[HN Gopher] Apple's Power Move to Kneecap Facebook Advertising I...
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Apple's Power Move to Kneecap Facebook Advertising Is Working
Author : exolymph
Score : 506 points
Date : 2021-09-23 23:53 UTC (23 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (bigtechnology.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (bigtechnology.substack.com)
| rchaud wrote:
| In a twist of irony, there's a Firefox warning next to the
| Substack email input field.
|
| "This site may share your email address with Facebook".
| piiswrong wrote:
| Has anyone noticed that Apple tracks your app installs and use
| that data to show app Ads to you?
|
| While Apple doesn't allow others to track users across apps, they
| themselves can do it because they have a monopoly on app store so
| it doesn't count as third party data.
| viktorcode wrote:
| After you explicitly granted them permission.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| As of iOS15 they ask your permission to do this. If you don't
| your app ads aren't personalized.
| bryan_w wrote:
| But they don't use the same standard permission box that they
| force 3rd party apps to use.
|
| That's shady....
| tgv wrote:
| That's probably the "personalized recommendations", and you can
| switch it off in your profile.
| random314 wrote:
| Is it opt in or opt out?
| simonklitj wrote:
| iOS 15 asks on first launch of app store what you'd like.
| random314 wrote:
| What is the message in the opt in/ opt ou5lt screen?
| simonklitj wrote:
| This is the pop-up:
|
| Personalized ads in Apple apps such as the App Store and
| Apple News help you discover apps, products, and services
| that are relevant to you. We protect your privacy by
| using device-generated identifiers and not linking
| advertising information to your Apple ID. Turning on
| Personalized Ads increases the relevance of ads shown by
| letting us use data like account information, app and
| content purchases, and where available, the types of News
| stories you read. Apple does not track you or share your
| personal information with any third parties.
|
| Then a button that says "Turn On" and one that says "Turn
| Off".
| random314 wrote:
| More or less what I expected. This is basically local
| device side personalization. You can expect to see this
| pop up in safari soon. Safari will track your browsing
| and purchase history locally. At which point all display
| ads on the web and safari will be served by Apple on iOS.
| tgv wrote:
| It's there since a few iOS versions ago, but as an opt out.
| I'm not on 15 yet. From what other people write, I suppose
| that's changed.
| likpok wrote:
| Opt out, because of course very few people would opt in.
| pantulis wrote:
| I think I remember having to opt in with a new iOS15
| installation.
| helen___keller wrote:
| This is a perfect example of why competition needs to exist in
| tech, even when products seem to exist in harmony.
|
| I know this is contentious, but IMO this has been the strongest
| evidence thus far that we need regulation or antitrust to break
| up companies that own a platform and also compete on said
| platform.
|
| Side note, I don't tend to view Facebook as some inherently evil
| corporation as many commenters seem to. I hope that by
| eliminating certain unsavory practices (like predatory tracking),
| Facebooks interests will better align with its users interests,
| and we will see a better Facebook for it in the future.
| jb1991 wrote:
| While this is a great first step, isn't one very likely
| consequence that facebook will pour extraordinary resources into
| much more invasive tracking using less obvious methods that
| cannot be blocked? I feel like this is just a start of a whole
| new era for fingerprinting.
| haliskerbas wrote:
| I can guarantee you they have been working on this for some
| time now.
| dwaite wrote:
| Prompting and honoring the user's choice of whether to be
| tracked across organizational boundaries are part of the App
| Store guidelines.
|
| Facebook would lose their ability to publish a native app for
| iPhone.
| Lio wrote:
| Facebook is not a company with internal limits to what it sees
| as acceptable.
|
| They're like a tobacco company.
|
| Recently they knowingly sat on information that showed that
| changes to Instagram were damaging teenage girl's mental
| health.
|
| If they could track users and non-users in a more invasive way
| the will do that anyway.
| Jensson wrote:
| Look at Facebook stocks, they don't seem to be "kneecaped" at
| all. My theory is that tracking is a nice to have but not
| necessary to make huge amounts of money on ads. They lost a few
| percent of value over this, a huge hit to investors but even with
| that they are still one of the tech giants with more money than
| they know what to do with.
| mrweasel wrote:
| Most of Facebooks claims about Apple hurting small businesses
| always seemed a bit weird, because much of the targeting that
| make the most sense can be done solely by data users enter into
| Facebook themselfs.
|
| Age, location, profession, combined with the content of your
| posts and the stuff you share should be more than enough to do
| efficient targeting of ads.
|
| The main issue that Facebook might face, in my mind, is that
| they oversold the value of the tracking of users across the
| web. So their customers now see a much hyped feature
| disappearing, so they slow down their ad buying, even though
| they could get the same results.
|
| The business that are going to be hurt the most a the agencies
| who honestly don't know anything about good advertising, but
| who just knows how to click around in Google Adword and
| Facebook Ads. Those people now need to learn a little more
| about targeting.
| jqquah wrote:
| As an iOS user, I would like to say that I'm enjoying not feeling
| targeted by ads that makes me want to spend. The latest focus
| function is even better.
| amelius wrote:
| As much as I hate Facebook, I think that one company abusing its
| power against other companies is not a good thing.
| kumarvvr wrote:
| How can it be "abuse", when all Apple has done is to provide
| users a window saying "Hey, this app is collecting all your
| data. Do you want to prevent it?".
|
| The abuser is Facebook here.
|
| Fact : Apple is providing an authentic choice to users
| regarding sharing of their data.
|
| FB Spin : Apple is attacking _us_ and hurting _our_ business.
| Lio wrote:
| That's a straw man argument.
|
| Apple has only given users the chance to say no to Facebook
| they haven't stopped them saying yes.
| gigel82 wrote:
| Proof:
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/08/07/apple-a...
| burnished wrote:
| Where is the abuse of power? The problem (I don't own an
| iphone! I could be wrong) as I understand it is that Apple is
| giving its customers the option to opt-in to tracking and that
| people are choosing not to do that. Yeah, it offers a business
| advantage I'm sure, but its also hard to see what is wrong with
| that action you know?
| simonklitj wrote:
| You got it exactly right! And considering that (beginning
| with iOS 15) they ask you if they can track you too (for eg
| App Store ads), there's not much business advantage either.
| [deleted]
| metters wrote:
| I opened the link and my email address is already filled out in
| the import form for subscription. Where does it have my email
| address from? I am not using auto fill features.
| vxNsr wrote:
| Someone farther up said that ironically Firefox warned them
| that the website requests your email from Facebook.
| [deleted]
| rblion wrote:
| I'll say it again: Facebook will become the next AOL, Yahoo. It's
| already set in stone. They are just playing 'not to lose' at this
| point.
| [deleted]
| Macha wrote:
| Honestly they're doing the right thing with buying the likes of
| Instagram and WhatsApp and keeping them at arms length rather
| than slathering them in Facebook integrations and branding,
| which is something Yahoo in particular never learned and IMO
| was a big factor in them accidentally suffocating Flickr and
| tumblr. Of course the Apple provoked porn ban was the final
| nail in the coffin for tumblr but the direction was clear well
| before that
| vxNsr wrote:
| WhatsApp is still a negative investment atm. I'm sure
| Instagram is printing money like Facebook but it relies on
| the same mechanisms, and thus will fall with Facebook.
| rybosworld wrote:
| I really don't think this prediction will age well.
|
| People just love to hate facebook. I've heard predications of
| it's demise since before it IPO'd.
| spideymans wrote:
| Unfortunate that they'll take Instagram down with them.
| anbende wrote:
| They likely won't take any of their acquisitions down with
| them. They've been pretty good about keeping them mostly
| separate. They'll be spun off in any eventual liquidation.
