When corporates list such achievements as above, they need to do full disclosure like how many old type jobs are destroyed due to their actions/products/services and how much time it took for the effected people to readjust to new reality.
How could anyone put a definitive number on that? It would be an exercise in creative economic writing at best. Plus another stack of papers no one read beyond the abstract in the press release.
And what would be the goal, the desired outcome? Should we not pursue innovation that leads to increased productivity in existing sectors? Would those jobs not disappear if Apple built a datacentre in Iceland or on the east coast of the US?
>>> How could anyone put a definitive number on that?
If existing metrics are not sufficient, then we need to innovate :) and define new set of metrics to get complete picture.
Actually it is not difficult. Let us register all existing people jobs and one year later register again and you can get the list of jobs that got changed and if you can survey the reasons for change, then you can measure negative/positive impact. There may be refinements to this idea and there can be new ones too.
>>> should we not pursue innovation that leads to increased productivity in existing sectors?
Definitely, you need to pursue innovation but what I call "responsible innovation" which is inclusive of society and environmental concerns rather than mere profits.
The problem is, it just doesn't matter. Even if 90% of the people making apps came from different industries, if those industries are decreasing, that's hardly Apple's fault. To use the old analogy, the sales of whips and saddles went way down after the invention of the car. What does it matter by how much the sales went down? It doesn't matter.
There's no negative impact. There can't be. If Apple destroyed any industries with their products, that just means those industries aren't things people want anymore. It's not like Apple is giving their products away or forcing people to use them. They're high-end, premium products. If people still wanted a GPS unit, they would buy one. If people still wanted whatever Apple replaced, even if people left their jobs to create apps for Apple, others would fill in the old jobs.
The number isn't counted because it doesn't matter.
How could anyone put a definitive number on that? It would be an exercise in creative economic writing at best. Plus another stack of papers no one read beyond the abstract in the press release.
And what would be the goal, the desired outcome? Should we not pursue innovation that leads to increased productivity in existing sectors? Would those jobs not disappear if Apple built a datacentre in Iceland or on the east coast of the US?