<story><title>Apple Plus – brand versus subscription</title><url>https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2019/4/4/apple-plus-brand-versus-subscription</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>_bxg1</author><text>&amp;gt; More interesting: Apple’s evolving brand promise. The old Apple promise was that you don&amp;#x27;t have to worry if the tech works. The new promise is you don&amp;#x27;t have to worry if the tech is scamming you. Everything Apple showed was about curation, safety and trust. No tracking, no scammy ads, no loot boxes, no weird credit card charges. And Oprah.&lt;p&gt;This is an extremely good point. I&amp;#x27;m a technical person, I love open technologies, but I&amp;#x27;ve invested in Apple devices because right now we have no choice but to put trust in one major tech company or another, and Apple is the only one I have an iota of trust in not to screw me over. They&amp;#x27;re smartly capitalizing on a culture shift of tech-skepticism, and I&amp;#x27;m not ashamed to say that that sales pitch works on me. Their competitors would be wise to take notice.</text></comment>
<story><title>Apple Plus – brand versus subscription</title><url>https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2019/4/4/apple-plus-brand-versus-subscription</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>madrox</author><text>I led the build of an SVOD service at a large media company that was also mentioned in this article. Negotiating with Apple at the time to get our service approved, and then negotiating with them further on integration with the TV app, it was clear their ambition was be a media company by the concessions they wanted. This was years ago, mind you.&lt;p&gt;Which leads me to the other part of Apple&amp;#x27;s brand: they will make your life hell if you play in a space they deem important to their survival. Any developer on the app store knows this.&lt;p&gt;We&amp;#x27;re entering a world where it will be very, very difficult to survive as a third party in an ecosystem, and the argument will be &amp;quot;our brand.&amp;quot; For any success you have, 30% of your gross revenue is going to help finance a potential future competitor. We have to double down on mobile web in the next decade if we want any semblance of competition in media.</text></comment>