|
| Unless you think they are being mismanaged or mismarketed
| now?
| r00fus wrote:
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2018/09/26/exclusiv
| e...
| danjac wrote:
| Yeah how terrible.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/01/27/instagram.
| ..
| leejo wrote:
| Instagram has been an absolute dumpster fire for the last two
| or three years - it's no longer a photography platform, it's
| a meme, "influencer", celeb, and viral video platform. Tear
| it down.
|
| The only recent saving grace is that I'm seeing more
| photographic content, the problem is that's from other
| photographers who are promoting their work via paid ads -
| they're not going to grow their following that way and TBH a
| lot of it is pretty mediocre.
| yosito wrote:
| Any recommendations on photo platforms to use if I want to
| passively share my photos with my friends and family?
| Network effects are pretty hard to overcome.
| r00fus wrote:
| I really liked the response Tim Cook gave when Zuckerberg was in
| trouble regarding Cambridge Analytica [1]
|
| When asked what he would do if he were currently faced with the
| problems confronting Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Cook said: "I
| wouldn't be in this situation."
|
| ...
|
| Cook said that Apple has never believed that detailed online
| profiles of people should exist. "We can make a ton of money if
| customers were our product. We have elected not to do that," Cook
| said.
|
| [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/28/tim-cook-on-facebooks-
| scanda...
| pornel wrote:
| As a begrudging App Store user, I feel like I'm a product that
| Apple is selling to app developers.
| sundvor wrote:
| Nice. This was a reminder to check my own Samsung browser
| setting; smart anti tracking was only in secret mode. Now set to
| always. Hopefully they'll make this the default too.
| sydthrowaway wrote:
| This must be why FB is dumping money into the metaverse.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| As usual many highly upvoted takes here devaluing FB and claiming
| the ads don't work or are all just fake clicks.
|
| Hate FB or not their ads work well and this article is spot on
| from my experiences, though words like 'attack' have clear bias.
|
| I run direct response ads raising money for non profits and
| political campaigns on FB. This month has been a big struggle.
|
| While I can't quantify how much is due to limited iOS targeting,
| I know that we get lots of value from targeting donor lists which
| is harder now and ios users donate more. Doesn't help FB reported
| a 15% discrepancy bug which would effect optimization.
|
| I used to be heavy bull on FB based solely on the ads I buy and
| the ROI/value they provide. But I this has been a scary month.
| The bid market will eventually level out but if the targeting
| value loses say 25% effectiveness that will kneecap a ton of
| businesses who advertise there with thin margin.
|
| BTW thanks for sharing this format I love Axios and this looks
| like a great tech focused 'smart brevity'-style
| hownottowrite wrote:
| Small retailer here and I can confirm similar dips. Basically
| it's pulling out a channel we can use for discovery ads which
| just leads us all back to making the same boring stuff to feed
| into the Amazon/Google searchplex.
|
| Hope everyone enjoys having the same of everything!
| neo1250 wrote:
| I heard Tim Cook say in one of his interviews (not quoting) ,
| businesses built on tracking users without their permission
| should find another things to do.
| csilverman wrote:
| The "without their permission" part can't be reiterated enough
| here.
|
| Apple didn't hurt Facebook. Apple simply gave its own users
| more control over what was happening, and people acted in their
| own best interests, as they have every right to do.
|
| If revealing the truth to people and giving them a choice
| worked out very badly for Facebook, I'd say that speaks vastly
| more about Facebook than it does about Apple.
| scatters wrote:
| Apple _explicitly barred_ Facebook from rewarding its users
| for opting in. Obviously this is done with the color of
| protecting its users (from, say, Facebook gating the entire
| functionality of its app behind the permission check) but it
| 's still a restraint on Facebook's freedom of trade.
| johncessna wrote:
| I think your second sentence is the one worth iterating ;)
|
| > Apple didn't hurt Facebook. Apple simply gave its own users
| more control over what was happening, and people acted in
| their own best interests, as they have every right to do.
|
| It's easier to attract allies with a narrative that Apple is
| attacking you than it is with the truth that 96% of apple
| users have opted out of your 'service.'
| abraae wrote:
| This is all chickens coming home to roost too.
|
| If FB had invested in some decent privacy switches and
| education - instead of trying to dark pattern everyone to
| just hand over everything - then they wouldn't be in this
| predicament, because people would already have settled on
| some suitable privacy settings.
|
| If it's true that 96% are opting out, that just shows what
| a terrible job FB have done at approaching privacy up until
| now. After all, why would people opt out of tracking if
| they trusted the service in the first place?
| kumarvvr wrote:
| Everything points to the fact that keeping users in the
| dark is their business model.
|
| Which, makes sense. The steady erosion of any control,
| the tiny sparks of "settings" to assuage some privacy
| issue brought out in the open, the behavior of Zuck in
| the Congress. It is amply clear that for FB to make
| money, it's users should have no choice.
| csilverman wrote:
| I think that's what offends me most about Facebook's
| whole ham-fisted victim routine. They adopted a business
| model that was dumbfoundingly, arrogantly unsustainable:
| trying to fool all of the people all of the time.
|
| Even the smartest, most devious minds in tech should have
| realized that that gravy train had a limit.
| scatters wrote:
| People are opting out because Apple have _explicitly
| barred_ Facebook from offering them anything as a reward
| for opting in (other than better targeted adverts, which
| most don 't see as a positive). Obviously if they didn't
| do this Facebook would use dark patterns (such as crudely
| gating the entire functionality of the app behind the
| opt-in) but it's disingenuous to say that this is a free
| exchange when one party is prevented from bringing
| anything to the table.
| csilverman wrote:
| That's an interesting way to look at it. If I understand
| Apple's position, it's that Facebook can't _deny_
| functionality based on privacy settings. But it 's less
| clear to me whether they're prohibited from offering
| something of actual value. Like if Facebook had a point
| system--"Facebucks"?--where users could buy stickers/apps
| in exchange for targeted ads, I wonder if Apple would
| permit that.
|
| That, I honestly wouldn't have an issue with. If people
| choose to sell their privacy for something they actually
| want, that's up to them. It's the shady coercive crap
| that I despise.
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| I also remember Steve Jobs say on stage that Apple tracks user
| behavior on their devices to inform their business strategy.
| "We know , we see the data" or something along those lines.
|
| All of Apples moves into services and many other interesting
| business decisions may theoretically be attributed to their
| surveillance of potential competitors on their devices.
|
| I would be curious to see the scale of their internal
| "tracking"
| InvertedRhodium wrote:
| Not sure why you're being downvoted - the current number one
| story on HN [1] is a list of IOS 0-days, one of which shows
| that the analytics data is collecting and reporting health
| metrics like heart rate, menstrual cycle length (?), and
| other somewhat less unusual information.
|
| 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28637276
| olliej wrote:
| And all is explicitly opt in
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| . . .During device set up, with soft language, amidst a
| slew of other settings that have a "default" big blue
| button that consents while a tiny text link that goes
| into "customise" settings.
|
| You should read the requirements and the user flow for
| App tracking transparency. Apple prohibits the permission
| dialog from firing more than three times in a long
| window. The default big button is negative consent. The
| language is "Ask app not to track"
|
| It's ridiculous that the owner of the platform gets to
| suppress competition that way without regulators getting
| involved.
| edoceo wrote:
| > Not sure why you're being downvoted
|
| Said something not positive about Lord Steve.
| saagarjha wrote:
| I believe CoreDuet information is not shared with Apple?
| viktorcode wrote:
| Apple is explicitly asking you for that information when you
| first activate your device or after updating to new OS.
