Wozniak's insistence on eight expansion slots for the Apple II, against Jobs's preference for two, created a third-party ecosystem that drove sales. This open architecture's success funded the company, enabling the development of Jobs's later closed-system products.

Unlike typical co-branded credit card portfolios that sell for a premium, Goldman Sachs offloaded the Apple Card's debt to JPMorgan at a significant loss. This underscores the program's unprofitability, driven by high defaults and operational costs, despite the prestigious Apple brand.

Apple insisted all card statements be sent on the first of the month to enhance customer experience. This forced Goldman Sachs to staff a massive, costly customer service team that was overwhelmed at the start of the month and idle for the remainder, unlike the staggered billing used by other banks.

For high-end brands hesitant to offer discounts, Apple's model is ideal. They sell products at full price but include a substantial gift card for future purchases. This drives sales and encourages repeat business without ever putting the core product "on sale," thus preserving brand prestige.

Steve Jobs' vision of Apple as an inclusive brand conflicted with the necessary exclusivity of credit risk assessment. This led to lower underwriting standards (credit scores around 600) for the Apple Card, contributing to its poor performance and eventual sale by Goldman Sachs at a discount.

The media narrative that credit cards subsidize unprofitable flights is wrong. The two are linked businesses. The massive income from card programs would not exist without the core airline product and route network that gives the points value.

Thompson critiques Apple's lucrative services strategy as a shift from creating the best products to "harvesting the profits from other companies' innovations." The argument is that this rent-seeking behavior is corrosive to the company's core DNA of product excellence and innovation.

A toll is a fixed fee for a specific service, like using a road. A tax is a percentage of the economic value created. Apple's 30% cut is framed as a tax because it scales with a developer's success, rather than reflecting Apple's actual, relatively fixed costs for facilitating the transaction.

Don't just sell a product; become an indispensable part of your customer's workflow. By offering integrated products and services, you create a value ecosystem that locks out competitors and makes leaving an impractical and undesirable option.