This analogy to Amazon is why I submit the idea that customers don’t care and expect advertising.

Look up the brand perception of Amazon. It’s one of the highest in the business including high trust scores. High trust scores, for a company that sells counterfeit products! Perception is not reality.

Your average consumer (I.e., complete dumbass) barely recognizes advertisements and often reports enjoying them when they do recognize them. I can’t count how many people tell me that they see products advertised to them in Instagram that are exactly what they wanted/like.

When Steve Jobs ran Apple it was a niche premium computer company who had customers with above average incomes and education levels. It was different time. He died more than 10 years ago.

That’s not exactly what Apple is today. iPhones are used by over half of all Americans. You can’t really buy a decent computer that’s cheaper or a better value proposition than the previous generation MacBook Air $550 Walmart special.

As a side note, I would note that Apple Maps already has “ads,” because it has a Yelp integration. I think this whole thing is a part of removing that and bringing the same functionality in-house.

I think you’d be insane not to monetize Maps with Apple being the size that it is. It costs a huge amount of money to operate as a free service, and your median customer expects ads to be there.

If you want that niche, discerning customer experience, buy a Framework or System76: Linux has the same marketshare now that Apple had when Jobs returned to Apple.