he should have seen the “APPLE IS A MONOPOLIST” pivot coming. That’s on him.
Milunovitch points to Apple’s pricing power as one sign that it may have an monopoly-like moat around its most profitable businesses.
Yeah, they do that by making devices people like to buy. That’s not the same thing as a monopoly.
Other smartphone makers must compete on price…
No, they don’t have to. They choose to because it’s easier for the kinds of managers these companies have to understand solutions that involve low-cost components and crapware instead of design and user experience.
Milunovich may have muddied his argument by using the word “monopoly”, but his ultimate point, that most analysts don’t get that Apple isn’t a commodity manufacturer, is right.
While Google’s cost-per-click is declining, the average price of the iPhone is staying high.
Surely this is unsustainable as people will switch to low-cost smartphones any day now. We need a new production of “Waiting For Godot” based on that.
Well, the Macalope looks forward to the calls for an antitrust suit against evil monopolist Apple with the 17.9 percent market share.
Crab people. Increasingly makes sense.