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| If you're happy with that, then the same standard should
| apply to all apps on their platform.
|
| In reality, Apple adopts exactly the scummy UX practices
| for their permissions flow during device set up that they
| go out of their way to prohibit third party developers from
| using.
|
| They use language such as "share device analytics with
| Apple" which is broad amd covers pretty much everything
| while they have mandated under penalty of an App Store Ban,
| the explicit call out of every single use case of every
| single permission not just in the permission flow but also
| on the App Store page.
|
| While here we are, with no idea about the usage of core
| Apple "Analytics" for the things we know about, leave alone
| the undocumented data access such as their "Find My"
| network basically giving them the real world secret peer to
| peer network to identify everything from all the devices in
| your immediate neighborhood to every single person you've
| met within range of their proprietary radios carrying a
| compatible device.
|
| We don't know, because they refuse to have any transparency
| into their internal use of their data collection and
| analytics and id' argue, they can simply slip an update
| with an undocumented library that sends data off over this
| network even when you have everything turned off and
| permissions unconsented to because there is NO PERMISSION
| CONSENT for the Find my network as a simple example.
|
| "Privacy" from everyone who isn't Apple isn't "Privacy",
| it's an exploitative commercial practice that disadvantages
| competitors directly and disenfranchises customers for
| sheer lack of knowledge of the unknown infinity amount of
| ways this may be abused right now that we have no way of
| opting out of or discovering.
| nyuszika7h wrote:
| All analytics data collected by your iPhone is viewable
| under Settings -> Privacy -> Analytics & Improvements ->
| Analytics Data, or via a computer. None of it is hidden
| from you. And they have published privacy labels for
| their own apps a long time ago, so there's nothing
| inconsistent here.
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| Please show me the logs for the Find My network.
|
| It may help reading the whole comment. The analytics logs
| on device are not the complete picture of device
| information sent back to Apple servers and used for
| intelligence on device use.
| tyingq wrote:
| ...Unless they own both the tracking and the end user browser
| and/or device. Like Google, and Apple.
| tedjdziuba wrote:
| As a person who has been censored by Facebook for wrongthink,
| watching them stare down the barrel of Apple "being a private
| company, and doing what they want" is like watching a kid step on
| a lego brick that he refused to clean up.
| IntelMiner wrote:
| What is "facebook wrongthink"?
| franckl wrote:
| I have an example: I tried sending a Simpson gif of Flanders
| whipping himself to a friend on WhatsApp (1 to 1 message),
| whatsApp silently refused to send it....
| m0zg wrote:
| Apple, do please kneecap Google's advertising as well. In fact,
| eradicate unwanted advertising entirely and do what you did with
| Music - sell a subscription so I could browse the web without
| this bullshit, yet site owners would also get paid. Brave is
| trying to do this, but they lack the critical mass. Apple has the
| critical mass of basically everyone who has the money to spend,
| worldwide, as well as their credit card info.
| fabianhjr wrote:
| > sell a subscription so I could browse the web without this
| bullshit
|
| You don't need any subscription, just install uBlock Origin or
| whatever blocker works best and if you want to provide
| financial support those FOSS projects mostly accept donations.
| madars wrote:
| You can't have uBlock Origin (or anything similarly powerful)
| on iOS as all browsers are skins for Mobile Safari. But you
| can install Firefox with full extension support on Android!
| opinion-is-bad wrote:
| It's not uBlock, but I've found AdGuard to be very
| effective at blocking ads on mobile safari.
| fabianhjr wrote:
| Yeah, I have been using Firefox and uBlock Origin on mobile
| and I am amazed how other put up with the web without ad
| blockers
| m0zg wrote:
| That's what I already do, but the fact that publishers get
| zero from this is not lost on me.
| notriddle wrote:
| That's not a sustainable solution. You should definitely do
| it, because ad networks are cesspools of lies, fraud, and
| malware, but let's not pretend that it's an answer to the
| question of where the money to pay for all this cool stuff
| comes from.
| nomdep wrote:
| > You should definitely do it, because ad networks are
| cesspools of lies, fraud, and malware
|
| And that's after removing the ads
| fabianhjr wrote:
| It is the cost of their attempt of centralized monopolist
| platforms. From the P2P Foundation:
|
| > Centralization is required to capture profit.
| Disintermediating platforms were ultimately reintermediated
| by way of capitalist investors dictating that
| communications systems be designed to capture profit. [..]
| But servers require upkeep. Operators need to finance
| hosting and administration. As the Internet grew beyond its
| relatively small early base, Internet service came to be
| provided by capitalist corporations, rather than public
| institutions, small businesses, or universities. Open,
| decentralized services came to be replaced by private,
| centralized platforms. The profit interests of the platform
| financiers drove anti-disintermediation.
|
| https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Counter-Anti-
| Disintermediatio...
| dwaite wrote:
| Google's primary strategy is to build a relationship with you,
| learn everything about you while you interact with them, and be
| paid to tell you about stuff they think you would be interested
| in while you use their services.
|
| It is when you capture information across multiple contexts
| without a user relationship or user consent that Apple decided
| they needed to step in.
|
| Google's reaction to Apple changes is to move tactically to get
| users to log in for more base services. Facebook's reaction has
| been significantly less composed.
| etchalon wrote:
| I believe you're describing Apple News+
| m0zg wrote:
| Mainstream news is just naked propaganda, so I'd also like an
| option to pay them nothing, in the unlikely event such a
| subscription is actually available. They aren't doing it for
| money anyway, and whoever is paying for what they do will
| just continue paying, because they need manufactured consent.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| I got a request on spotify to continue tracking me. On some level
| I actually thought about saying yes if it meant spotify would get
| more revenue for my free consumption, and by proxy, musicians. I
| chose to say no. But I don't know if that was the right call. I
| don't care what spotify does with my data.
| nyuszika7h wrote:
| As far as I know, the amount Spotify pays to musicians is
| pretty low. I doubt musicians are losing out on much by users
| rejecting tracking.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| A quick check suggests maybe 1/11th of revenue is from
| advertising on spotify. Assuming musicians get a fixed share
| of this, and non targeted advertising revenue is small...
| yeah probably not a big drop.
| teekert wrote:
| All of this discussion is worthless without any transparency
| about the numbers (and I don't mean: FB's lost revenue). I'm
| still of the opinion that targeted advertising [0] (as opposed to
| context-aware advertising [1]) is a bunch of BS. So 80% of the
| traffic to Carousel came from FB, but how useful was it? Is there
| an actual drop in total visitors who spend money on products? And
| how is this across the market? Does this mean smaller companies
| are now getting a larger part of the interested people where as
| they couldn't pay for them before? Was FB anything more than a
| "pay us for traffic"-mafia?
|
| Is there any win for the tracked people, or were they just
| getting served ads for inferior products from companies that
| spend more on advertising instead of quality? I really hate
| reading these pieces without this information. It's really
| useless.
|
| [0]: Tracking and profiling based ads as FB offers
|
| [1]: Just show me a laptop ad when I'm reading a review of
| laptops, or shows me the latest Trek MTB on an MTB site.
| tjpnz wrote:
| Good. Facebook is a festering sore on civil society.
