That's like saying when OpenAI buys NVIDIA GPUs, it is supporting "miners". Data center makers made those thigns for miners. If AI is where the demand is, sure enough, they'll switch to that.

It isnt that deep.

> Because they've forced everyone to allow them.

nobody is forcing anyone. This is the same argument that people said about google search. Nobody is forcing anyone to use google search, google chrome, or even allow googlebot for scraping.

Thousands of poeple have switched over to chatgpt, brave/firefox ..

Your argument sounds like "I dont like Apple's practices, and I'm forced to buy iPhones. No buddy, if you dont like Apple, dont buy their products"

> Thousands of poeple have switched over to chatgpt, brave/firefox ..

If you want people to visit your website, limiting yourself to the "thousands" of people who don't use google isn't really an option.

> Your argument sounds like "I dont like Apple's practices, and I'm forced to buy iPhones. No buddy, if you dont like Apple, dont buy their products"

Well, I don't like Apple's or Google's practices, but I basically [1] have to use either iOS or Android.

[1]: yes there are things like GrapheneOS and librem, but those aren't really practical for most people.

> Your argument sounds like "I dont like Apple's practices, and I'm forced to buy iPhones. No buddy, if you dont like Apple, dont buy their products"

No, not really. There are alternatives to Apple. Whereas here Google controls the gate to the majority of internet traffic

For many it's "block Google and your business dies"

but SerpApi is not scraping websites, it is sending malicoius requests to google.com.

SerpApi is scraping Google. The "maliciousness" if the requests is a matter of perspective. Of course Google considers it malicious; that doesn't necessarily make it true.

From the filing

> SerpApi’s answer to SearchGuard is to mask the hundreds of millions of automated queries it is sending to Google each day to make them appear as if they are coming from human users. SerpApi’s founder recently described the process as “creating fake browsers using a multitude of IP addresses that Google sees as normal users.”

Why would Google offer an API? This is similar to saying when Apple sues an employee stealing IP "Nobody would steal the IP if they gave it away for free". The question is - why?

Why? Does Apple allow you to download apps from Google Play or Amazon?

In EU and Japan it would (have to) if Google/Amazon managed to provide iOS binaries.

In think the point of your parent comment is those are as bad or worse.

It hurts my brain that people still parrot the fact that "Apple doesnt do ads". As you rightly point out, Ads for Apple is a multi-billion dollar business, bigger than many other ad networks, and ad exchanges.

The reality distortion field is strong, even with some HNers.

It's not that. Be as insulting as you wish, but this conversation shows that a significant number of folks simply can't understand any way to make money, except by harvesting and selling PiD.

Making and selling hardware is difficult. Really difficult, but some companies have been doing it successfully, throughout recorded history.

It's really strange to see it being dismissed as "impossible," nowadays.

Here are the facts -

Apple makes tons (read: billions of dollars) from ads. Hence, Apple is in the business of ads, have sales people working with advertisers to make targeting, personalization work.

I take no side in "ads are bad" argument, but you have to accept that Apple is in the ads business, whether you like ads or not.

> While these safeguards do not eliminate the new risks

Stay classy Apple.

> Apple’s most interesting value proposition was ignoring all this AI junk

Did you forget all the Apple Intelligence stuff? They were never "ignoring" if anything they talked a big talk, and then failed so hard.

The whole iPhone 16 was marketed as AI first phone (including in billboards). They had full length ads running touting AI benefits.

Apple was never "ignoring" or "sitting AI out". They were very much in it. And they failed.

> OpenAI's brand recognition shines.

We've seen this movie before. Snapchat was the darling. Infact, it invented the entire category and was dominating the format for years. Then it ran out of time.

Now very few people use Snapchat, and it has been reduced to a footnote in history.

If you think I'm exaggerating, that just proves my point.

Not a great example: Snapchat made it through the slump, successfully captured the next generation of teenagers, and now has around 500M DAUs.

You might not remember, but Snapchat was once supposed to take on Facebook. The founder was so cocky that they declined being bought by Facebook because they thought they could be bigger.

I never said Snapchat is dead. It still lives on, but it is a shell of the past. They had no moat, and the competitors caught up (Instagram, Whatsapp and even LinkedIn copied Snapchat with stories .. and rest is history)