Apple

[Grieve]

This is like saying that the apple orchard down the road is a direct competitor with Giant or Whole Foods. I mean yeah, I guess, for that one thing, but you're not going to quit going to the grocery store just because there's an apple orchard nearby that sells cheap apples. Amazon Prime has a very limited selection, doesn't seem to be getting much better and will, I think, always be a little frill on the side.

Ironic comparison, since I'd say Amazon is the grocery store to Netflix's orchard. Netflix gives just streaming, while Amazon Prime gives you a whole lot more.

Netflix has about 2X the selection of Amazon prime, which is significant, but hardly overwhelming. I notice they have a lot of the same big ticket items. Netflix has a lot of absolute unadulterated crap that I'm sure is just there to spike the numbers. I suspect Prime will eventually have more choice than Netflix.

Anyone with cash CAN do it, but they aren't. That's why Netflix remains unique. Apple COULD throw down a few billion and totally bust caps in Netflix and the streaming market but so far they haven't done so and quite possibly just aren't interested.

The fact that they are jumping into the Pandora ring makes me think they could do the same with movie streaming. Especially if they can't get the providers to play ball with iTV - they may decide they have to offer an all-you-can-eat service themselves.

Amazon probably COULD do it and might even have interests in that direction but they haven't.

Amazon IS doing it - they've been spending a fortune on buying streaming content and even have their own in-house studio to make original content.

Meanwhile, Apple has real direct competitors across every market they're in, with no apparent technical advantage that I can think of in any of those markets.

Their advantages are ecosystem, customer loyalty, quality, and customer service.

In fact AllThingsD just had an article on this today. Customer loyalty suggests Apple will retake the lead from Android in the US.

http://allthingsd.com/20130426/androids-...over-time/

I think one of Apple's real challenges today is their image. The whole company was built on the image of the underdog and counter-culture. There may be some irony in the fact that now that Apple is top-dog, the marketing campaign they used to build their company up no longer applies.

They have been top-dog in MP3 players for 12 years - how do you explain that?

Also, they are not top-dog in phones and never have been. They have never been the market share leader. Profits leader, yes, but never market share leader, even before Android took off.

They may need a new image and that's just one more big question on top of the already huge question mark of what they're going to do next.

I disagree - trying to change would be a big mistake. Just because Hyundai sells more cars than Mercedes, does that mean Mercedes should change?