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| Facebook is evil.
|
| But Apple using that as an excuse to punish a competitor should
| equally terrify us all.
|
| Apple has made it clear that they prioritize "privacy" as long as
| it aligns with their profit making interests with actions not
| least including the attempt to scan on device content recently
| and their move to have different standards of compliance with the
| regime in China.
|
| They are consolidating significant technical power over people's
| lives and it's amazing how little concern there has been to them
| rolling out their own private network between devices without
| consent or opt out.
| MBCook wrote:
| I don't think Apple is trying to hurt a competitor. This is all
| very consistent with the stance they've been taking for a very
| long time.
|
| I think hurting Facebook is just a huge bit of serendipity.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > I think hurting Facebook is just a huge bit of serendipity.
|
| No no, its a definite move to kneecap a competitor.
|
| Facebook has _the_ corner in high value mobile advertising.
| Apple wants some of that.
|
| People don't like facebook, so will cheer when Apple does
| anything too them. They are doing the same thing to the maker
| of fortnight.
|
| The problem for the wider computing populace is that Apple is
| currently the best experience for users. It doesn't mean they
| are the best for competition. People have seen that Apple can
| get away with a semi curated capricious ecosystem, and will
| copy it.
|
| The future is apple shaped App stores. I'm not sure thats
| good for everyone.
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| Why Apple didn't then restrict the use of the clipboard and
| make no fuss about it after TikTok was found to be sniffing
| the user clipboard, astounds me.
| sosborn wrote:
| https://mobilesyrup.com/2020/07/23/ios-14-clipboard-apps-
| sno...
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| Yes, a link without a statement is not helpful. I'm fully
| aware of Apples response to TikTok's use of user
| clipboards without their knowledge.
|
| All Apple did was incorporate a snitch notification for
| when an app pasted from clipboard.
|
| Contrast that with their approach to permissions and
| privacy in developer documentation which gates sensitive
| functionality behind dialogs that let users "Allow",
| "Allow while using" or "Don't allow"
|
| No criticism, nothing. Even the change is not very
| helpful if it doesn't explicitly prohibit the abuse, only
| throws a temporary pop up when abused.
| wmeredith wrote:
| I agree. Apple is doing right by their users by empowering
| them and informing them. This hurts Facebook because their
| business model relies on ignorance and obfuscation. It's
| collateral damage.
| busymom0 wrote:
| I used to believe that but after their latest privacy
| debacle with the CSAM stuff and their tone deaf responses,
| it's clear to me that Apple used other act as a marketing
| shtick and nothing more.
| lmm wrote:
| When developers inform users how big Apple's cut of IAPs
| is, and empower them to pay a different way, we see how
| much Apple actually cares about empowering and informing
| users. This is a business move plain and simple.
| cronix wrote:
| I really doubt most users have even thought about or give
| a hoot about where fees are going for products they are
| buying on Apples platform. If the argument is "the
| product would cost 30% less" sure, they'd probably care.
| But that's not the argument. It's the relatively few
| (compared to users) developers and companies selling apps
| that are losing that money that care and are vocal about
| it. They would rather keep it for themselves. The end
| user really doesn't even figure into the equation when it
| comes to Apple transaction fees on their platform,
| because it doesn't affect them.
| chillacy wrote:
| I think the parent poster is pointing out an apparent
| hypocrisy: Apple has rules which prohibit app developers
| from disclosing the apple cut in their apps, or even
| offering discounted off-platform purchase options within
| the app. Apple I think wants to keep their experience
| very high quality, but this could be interpreted as not
| "empowering" or "informing" them.
| simondotau wrote:
| This is a disingenuous analogy because the costs to the
| developer are already reflected in the total price
| offered to the consumer. This is how stores work. No
| market that I know of makes a point of showing wholesale
| prices to retail customers.
|
| This cut is a business relationship between Apple and the
| developer. Apple's developer contracts mean that Apple is
| entitled to a cut of revenues even if a different payment
| gateway is used. So it's not like the consumer could be
| offered a lower cost payment option anyway. This was
| affirmed by the Judge in Epic v Apple recently.
| lmm wrote:
| > This is a disingenuous analogy because the costs to the
| developer are already reflected in the total price
| offered to the consumer. This is how stores work. No
| market that I know of makes a point of showing wholesale
| prices to retail customers.
|
| I've often bought something off Amazon (or even in a
| physical shop) and had it come with a flyer for the
| manufacturer's own site, or a catalogue for ordering
| accessories from them directly. Plenty of hotels make a
| point of saying "this is what it costs if you book with
| us directly".
|
| > So it's not like the consumer could be offered a lower
| cost payment option anyway.
|
| Then why are Apple so scared of letting customers know
| the facts?
| simondotau wrote:
| Amazon and other retailers are free to not sell products
| if they don't want to. Entirely up to them. The
| relationship between booking sites and hotels is vastly
| different to Apple and app developers.
|
| I doubt Apple would have had a problem with developers
| noting the 15/30% store fee if it wasn't being done for
| such obviously disingenuous purposes. It's all well and
| good to argue the reasonableness of such allowances in
| theory, but here, context is everything.
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| If it's disingenuous, LET THE USERS DECIDE ! Like Steve
| Jobs said. . . Ask them! Every time! And make it clear!
|
| What's disingenuous to you is remarkably a standard
| business practice for a tax or a fee of any kind. Buying
| an airplane ticket? If there are fees and charges , guess
| what? They get called out so you have a choice.
|
| Buying an iPhone in most parts of the world? Guess what
| happens when you go to check out? You see the "Includes
| Tax of xx%" there so you have the information.
|
| This should not even be an argument in this day and age,
| but unfortunately, here we are. Market conditions and
| rules of engagement around competition should NOT be
| dictated by large companies. There is a line in the sand
| where Apples platform ends and the real world begins.
| It's ridiculous that they have been allowed to get away
| with saying "If you do ANYTHING on our platform, you
| agree to hamper your business voluntarily in EVERY OTHER
| PLATFORM you choose to participate in". Do it, or don't
| do business with us. That's anti competitive and has been
| finally called out by at least one judge so far in the
| Epic case.
| simondotau wrote:
| The entirety of your post is a flagrant _non sequitur._
| You seem to be oddly obsessed with this issue so I'll
| leave you to it.
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| "This is a totally disingenuous argument because the data
| that Facebook collects is embedded in their privacy
| policy and extends to any platform that you use Facebook
| on. This is how business relationships work. I don't know
| what good would come of showing another permissions
| dialog on Apple devices" /s
|
| I don't know who you are, but the level of defense you're
| mounting for Apple makes it clear that you are not a
| neutral party. This is the first time i've heard someone
| argue in good faith that _any_ market gets to dictate to
| independent sellers how they display their price
| breakdowns.
| simondotau wrote:
| I don't agree with your fake quote and I don't agree with
| your description of developers as "independent sellers"
| when in fact they are not the seller. If you don't like
| Apple's developer agreement, take it up with Judge Rogers
| who affirmed all but one sentence of it.
| mpalmer wrote:
| Are you saying you don't support a user's ability to opt out of
| tracking?
| beardyw wrote:
| If Facebook no longer find providing a service on that
| platform to be profitable, they could just stop providing it,
| or more likely, corner Apple into banning them. I think at
| that point people might realise that tracking is a form of
| payment that they have opted out of.
