I wrote a piece in Harvard Business Review titled “Can African Tech Startups Succeed in a World Dominated by Facebook and Google?” and provided some insights on how startups can play in a world where ICT utilities are dominating all domains of the digital technology sector. But what Apple did this month (as noted in Apple WWDC event) has taken that ICT utility conversation to another level. In just a few minutes, Apple struck many startups; many will not recover. Here are how (Jano, Medium):
Apple Pay Later: That is the latest thing for Buy Now Pay Later with No interest. Apple’s treasury is massive. It has cash reserves many countries will dream of. With that war chest, it has unlocked another fintechnolization where all platforms attain a stable state as a fintech. Companies like Afterpay, Klarna, Affirm are victims.
Freeform: With this new feature, Apple has elevated the minimalist collaboration whiteboard buzz, taking out companies like Mural and Miro.
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Passkey: A new domain of handling passwords. Companies like 1Password and Keeper have new problems now.
Tap to Pay: Apple products now support the ability to tap a wireless card or iPhone-iPhone to pay. Square, Toast and others in this space have new challenges ahead.
Apple’s iOS is a digital operating system and iPhone is a modern commerce platform. When you have such pillars under one company, many bad things could happen to small entities which depend on them. Yes, over time, Apple will abstract these services and fold them into the native system.
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Antitrust lawsuit and congress intervention coming.
If we give Apple too much power – will it be able to use it well? We are leaving too many people behind with the lopsided economic redesign.
For any innovation to be considered productive, it must demonstrate how it supports more people than the existing ones, else we will make the world more chaotic.
People need more economic opportunities for their well-being, so if the tech behemoths continue to strangulate and block opportunities for new enterprises, then they are not helping anyone.
You cannot eat the food well served on nice plate and still bend down to drag the leftovers with other persons and dogs hovering around.