The Network of Apple Products
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/01/why-people-keep-buying-apple-products.html
This article is about the growing “ecosystem,” or network, that the company Apple has created. The argument the article makes is that Apple has, through time, built a bigger and bigger network of users by creating products that incentivize a single user to continue to amass Apple products. This same network also incentivizes non-users to begin using Apple products if they are part of a network of people who also use Apple products. This is done in a number of ways, each involving connectedness. For current Apple users, Apple is constantly coming out with new products that work perfectly with one another. If you have an iPhone, for example, it makes sense to buy an Apple laptop because your devices will be connected. The same goes for Apple’s HomeKit, which allows you to control things like lights around your home if you have an iPhone. For current Apple users, once they have one product, buying more makes sense because there is a central place for their products to be connected. This keeps Apple users within the Apple network. For a non-Apple user, there is still incentive to join the Apple network. Because of things like iMessage and Facetime, it is very easy for Apple users to communicate with each other. If a person in a network of friends does not have Apple products, but all of their friends do, there exists an incentive to switch in order to be more involved, or connected, in their network.
This article relates directly to the concept of connectedness of a network or system, which we talked about at the very beginning of class. A large part of connectedness is behavior. What one person does can have a large impact on the rest of the network that person belongs to. In the case of Apple products, as one user becomes more connected with the products they use, they incentivize others to also become more involved in Apple technology. This is the reason an android user whose friends all have Apple products may decide to switch. Or someone whose friends all use HomeKit has decided to invest in the product as well. With its strong name brand recognition, Apple has built a network that incentives buyers to continue using its products in the name of connectivity.