This week I'm thinking quite a bit about how people respond to raw data, and facts vs. well-thought out "messages" and marketing. Grant Cardone, the author of 'The 10x Rule' writes about how we can think of everything as sales, and the main goal of anything is to get us to buy. Whether that be to buy into an opinion, a cultural movement, a product, or anything else that man can be swayed unto. Apple has had massive success due to incredible marketing, though I would argue that their products are never going to be first best. It's overpriced garbage once you get a look at specs, reliability, durability, and what it can do in comparison to many many other phones. The thing that makes Apple somewhat unique is how proprietary they have made everything. If Hauwei or Samsung users wanted to use iOS on their system they would have do a lot of legwork to even make it work, including removing the processor from the motherboard on their phone and replacing it with an Apple branded mobile processor.
And yet, if someone were to try this, most technicians that are 'apple-certified' are trained to tell you it's impossible and would probably be cheaper to just buy an apple device outright. This is so that Apple can continue to win you with their sparkly marketing, and their high recommends even though they haven't even changed anything about their phones for close to 10 years, other than taking away the auxiliary port and complying with EU law by switching to a non-proprietary USB-C port. The fact is, the people that are making the technological strides and leaps are very often spending much less of their budget on marketing, and actually spending their money on engineering. Anybody in business will tell you that this is not such a great idea, as you need to make sales. I would start to consider that it is not so much a failure in business planning, but an investment into the long-term. If we take a look at some of the most wealthy countries, alongside those that are most indebted to other countries, it's very much linked to who houses industry and manufacturing within their borders. The U.S has off-shored everything they can as fast as they can, and what we are left with is insurmountable debt and ghostly dilapidated ghost towns while those in the big cities continue to get fed great marketing and sparkling ads for the next great pair of sunglasses, or new "smart device" and think nothing of where that smart device comes from and who made it.
All this to nest the current struggles in the middle-east within the frame that looking only at the marketing of an organisation is pitiless and you're probably being lied to. Everybody is evil in war, and especially in the middle-east, war crimes are very practiced and normalized.