But seriously, this ignores too many simple truths. Companies with even under $100 million in revenue categorize labor and other general expenses. Even full-time employees who don’t log their hours have them tracked by entry-level management all over the U.S.

Why would one do this? To capitalize on software costs, apart from even hardware costs. Something Apple does regularly, and they have a history of sharing that information with shareholders.

So, the GP is talking out of his rear end. The obvious reason Apple doesn't want to share their margins is because every closed software ecosystem is absolutely screwing their developers. That’s why.

There isn’t a single company I’ve worked for in nearly 20 years that doesn’t assign department and project costs to employees, contractors, and ancillary workers. Each department and project also has its own materials expenditure reports.

All of them. Even the smallest companies do this. It’s such a naive claim to think otherwise. I have no idea why people here think the “integrated” argument holds up at Apple, either. Staff there absolutely have "App Store and related work" assigned to their employee profiles. Without a doubt. Even their hiring roles don’t hire general software engineers; each role is preassigned to a specific department or project.