Or in pharma to which I am intimately familiar, your R&D is M&A. (An exaggeration but very common)

True for large old tech companies too, they're just too big and manager heavy to innovate properly anymore.

Ole Miss frat boy is no longer a frat boy.

https://phideltatheta.org/news-stories/phi-delta-theta-fraternity-responds-to-ole-miss-protest/

You mean you aren’t allowed to make monkey noises and motions at a black classmate anymore? The woke mob strikes again.

Downstream effect of this?

https://youtu.be/SrXHVZHhtG8?si=p-H3QvF8uJ1Xlqjr

I'm not sure about this statement, although in some ways I have the same question about buybacks as you do.  On the other hand, are not shareholders supposed to be rewarded for taking a risk on the performance of the company?  What better way to be rewarded than to share in the profits / earnings of the company through share buybacks and distribution of dividends? And what if AAPL believes it is investing the proper amount of capital into R&D for this moment in time?  They know much more than I do about how best to put the profits of the company to work.  Therefore, just like you, I have questions about the size of the AAPL buybacks, but I can't really fault them for their approach to date.  It has worked out really well for me and other shareholders, right?

Maybe Apple isn’t the greatest example for the phenomenon but long term growth and innovation is absolutely being  affected by stock market return pressure in the modern economy.

you can take the “it’s my money and I know how to spend it best” approach but in an increasingly volatile stock price environment the pressure on shorter term, higher and higher returns for shareholders is absolutely stifling innovation.

It’s absolutely negatively impacting tech such as meta, google, etc who are caught in the growth at all costs cycle at the expense of their product itself. Google took what they created that is basically a public utility at this point and have torpedoed it into the sh***er because of this perpetual growth model.

You simply cannot rely on small business innovation anymore with the economies of scale at play, but the pressure of returns at all costs is so high it’s sabotaging the products themselves

Hoping some Scoopers with a Retail/Merchandising background can answer the following:

Why have apparel options at Marshalls and TJ Maxx stores been so threadbare the last couple of years?  They don't get anywhere near the same selection of brands that they used to and the quality of what they do get has declined precipitously over the last couple of years.   I get that neither has ever been anything close to even mid-range, let alone upscale but you used to at least occasionally be able to score halfway decent stuff like Brooks Bros and legit Ralph Lauren Polo Shirts (not their lower end "LAUREN" line) and the like for a reasonable price.  It was always hit or miss (mostly miss 75% of the time) BUT you could still find something decent once in while.  No longer.   Although I rarely bought clothing anyone can see at either of those places, they were great for basics like underwear and T-Shirts.   They don't even get the decent brands for those anymore so it's frustrating.   On the slightly higher end, the quality of merch at Saks Off 5th and Nordstrom Rack has also declined considerably.  I was always aware that even back in the day, those places hardly sold anything that was ever actually on offer at a full service Saks or Nordstrom, but that was ok because you could still get decent stuff.   Largely untrue today.  If you take an average pair of jeans and look under the hood the quality of the rivets and zippers is garbage now as is the quality of the fabric used to make the pockets.  It's very thin and not the heavy canvas they used to be routinely be made of.   To get that quality today you have to go to a high end specialty brand like Tellason, APC or Japanese brands and pay well over $200.

Blame covid...da gift dat keeps on givin', hey?

Companies are reducing SKUs in order to maintain in stock levels on Merchandise that moves. The Covid supply chain ripple effect is still a factor in many industries . Primarily the chip shortage which is now about over. Retail merchandising has long lead times as they deal primarily with foreign production.

My guess is the situation you are experiencing will change as the economy slows and retailers will need to liquidate better classes of inventory.