[exelius]

Yeah, Apple had the foresight to see the next big thing in tech was going to be privacy. But I think it’s reflective of a larger societal problem: we don’t know who to trust anymore. It seems like every company is trying to scam its users, so Apple is betting that there is a valuable segment of the market willing to pay a premium to do business with a brand that has no ulterior motives past selling you a device at a high markup, and maybe some value-add services.

To be fair, this has always been a problem — I think the recent failings of the historical trust model are due to better information rather than any increase in exploitative behavior. But prior to the smartphone era, trust was a fuzzy, emotional problem where a customer’s trust in a brand could be influenced by marketing alone. Today it is an explicit, quantifiable problem where users are willing to vote with their feet.

What companies are we bestowing authority upon? Do those companies’ business models truly have our best interests at heart? What guarantees do users have that their trust won’t be violated? I firmly believe that whoever can solve these questions to the market’s satisfaction will own the future.

[scarface74]

Apple being big into privacy is just a benefit of their business model - they don’t need to make money off a data as a hardware company.

[spectramax]

Correct, it is also important to recognize that they could have exploited their user base (500 million iPhones sold) to serve ads or collect data and sell it - that is a real business expansion idea. "They don't need to make money as a hardware company" sidesteps the investor-company relationship: Public companies are obligated to expand under investor pressure, but the strategy is always in the hands of the executives. Apple didn't succumb under the pressure.

[exelius]

I wouldn’t say it’s “just” a benefit of their business model; it’s the entire point. I don’t see Samsung making any of these moves.

Any good product organization (and Apple is one of the best) focuses on their customer. We all know that. But Apple goes further and takes their customers’ side — the iTunes Music Store was an absolute disaster for the recording industry but a huge boon for the consumer (and, of course, iPod sales).

Apple is only in a position to do this effectively because they have such a large and loyal customer base. They have a large and loyal customer base because they have consistently driven innovation in personal computing while making high-quality devices that people are willing to pay a premium for. Why would they betray that loyalty?

Apple’s business model is simple and easy to understand. I look at their balance sheet and see where the money comes from: hardware sales to consumers. You can do the same with Amazon and Google too — which shows you why their definition of “customer focus” is so different from Apple’s.

[nacs]

It's also a conscious decision in the way they build their products. If they wanted to, they could also continue being a hardware company and add data-mining/ads on top of that -- but they choose not to.