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| Why would you draw that conclusion unless you want to pigeon
| hole a complex position into a boolean strawman?
|
| Do i support a users ability to opt out? Of course.
|
| I could pose the same question to you: Do you support a users
| ability to opt out of Apples tracking in the same way they
| opt out of App tracking?
|
| The App tracking guidelines mandate that multiple apps owned
| by the same developer still need to ask for permissions EVERY
| SINGLE TIME. Contrast that with Apple only asking for a soft
| share permission once during device setup and extending that
| across a wide swath of apps within a category like "Device
| analytics" which covers everything from what apps you're
| using, what networks you're connecting to, your use of the
| one device radios etc.
|
| App tracking transparency also forces the big default button
| in the permission flow being the "Ask App Not to track" link.
| While, for their own permission requests, Apple has a big
| blue button that opts users in. This by itself causes an opt-
| in rate of <10% for external apps and near 90% for Apples
| internal dialogs. Lets place the same UX requirements for
| Apples own internal tracking dialogs please.
|
| And we haven't even begun to discuss the undocumented
| services or APIs that have no permissions gating them. The
| "Find My" network? Do you know how Apple uses data of nearby
| devices? Isn't that EXACTLY what they're claiming to clamp
| down on from the likes of Google And FB cross device tracking
| while doing it themselves for a different end outcome
| seemingly justifying it?
| [deleted]
| GeekyBear wrote:
| >Apple using that as an excuse to punish a competitor
|
| Steve Jobs in 2010 being asked how Apple's view on privacy
| differs from Facebook's view (right after one of the early
| Facebook scandals)
|
| >Privacy means people know what they're signing up for, in
| plain English, and repeatedly. That's what it means. I'm an
| optimist, I believe people are smart. And some people want to
| share more data than other people do. Ask them. Ask them every
| time. Make them tell you to stop asking them if they get tired
| of your asking them. Let them know precisely what you're going
| to do with their data.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39iKLwlUqBo
| gigel82 wrote:
| They should get off their high horse for a bit, or at least
| level the playing field: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoe
| tsier/2020/08/07/apple-a...
| GeekyBear wrote:
| They've already added an explicit prompt for that.
| datavirtue wrote:
| Best news in weeks.
| throwawaymanbot wrote:
| On one hand they do us all a solid by removing FacePuke from our
| phones in a meaningful way. But then they ruin that by
| implementing the infrastructure of Surveillance on our phones
| under the guise of the CSAM stuff.
|
| So was Apple removing FB simply because it sees value in its
| ability to be the sole arbiter of content/habits/data on your
| phone?
| fleddr wrote:
| "People are opting out of Facebook's tracking for a reason: they
| no longer trust the company with their data after years of
| evidence they should not."
|
| Alternatively, this is the first time mainstream users are able
| at all to opt-out. I would strongly suspect users opt-out in any
| case, for any app, regardless of trust history.
| vln wrote:
| Yeah, I opt out by default.
| mwexler wrote:
| Economists talk of the public good, ethicists and privacy folks
| talk of a right to privacy of a citizen (in some countries, at
| least)... but has anyone had an actual "experience improvement"
| from all this blocking? Do you see less ads or "better" ones? Has
| your business picked up due to this change, in that poor-but-
| targeted ads have ceased and "contextually relevant" ads let your
| business thrive?
|
| That is, this action by Apple should have remedied some consumer
| harm. While de-anonymyzation of advertising data could reveal, in
| some cases, identities and geo-behaviors, this seemed proof of
| concept more than actual impacts.
|
| In looking at my own iphone use, the blocking has not resulted in
| any improvement in ad frequency, relevance, or enjoyment. My
| android ads on my tablet have also not shown any measurable
| improvement. The businesses I help are not benefitting from this
| change.
|
| So, other than the satisfaction of "job well done, privacy is
| preserved", has anyone found any direct improvement to user
| experience from this action? I know none was really expected,
| that wasn't the point, but just wondering what the HN community
| has experienced so far.
| [deleted]
| helen___keller wrote:
| I would be very surprised if anybody found an experience
| improvement, considering there are still ads.
|
| That doesn't do to justify tracking, however.
|
| Fun thought experiment: suppose that Facebook served fewer ads
| to those who clicked to allow tracking, on the basis that the
| ads are worth more, and served more ads otherwise. Which do you
| think consumers would prefer to choose on average? This isn't
| rhetorical, I genuinely wonder because I don't know how much
| people actually care about tracking versus just picking "don't
| track me" as an easy win.
| gigel82 wrote:
| I'd like to see the look on everyone's face (who's now acting
| like Apple is this benevolent company looking out for their
| interest and privacy) when they'll launch their own Ad business
| in a couple of years; I'll eat my hat if Apple doesn't become one
| of the biggest Ad companies up there with Google and FB in a few
| years.
|
| They're just being proactive about weeding out the competition
| from their platforms.
| floatingatoll wrote:
| Apple and Amazon both seem to ignore you if you don't do business
| with them. If they sell you things, they obviously keep track of
| that. Amazon's ads are really intrusive and give away my Amazon
| search history. Facebook and Google doxx you in order to exploit
| your weaknesses.
|
| It's each of our choice how to interpret that and respond to it,
| whether with "who cares" or "that's terrifying" or "bury gold" or
| whatever.
|
| But it's important to recognize that, at the core, this mandatory
| tracking question is curtailing the business of an entire
| category of startup that we've mostly forgotten. DoubleClick.
|
| I didn't understand that DoubleClick would lead to this nightmare
| of being stalked by hawkers. I do not like where we have ended
| up. May their business chip and shatter.
| Ozzie_osman wrote:
| I've actually (anecdotally) seen the opposite. Before, you could
| very accurately track your ROI on your ad spend. Now, it's much
| harder to do, so Facebook spend starts looking more like
| traditional marketing where the age old quote "Half of my
| advertising spend is wasted, I don't know which half" applies.
|
| What does this mean? Some agencies and brands spend MORE because
| there's no clean data telling them their spend isn't working.
| They're just shooting in the dark. Over time, you can in
| aggregate tell which campaigns and ads work and which don't, but
| the iterations and experiments take longer and are more
| expensive.
|
| I don't know how long that's sustainable. But traditional
| advertising has been doing that ruse for decades.
| bryan_w wrote:
| That's exactly what I said would happen. Big companies can do
| their own "Nelson" research and know how to tune their ads. As
| a result, they are willing to increase their bids over the less
| informed small businesses who now have to resort to a spray and
| pray approach.
|
| People never stopped to consider that FB would be fine with the
| changes and was genuine in their pleas for small businesses.
| xivzgrev wrote:
| That's an interesting point. Ive seen CPMs rising, almost like
| people were spending more, but wasn't sure why that may be.
|
| Also the article missed a few big points.
|
| 1) There's really not much you can do in diversifying your
| channel mix - this change affects any paid platform.
|
| 2) what you can do is spend more on Android, which hasn't (yet)
| lost the tracking
|
| 3) Facebook is working on work arounds, like a conversion API,
| where the data is matched on hashed PII. Other platforms
| without that rich, accurate PII will struggle a bit more.
| yuppie_scum wrote:
| Fuck Facebook.
| stalfosknight wrote:
| I'll drink to that!
| [deleted]
| MBCook wrote:
| Good. The website imore reported earlier this year that 96% of
| people in the US had opted out of tracking.
|
| It's almost as if no one wants this "feature" Facebook has been
| "providing" and given information about it and a choice have
| roundly rejected it.
|
| I can't wait to see what some of Apple's other initiatives like
| the anti-tracking features in Mail on iOS 15 and the upcoming
| iCloud Private Relay do to the industry.
|
| Hell, US intelligence agencies block ads at the network level
| because the ad industry is so infested with
| tracking/malware/spyware/exploits/etc. That's a hell of an
| indictment.
|
| Of course any time someone looks into it they find that that
| click-rate fraud is at outrageous levels. So maybe no one needs
| Apple. The fraud bots will keep the ecosystem running. /s
|
| https://www.imore.com/96-iphone-users-have-opted-out-app-tra...
|
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/93ypke/the-nsa-and-cia-use-a...
| xivzgrev wrote:
| It's also worth mentioning that apples prompt gives no benefit
| to tracking. It basically just asks "Facebook wants to track
| you. OPT OUT, or not". Who is going to agree to that?
|
| If Apple gave developers a way to add a benefit or two, eg
| personalized experience or whatever, I bet we would see that %
| be much lower
| nielsbot wrote:
| FB was toying with adding a screen before Apple's prompt:
| "Here's why tracking is good, actually." Wonder what happened
| to that.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| My "allow apps to _ask_ to track " setting defaulted to off,
| too. Not sure what determines that, but in my case, I never
| even got the option to opt-in; the dialog never comes up
| because apps aren't even allowed to try asking me.
|
| I'm presumably in that 96%, but it wasn't an explicit choice.
| (I'd have opted-out, obviously.)
