Plenty of companies don’t have much if any growth, utilities for example. It’s just Apple is no where near the end of the line for growth and new opportunities.
what's the connection here between growth and dividends? Come to think about it it's something that's carved out in investment products huh: growth stocks, rising dividend stocks, etc. Are growth and dividend payouts semi mutually exclusive or something?
A growing company reinvests profits into further growth, developing new products, building new factories, whatever. When you can no longer grow, you return profits to shareholders.
They're not asking for $4.99 -- from their perspective, once you sign up, you'll likely stay for years. $4.99 a month for ten years is $600. And you'll likely need to upgrade your iCloud storage at some point, because you'll run out of space, increasing your value even further. I wouldn't be surprised if many of the people paying for iCloud now will remain iCloud customers for the next 20 years, or even longer.
