The Roman road and the Great Wall of China symbolize openness and closure, respectively, and this is repeated in Google and Apple’s open source sharing and non-sharing policies. While Google has grown rapidly due to its openness and capital, Apple has maintained its premium image with a closed strategy. However, it is possible that Google’s openness and competitiveness will be more influential in the long run.
Roman roads and the Great Wall of China
As the saying goes, there can never be two suns in the sky, and humans have always competed with each other to be the best at whatever they do. On every continent, in every region, people have gathered together to form tribes, build nations, and compete with other groups to defend and expand their lives. Europe and Asia are the two continents where great empires existed that unified all of their neighbors. Europe and Asia are also the continents where the great empires left behind huge structures and cultural heritage. Some of these structures are so huge that it’s hard to imagine how they could have been built with the technology of the time, such as the Roman Empire’s roads and the Great Wall of China. Instead of building walls to block communication with neighboring countries, the Roman Empire built roads that greatly increased the speed of movement of people and goods at the risk of being used by enemies. The Chinese, on the other hand, sought national security by building the Great Wall as a barrier to keep out migrant tribes rather than to facilitate the efficient movement of goods.
At the time, these choices may not have made much of a difference, but thousands of years later, the opposing choices of these two empires have had enormous consequences. Today, despite our location in Northeast Asia, adjacent to China, we are far more culturally influenced by Western countries, including the United States and Europe. The Western alphabet has permeated our daily lives, and there is a widespread culture of New Yorkers and others who admire and emulate Western lifestyles. This is why the difference between putting Roman labor on the roads and Chinese labor on the walls made such a difference in the long run. And, as Arnold Joseph Toynbee notes, this historical difference is repeated today between two of the world’s largest companies, Google and Apple.
Google’s open source sharing vs. Apple’s non-sharing policy
I mentioned earlier that the Roman roads and the Great Wall of China can be defined by their openness and closure. Similarly, Google and Apple can be characterized by their openness and closedness. Google is targeting the smartphone market with Android, a royalty-free mobile operating system, and has partnered with smartphone makers to release reference phones. Apple, on the other hand, has a policy of creating a brand premium through its proprietary operating system, iOS, and its own smartphone, the iPhone. In this situation, the smartphone market has been divided into two camps: Android and Apple. However, the situation has changed dramatically in recent years.
Just a few years ago, Apple was the innovation pioneer and undisputed market leader in the smartphone market. However, after the death of Steve Jobs, Apple was increasingly criticized for its lack of creativity, and subsequent iPhone series didn’t offer much innovation compared to their predecessors. As a result, Apple’s smartphone market share has been slowly declining.
Google, on the other hand, entered the mobile market later than Apple, but grew rapidly due to its customer loyalty and “open source” foundation, including the Google search engine and cloud services that are used worldwide. This gave Google the opportunity to overtake Apple in the smartphone market.
This is a fascinating contrast to the past, when Windows virtually monopolized the computer operating system market and Linux failed to gain popularity despite being open source. Why did Linux lose the battle against Windows, and why is Google likely to win the battle against Apple?
Google’s success: the Internet and capital
The first reason is the development of the Internet. In the past, when the Internet was not yet very developed, it was difficult to share information between individuals, and the roles of service providers and consumers were clearly separated. However, as the Internet has become more ubiquitous and its speed has increased by leaps and bounds, we can now know what is happening anywhere in the world in real time. This environment contributed to the rapid growth of Android’s application market, which is now comparable in size to Apple’s App Store.
The second reason is Google’s deep pockets and technological prowess. Linux was open source with individual developers, but Google took it to a much larger scale. By successfully integrating Android with existing services such as Gmail and GDrive, the company tied the user experience together, and with its deep pockets, it was able to spread Android across the globe and quickly establish public awareness.
Lessons from history
Just as we are currently more influenced by the Romans than the Chinese, it is likely that we will be more influenced by Google than Apple in the future. It’s not just a matter of technology or user interface (UI), it’s a matter of cultural and psychological influence. Google has expanded its influence by offering free office software and modeling programs like SketchUp. Apple, on the other hand, doesn’t give anyone who doesn’t own an Apple product the opportunity to use any of its programs. It’s another contrast to how Rome built roads that could be used by enemies and allies alike, and how China built the Great Wall of China to keep the outside world out.
So what should we learn from this, rather than simply perceiving it as a competition between two world-class companies?
The first is openness. No matter how brilliant an individual is, he or she cannot win alone against a society where knowledge is shared. One of the reasons Rome was able to maintain its empire for so long is because it fused the best of each of its armies through a policy of multiethnic friendliness. With the vast amount of knowledge available, we should value our ability to communicate with the world even more.
The second is “competitiveness” to support openness. Rome’s multiethnic friendliness was based on its strong national power. If a country that lacks competitiveness tries to be friendly to other ethnicities, it is unlikely to succeed and could easily be invaded and destroyed. This is what we mean when we say that you should be an expert in your field before you try to think convergently.
In conclusion, I am not advocating unconditional openness and competitiveness. Apple’s closed premium policy is also an important factor that made it what it is today. In the history of humanity, a closed policy can be right if you’re looking for short-term profits, and if you don’t have a fundamental competitive advantage, a closed policy of building and protecting your competitive advantage first can work. But if you want to survive in the long run, it’s important to position your product as a “must-have” rather than a “nice-to-have. This is why Roman culture didn’t disappear after the fall of Rome and continues to influence the world today.
Communication and disconnection may seem like opposites, but they’re not. Basically, humans evolved to communicate, and if we don’t, we’ll die out. However, this communication must be active, not passive, something that is forced upon us by others. Only through active communication can we develop as we wish. And in order not to lose yourself in communication, it is essential to have a “competitive edge” that others cannot have. Today, we are learning this lesson again through the examples of Google and Apple.