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > My "allow apps to ask to track" setting defaulted to off,
| too.
|
| I have an employer profile on my phone for email/internal
| app/etc and one of the things this does is force this
| setting off.
| Terretta wrote:
| There's [essentially] no contentful benefit to any major
| site's tracking any more, [almost] nothing is
| 'collaboratively filtered" and "personalized" around the
| content and your interests, [by and large] only around ad
| placement performance or conversion.
|
| The only remaining arguable benefit is that you will see
| "more relevant" ads, in other words, instead of seeing ads
| from whoever pays the most for your [well guessed]
| demographic, you'll see endless "retargeted" begging for you
| to buy the thing you ordered last week.
| Jensson wrote:
| Does Apple use the same prompt for their own services
| tracking? If not, why don't they?
| dangerface wrote:
| The only problem with that is that tracking the end user only
| helps the developer not the end user.
| random292929 wrote:
| Why does then Apple have a Ad service?. Should they not be
| tracking nothing?
| nielsbot wrote:
| FWIW, iAd for third-party apps was shut down. They still
| sells adds for Apple News and the App Store.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAd
|
| Selling search ads on the App Store kinda sucks--I wish they
| hadn't done that.
| klodolph wrote:
| Different ad services provide different levels of targeting,
| based on the data that different platforms collect about
| consumers and what those platforms are willing to let you use
| for targeting.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| What ad service? App Store ads? Those are based only on the
| actual search term.
| moogly wrote:
| https://mobiledevmemo.com/apple-privileges-its-own-ad-
| networ...
| dialtone wrote:
| No they aren't. Here
| https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-
| advertisin... have a nice read.
|
| But summary is they use a bunch of stuff about the device
| (past purchases, location, fingerprinting-like data such as
| carrier and so on) and your usage of a bunch of apps like
| apple news and stocks.
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| If you set brand image aside and just think about the
| huge amounts of money at stake, it becomes obvious that
| the whole app tracking transparency thing is just Apple
| taking over the ad market on iOS. They invented the term
| "cross app tracking" and defined it to not include their
| own conversion tracking through their various apps to
| purchases of their advertisers' products via Apple Pay.
| Then they forced their ad-sales competitors to send all
| their conversion data to Apple, while providing separate
| APIs with richer data to their own advertisers.
| jeromegv wrote:
| Beside AppStore ads, how can I buy ads from Apple for the
| Apple ecosystem to replace Facebook ads?
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| Apple is also selling app install ads in the News and
| Stocks apps. Tens of billions of dollars are spent on app
| install ads on iOS each year, so this is a very lucrative
| market for Apple if they can corner it (and probably
| necessary if they are going to achieve expected Services
| revenue growth in the years to come). It remains to be
| seen whether they'll take another crack at the rest of
| the ad market, after the failure of iAd. They seem to be
| laying the groundwork for it.
| kergonath wrote:
| They should stop advertising, they created a conflict of
| interest for themselves. That said, they do not track across
| applications: they don't need to.
| simonh wrote:
| A company keeping records of it's own interactions with it's
| customers is fine, nobody is arguing against that.
|
| The problem is companies selling customer data to each other
| and snooping on customer activity outside the company's own
| web site or app. This is what is meant by tracking and Apple
| doesn't do this in their ad service.
|
| It seems like what Apple is doing is trying to cripple
| tracking for other ad services to make their own service more
| competitive.
| scatters wrote:
| That's how you end up with a single megacorp that does
| everything.
| [deleted]
| LexGray wrote:
| Even when that company is responsible for more than half of
| the mobile software installs in the US?
|
| Amazon and Google have abused this data in the past to
| undercut the competition with their own better promoted
| offerings and make purchase decisions with data the
| competition just could not have access to.
| ryan93 wrote:
| Facebook doesnt sell data they sell access to demographics
| generated based on data.
| simonh wrote:
| First that's like saying a bar that gives away drinks
| with every bag of peanuts isn't selling alcohol. The fact
| that ad was only shown to a specific demographic reveals
| that the person clicking it is in that demographic.
|
| But second, sure they didn't sell it, they gave it away.
| Facebook claims the data delivered to Cambridge Analytica
| wasn't sold. No, it was given away because facebook
| calculates that it benefits from research which improves
| targeting on their platform. Nobody is fooled by any of
| this, unless they choose to be.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > reveals that the person clicking it is in that
| demographic.
|
| But you don't know who that person is [ until they create
| an account or give you info ]
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > It seems like what Apple is doing is trying to cripple
| tracking for other ad services to make their own service
| more competitive.
|
| This is exactly what they're doing to FB and i hope FB wins
| a maassive anti-competative suit. I hope they still don't
| get to track but i hope apple is given a slap on the wrist.
| rickdeckard wrote:
| >> ...snooping on customer activity outside the company's
| own web site or app. This is what is meant by tracking and
| Apple doesn't do this in their ad service.
|
| I'm sure Apple is going to offer exactly that, as the
| conversion-rate data of an Ad into an actual purchase
| elsewhere is where the big Ad-money is. Apple will just do
| all that without handing off any data to another party,
| providing only the persona of an end-user to the Ad-
| customer.
|
| Their dilemma is that doing this today at an "Apple-price"
| has limited competitive value to Advertisers. But if Apple
| cripples the competition to become the ONLY company able to
| provide such data, they suddenly become a mandatory
| supplier for every Ad-campaign in the world, as only Apple
| will be able to provide effective Ad-analytics on iOS.
|
| >> It seems like what Apple is doing is trying to cripple
| tracking for other ad services to make their own service
| more competitive.
|
| Exactly. Which should be a strong sign that regulation is
| urgently required, but somehow people still are stuck on
| the wrong narrative.
| simonh wrote:
| Legislation to ban tracking and respect customer privacy?
| Yes, absolutely. Discipline and integrity in this area
| should be the standard.
| tangjurine wrote:
| > Of course any time someone looks into it they find that that
| click-rate fraud is at outrageous levels. So maybe no one needs
| Apple. The fraud bots will keep the ecosystem running.
|
| Could this be why ad recommendations are so bad? Recommendation
| engines being trained on (mostly fraudulent) click-through
| rates instead of ROI?
|
| Edit: It seems like it would be just a little more work to
| check both, but often incentives aren't aligned to doing the
| best work...
| avalys wrote:
| People "want" the free content and services that this
| advertising has been paying for. And the actual consequences of
| Apple's decision for users and small businesses that rely on
| efficient advertising to connect with users will take time to
| become clear.
| Lio wrote:
| Apple have not stopped advertising or user tracking.
|
| They've just made apps behave in an upfront honest way by
| letting the user know about it and giving the user the option
| to stop it.
| amelius wrote:
| > People "want" the free content and services that this
| advertising has been paying for.
|
| Eventually people pay for advertising.
|
| First, we pay with our data, and then we pay for the ads too
| (in the form of more expensive products). We pay twice!
|
| And people don't want these services as most are perfectly
| fine without them.
| boloust wrote:
| Is the data valuable without ads to monetize it?
| caskstrength wrote:
| > People "want" the free content and services that this
| advertising has been paying for. And the actual consequences
| of Apple's decision for users and small businesses that rely
| on efficient advertising to connect with users will take time
| to become clear.
