This blog post examines the future brought by openness and closedness, comparing Google and Apple’s strategies to Rome’s roads and China’s Great Wall.
The Roman Roads and the Great Wall of China
Just as the saying goes, “Two suns cannot rise in the sky,” humanity has always competed to claim the top position in every field. Across continents and regions, people gathered to form tribes, established nations, and constantly competed with other groups in the process of protecting and expanding their homelands. Among these, Europe and Asia are continents that once hosted great empires that unified all surrounding nations. Europe and Asia are also continents where the monumental structures and cultural legacies left by these great empires still endure. Among these legacies are colossal constructions so immense they raise questions about how they could have been built with the technology of the time. Prime examples are the Roman Empire’s roads and China’s Great Wall. The Roman Empire chose to build highways that greatly accelerated the movement of people and goods, accepting the risk that enemies could use them, rather than erecting barriers to block contact with neighboring countries. In contrast, China prioritized national security by building the Great Wall as a barrier to repel invasions by foreign tribes, rather than focusing on the efficient movement of goods.
At the time, these choices may not have seemed to make a significant difference. Yet, thousands of years later, the contrasting choices of these two empires have led to vastly different outcomes. Today, despite our geographical proximity to China in Northeast Asia, we are far more heavily influenced by the cultures of Western nations, including the United States and Europe. The Western alphabet has permeated our daily lives, and a culture of aspiring to and emulating Western lifestyles, as seen in publications like The New Yorker, is widespread. Thus, the difference between Rome investing its labor in roads and China investing it in walls created entirely different long-term transformations. And as Arnold Joseph Toynbee noted, this historical difference is repeated today between Google and Apple, the world’s largest corporations.
Google’s Open-Source Sharing vs. Apple’s Closed Policy
As mentioned earlier, Rome’s roads and China’s Great Wall can be defined as openness versus closedness. Similarly, the characteristics of Google and Apple can also be defined by openness versus closedness. Google targets the smartphone market primarily with Android, a mobile operating system that can be used royalty-free, and releases reference phones through contracts with smartphone manufacturers. Apple, on the other hand, pursues a policy of building brand premium through its proprietary iOS operating system and its unique iPhone smartphone. In this context, the smartphone market became divided into two competing camps: the Android camp and the Apple camp. However, the situation has been rapidly changing recently.
Just a few years ago, Apple was the pioneering innovator leading the smartphone market and a firmly established market leader. However, following Steve Jobs’ death, Apple began facing criticism for a lack of creativity, and subsequent iPhone series releases also failed to demonstrate significant innovation compared to their predecessors. As a result, Apple’s smartphone market share has been gradually declining.
Meanwhile, Google entered the mobile market later than Apple but grew rapidly based on customer loyalty to globally used services like its search engine and cloud services, as well as its ‘open source’ foundation. This provided Google with an opportunity to overtake Apple in the smartphone market.
This outcome presents a fascinating contrast when compared to the past case of Windows effectively monopolizing the computer operating system market, and Linux failing to gain widespread adoption despite being open source. Why did Linux lose its battle against Windows, while Google appears poised to win its battle against Apple, even though both are IT devices?
Google’s Success Factors: The Internet and Capital Power
The first reason is the advancement of the internet. In the past, when the internet was not yet highly developed, sharing information between individuals was difficult, and the roles of service providers and consumers were clearly distinct. However, as the internet became universally accessible worldwide and its speed increased dramatically, it became possible to know what was happening anywhere in the world in real time. This environment contributed to the rapid growth of Android’s application market, enabling it to develop to a scale comparable to Apple’s App Store.
The second reason is Google’s formidable capital and technological prowess itself. While Linux was an open-source project involving individual developers, Google scaled it up significantly. By successfully integrating existing services like Gmail and Google Drive with Android, Google unified the user experience. Leveraging its massive capital, Google rapidly spread Android globally and firmly established its public recognition.
Lessons from History
Just as humanity today is more influenced by Rome than by China, it is highly likely that in the future, we will be more influenced by Google than by Apple. This is less about technological prowess or user interface (UI) and more about the cultural or psychological question of whose influence we will fall under. Google is expanding its influence by offering free tools like office programs and modeling software like SketchUp. In contrast, Apple does not provide any opportunity for users who do not own Apple products to use its programs. This once again contrasts with Rome building roads accessible to both enemies and allies, and China constructing the Great Wall to block external invasions, ensuring enemies could never use it.
So, rather than simply viewing this situation as a competition between two global companies, what should we learn from it?
The first is ‘openness’. No matter how exceptional an individual may be, they cannot prevail alone against a society where knowledge is shared. Rome’s ability to sustain its empire for so long likely stemmed from its multi-ethnic inclusive policy, which fused the characteristics of its various armies. Now that the volume of knowledge has become vast, we must place even greater importance on the ability to communicate with the world.
The second is the ‘competitiveness’ that underpins openness. Rome could implement its multi-ethnic affinity policy because it was grounded in formidable national power. If a country lacking competitiveness pursues affinity policies with other nations, those policies are highly unlikely to succeed. Instead, the country risks external invasion and could easily collapse. The adage that one must first become an expert in their own field before attempting convergent thinking carries precisely this meaning.
In conclusion, this does not advocate for unconditional openness and competitiveness. Apple’s closed premium strategy was also a crucial factor in making Apple what it is today. In human history, closed policies can be correct when pursuing short-term profits, and when lacking fundamental competitiveness, building that competitiveness first and then protecting it through closed policies can be effective. However, to survive in the long term, it is crucial for a company’s product to become not just “nice to have,” but “essential to have.” This is precisely why Roman culture persisted and continues to influence us today, long after Rome itself fell.
Communication and disconnection may seem like opposing concepts, but they are not. Fundamentally, humanity has evolved through communication; without it, we would inevitably become extinct. However, this communication must be ‘proactive communication’—led by oneself—not passive communication forced by others. Only through proactive communication can true ‘progress’ as desired become possible. And to avoid losing oneself in communication, possessing ‘competitive advantage’ that others cannot have is essential. Today, we are relearning this lesson through the examples of Google and Apple.
