Been playing Rome: Total War for the past few days. It going me thinking that empire just can’t stop expanding. You conquer one province, thinking that barbarian neighbor won’t be a problem ever again. But then you realize your empire now borders some other barbarians who start harassing you. And then you need more troops to keep the new citizens from rioting. Which requires money, which means the drums of war are at it again...
You’re identifying a deficiency of imperial systems. They were one of the only ways to get growth in our close to zero sum past. In a world with a growing global economy, on the other hand, warring and imperialism are self-defeating long run strategies.
Objectively, no. They don't. You can't capture the intangible capital of a country through invasion. The greater the ratio of intangible capital (skills, trust, institutions, et cetera) to tangible capital, the less effective classical empires become.
Resource-rich countries, on the other hand, are still subject to imperial dynamics.
One, there is more in the universe than this earth. And two, the resource intensity of GDP growth is falling. (A new iPhone is more capable than its predecessors without requiring comparatively more resources. And a web comic can create millions in value with comparatively little burn.)
There are less violent forces behind expansion. Shareholders prefer to invest in companies that are growing. Employees want to work in organizations where they can be promoted.
Absolutely. But it doesn't look like they are any good at it, considering how the Apple Watch totally didn't eat the market of incumbents like Garmin at all (Garmin is almost drowning in money now that the Apple Watch has made it socially acceptable to spend high sums on wrist gadgets). The Apple watch excels in engineering, but the software environment is so focused on mainstream appeal that almost everybody has some niche interest that isn't served there at all. And those niches are tight: one might think for example that Garmin and Peloton are direct competitors in the field of home indoor workout bikes (Garmin via the Tacx Neo Bike) but in reality those serve very different markets with almost zero overlap. Apple misses all those niches because they are not only committed to ignoring niche features but also exert too much control on the walls of their garden that third parties won't rely on them as a platform.
No one claimed Apple stopped making computers, so you're attacking a straw man here. All that was pointed out is that there is no Apple Computer (note the capitalization) company anymore, as it was renamed to Apple Inc. in 2007.
I interpreted "OP" as mentioning "Apple Computer" for emphasis, as in they are a computer company, not a fitness company.
This was a flawed comment because the premise was incorrect - they stopped being "Apple Computer" a long time ago.
Yes, Apple makes computers like macs and iphones and watches. A huge part of their "watch computer" is fitness, and they have an on-demand fitness video service to accompany that.
That was my point: both of these companies have expanded well beyond their initial purpose and now overlap. If you look at their origins, there is no overlap at all.
Everyone is trying to be megacorp these days.