|
| You are being downvoted, but I agree in principle. This is
| why I have multi-tier privacy protections (NextDNS, uBlock
| Origin, etc.) but subscribe to services that offer paid
| subscription (YouTube, several news sites, etc.).
| Unfortunately, FB doesn't give users that choice.
| nielsbot wrote:
| Nobody is banning advertising. They're letting people opt out
| of tracking advertisements/data brokering.
|
| Just stick with content ads.
| random292929 wrote:
| Yeah. But HN audience are people with good disposable income.
| So its say for them to say pay for it.
| smilebot wrote:
| Anecdotal, but I am people so I think it's fair. I never went
| back to "free" tv after Switching over to Netflix and Hulu.
| Beldin wrote:
| I was quite shocked to learn that when US cable tv was a
| new thing, one of its advertising thrusts was that there
| were no ads.
|
| Not being in the US, I don't know what the situation is
| precisely. But I do know that a "1 hour" tv show is over
| after 42 minutes... apparently, cable went from almost no
| ads to 1/3rd ads.
|
| I moderate my long-term expectations for streaming
| accordingly.
| calgoo wrote:
| Depends on the channel too. I was visiting the US and
| tried to watch history channel show. The ads made it
| unwatchable; there where literally a break in the ads to
| show what was coming up on the show I had been watching
| for 20 min before going back to ads. Felt like they where
| saying: " don't forget you where watching this". Never
| going to watch cable without a dvr again (still annoying
| but better).
| fouc wrote:
| Taking advantage of humanity's cognitive bias towards seeking
| free & convenient services while ignoring the fine print or
| the long term consequences is still exploitation.
|
| Frankly, hidden externalities should be illegal.
| judge2020 wrote:
| It's an externality, but certainly not hidden.
| brokenmachine wrote:
| >Frankly, hidden externalities should be illegal.
|
| I'd love to see how the lawyers would phrase that one.
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| No,they want content that advertising paid for and are
| totalky fine with advertising. They just don't want
| surveillance or "efficiency" as you call it.
|
| So what changes? Currently you can buy ads and you can buy
| surveillance, which costs about 3x as much. If surveillance
| stops being an option, there is no reason to believe prices
| for ads won't change. However, even if they didn't the only
| thing that would happen is that ads replace surveillance and
| the number and size of ads might change a bit. The end. Why
| is this a big deal to you?
| Pabdk wrote:
| Did people "want" a thousand dollar phone?
|
| People are dumb as hell. Most people just do, say and think
| what the people around them do, say and think.
|
| Information asymmetry within the chimp troupe is at all time
| highs and those who have info exploit those who dont. Fact of
| life.
| donw wrote:
| You mean... they might need to charge money in exchange for
| goods and/or services?
|
| How capitalistically gauche!
| warkdarrior wrote:
| Good. This will just accelerate the shift to crypto, where
| I can pay per page or per click, just tiny amount at a
| time.
| IAmLiterallyAB wrote:
| "shift to crypto" mmm that seems unlikely
| jeffgreco wrote:
| $0.15 for the page and $50.00 for the gas fee.
| keymone wrote:
| Twitter has announced support for lightning. Why would
| anyone use eth when streamable money in isolated payment
| channels on top of the most secure monetary network in
| the world exists, is beyond me.
| yokem55 wrote:
| Because rollups exist on Ethereum that are cheap and are
| far more suited to end user self-custody then lightning
| ever can be. At the moment zk-rollups are roughly 100x
| cheaper then mainnet, don't require the user to run a
| node to self custody, and the user can force a withdrawal
| to mainnet even if the roll-up operator completely dies.
| keymone wrote:
| Right, you're only missing one important detail:
|
| > on top of the most secure monetary network
|
| Because eth is a circus: major cult of personality
| issues, major scalability issues, monetary policy is all
| over the place, changed at a whim of god knows who or in
| reaction to past shortsightedness and a planned
| transition away from the one thing that keeps at least
| some semblance of stability - PoW towards even less
| politically stable rich-get-richer PoS, being sold as
| scalability solution without having anything to do with
| scalability at all.
|
| It's a joke.
| donw wrote:
| The problem is twofold:
|
| 1. I want to look around and find what is useful for me.
| I'm not willing to spend very much money per unit of
| information, because I'm sifting through a bunch of crap.
|
| 2. For stuff that is valuable, I'm willing to pay, but I
| can't tell if something is valuable until I look at it in
| its totality.
| macintux wrote:
| I've been holding out hope for at least 15 years that
| Apple would find a way to make micropayments work for
| news. I pay for a few subscriptions, but I'd happily pay
| a little bit for news items I read elsewhere.
| DevKoala wrote:
| People don't "want" the free content at the cost of privacy
| infringing surveillance and toxic behavior manipulation.
|
| These companies need to find a better business model,
| otherwise they are about to go the way of the dodo.
| arcticbull wrote:
| I'm honestly not sure we've proven that. All this
| experiment shows is 96% of people want something for free
| (without ads) and 4% of people feel bad about taking
| something for free.
|
| I don't want the tracking either, but not badly enough to
| stop using the free services I get.
|
| I think most people probably actually feel this way, but I
| don't have data to back my assertion.
| iainmerrick wrote:
| 96% of people want something for free, sure; but these
| are iPhone users, so they've already paid extra money for
| a premium product.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| At the moment you can't really pay for Facebook. A fair
| experiment would be for FB to launch a premium version
| with no ads/spying for a monthly fee equivalent to their
| average revenue per user in that country and see how many
| people sign up.
| learc83 wrote:
| The problem with that is that the premium users then
| become a more valuable ad target, and the free users less
| valuable. So you have to charge even more making them
| even more valuable. Eventually you reach some
| equilibrium. But by this point the premium users are such
| an attractive ad target that the platform eventually
| starts sneaking in an occasional ad, and then more
| frequently etc...
|
| Cable TV used to be ad free when it started out.
|
| HBO is probably the best counterexample, but if you look
| at what they're doing with HBO max, even they might not
| be able to resist forever.
| handrous wrote:
| We can't know what the Web would look like without spying,
| data-moated giants wandering the landscape, making everything
| "free". The thing about a "free" spying service is that it
| competes with paid services _and with actually-free ones_.
| There 's a reason open protocols have stagnated over the last
| couple decades--it's less rewarding to work on and promote a
| free, open social network based Email + a hypercharged,
| dynamic, living and evolving RSS (or whatever, maybe
| Mastadon, who knows) when the competition is Facebook and
| Twitter, and they're both "free" and the teams you're
| competing with are funded at eight, nine, or even ten
| figures.
| danijelb wrote:
| I think there's a possibility it would resemble similar
| industries like mobile services - you would subscribe to a
| social media service provider of your choice and you'd use
| their service which is interoperable with other social
| media service providers. They could sell different monthly
| plans with some amount of allowed photo/video uploads,
| messages, etc. To us it might sound strange now, but it
| would feel entirely normal to people in a world who never
| experienced free services powered by spying. Not sure if
| that would be better or worse than what we have now.
| learc83 wrote:
| That's almost exactly how Usenet worked back when I was a
| kid.
| FranksTV wrote:
| And let's not forget that every time some promising
| alternative appears Facebook either fast follows (i.e.
| plagiarizes) it, or buys it and buries it in a hole
| somewhere.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Has Facebook ever done this to an alternative that wasn't
| just 'Facebook 2', ie. it would have solved the problems
| and grievances people here have with the Facebook
| platform?
| tobylane wrote:
| Hard to say, as many of the industry's more famous
| acquisitions/destructions were before any effective
| attempts to monetise.
| annadane wrote:
| This. That's the problem. It's not just one company
| unfairly being screwed by Apple. They've lied about
| everything else.
| dylan604 wrote:
| That's one way to look at it, and it's easy to see that
| conclusion. Nobody wants to pay for anything they don't have
| to, so it is a fair conclusion.
|
| However, it could also be that people are sick and tired of
| having all of the data collected with no control over how it
| is used. It could be initially used for one thing, but then
| re-accessed later when something new the data is determined
| useful. It could even be used by a different company than
| what originally collected it.
|
| When asked in a manner that makes it obvious it is tracking,
| people clearly are saying no. When phrased in a manner like
| 'allow us to offer you deals', as it has been in the past, it
| is less obvious and people have just shrugged their shoulders
| and said "whatevs just stop bugging me".
| judge2020 wrote:
| That's a good observation but it remains that no amount of
| hosts are going to foot the bill of a billion Facebook
| users without some serious societal shift to people
| realizing they can 'say no to tracking' if they give up
| real dollars.
| TrueDuality wrote:
| The vast majority of the actual content of the internet is
| provided by people for free to the internet in general. Even
| your post right now that I disagree with, you likely didn't
| get paid to post.
|
| That content on Facebook that keeps people coming back? It's
| not the ads or deals; What keeps people coming back is what
| their friends, families, and idols post. They're effectively
| generating content for Facebook which they are then profiting
| off of "for free".
|
| The straw man argument here is that Facebook is providing the
| platform and that is how people are compensated for their
| content. It's kind of fair, but it's been wildly abused.
| There are competitors, but it's the lock in and invasion that
| has given Facebook it's value not choice.
|
| There is no informed opt-in, discussion or debate about the
| value you provide to Facebook in exchange for the value they
| get out of you. That is the cash-cow Facebook has been
| milking and when given an informed choice people are now
| saying, "No, I'm worth more than this garbage."
|
| I'm tearing into Facebook because that's the target of this
| post but that content is provided on every platform. The
| value is in what the users are providing not the platform.
| Reddit, Hacker News, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
| Snapchat, Google _Everything_. The content is provided by the
| users for free to the platforms. The marketing content is
| _noise_ that people complain about and do not want.
| darkmatterrat wrote:
| > The vast majority of the actual content of the internet
| is provided by people for free to the internet in general.
|
| That maybe provided for free. However the hosting
| infrastructure is paid typically by advertising.
| yunohn wrote:
| This is absolutely true. Someone needs to pay for the
| development and infrastructure. Even if open source, real
| people and machines need to exist for actual value.
|
| NB: I vouched for your comment - not sure why people
| flagged it.
| kaczordon wrote:
| Idk I find myself scrolling on Instagram and being more
| interested in the ads they show then some of the content I
| see. People want to see ads for cool things, there's a
| reason places like Pinterest are big.
| rdiddly wrote:
| On Instagram the content itself resembles ads. It's not
| hard for me to imagine that an ad for something you could
| actually buy might be more interesting than an ad for
| some dork's fake online persona you can buy into.
| Jordrok wrote:
| I honestly cannot fathom this opinion. I literally cannot
| think of a single instance where I've ever seen an ad and
| thought "Yes, I'm glad that I'm seeing this instead of
| the content I came here for." If that's true, why bother
| even going on Instagram at all?
|
| I'll admit that I don't use Pinterest, but from what I
| understand, it's main feature is being a place for user-
| curated image collections, yes? That's very different
| than algorithmically distributed, paid-for ads.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Well, if ads were never relevant, people would never
| click them and purchase the products they link to, and
| CPMs would be $0. The vast majority of people I know
| either run an ad blocker or don't click ads - but a lot
| of people do, especially if the ad provides some discount
| on an item they viewed last week. I even got a free Nest
| Mini one time from clicking an official Google store ad.
| yunohn wrote:
| > The value is in what the users are providing not the
| platform. Reddit, Hacker News, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter,
| Instagram, Snapchat, Google Everything. The content is
| provided by the users for free to the platforms.
|
| What is missing from your rant is, why would any platform
| exist then? Nobody is building them without expecting to
| profit off the mutual relationship. I never understand the
| POV that everything should somehow magically be provided
| for free. You want a BBForum, go right ahead. But every
| platform you listed is significantly more complex than
| that.
| _Understated_ wrote:
| > But every platform you listed is significantly more
| complex than that.
|
| I'd agree with that on the surface but those platforms
| you listed are basically forums with a new name! They
| provide very little over and above that. So, in actual
| fact, they're only made more complex as a result of rules
| added by the owners to squeeze as much data from every
| visitor as is legally (and illegally in some cases)
| allowed! So they provide nothing of value above a regular
| forum imo.
|
| In reality, they are lists of submissions from end users
| that have been categorized, however the categorization
| engine happens to be algorithmically generated, rather
| than ordered by date. And the companies themselves are
| doing whatever it takes to monetize your eyeballs
| regardless of whether it affects your health or not! They
| are abusing every visitor to the maximum extent that the
| laws allow!
|
| Their business model is to centralize all forums on their
| platform and for that there is a massive cost at that
| scale. That's their choice to host all forums! However to
| pay for that they are abusing every visitor.
|
| Using Reddit, a single forum about Ubuntu (/r/Ubuntu)
| would cost around $5 a month on DO for someone to host
| themselves. Using something like BBForum or something
| similar would not require much in the way of maintenance.
|
| The point I am making is that all this stuff existed long
| before the big tech platforms. It can easily exist
| without them too. They are not actually providing
| anything of any worth that couldn't easily be found
| elsewhere (well, used to be found elsewhere!).
| yunohn wrote:
| > They provide very little over and above that.
|
| For people who love BBForums (like HN tbh), everything
| may seem "like a forum". But that is very reductive and
| uninspired.
|
| There are various features provided by Snapchat (camera,
| filters, games) and FB (marketplace, messenger) that
| nobody would ever compare to a BBForum/Wikipedia. They
| are inherently complex and valuable to the majority of
| their users.
| _Understated_ wrote:
| > There are various features provided by Snapchat
| (camera, filters, games)
|
| Of course, these are addons to the platform. But the
| platform is still the same fundamental application as a
| forum. Nothing more.
| yunohn wrote:
| I don't think anyone would agree that Snapchat is a
| forum. It's primarily for direct (media) messages, and
| the company themselves considers them a camera app.
| _Understated_ wrote:
| > and the company themselves considers them a camera app.
|
| Doesn't matter what the company calls themselves, it's a
| forum that people upload phone pics to and those
| photos/images are then displayed in an algorithmic form
| (used to be chronological with forums)... same as a
| forum!
|
| Remember, Google is an advertising company but they'd
| consider themselves more of an engineering or search
| company... doesn't mean they're right!
|
| Edit: Forgot to ask, how do Snapchat make their money? Is
| it all through advertising? It's a genuine question, I
| don't use it and have no idea! If it's all advertising
| revenue then they're an advertising company like Google
| and Facebook!
| yunohn wrote:
| > I don't use it and have no idea
|
| There is no forum aspect to Snapchat. I don't think you
| should be arguing about this topic, without having used
| it. G'day!
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _There are various features provided by Snapchat
| (camera, filters, games) and FB (marketplace, messenger)
| that nobody would ever compare to a BBForum /Wikipedia._
|
| Yeah. That's because all those features used to be
| separate applications, not tied to BBForum/Wikipedia
| engine. They're all complex, but they're also
| _orthogonal_ to the platform, and their implementations
| are pretty much commodities.
|
| The only value provided here is by integration with
| platform (particularly UX-wise). Which seems fine, except
| the only reason this is valuable in the first place, is
| because the platforms prevent everyone else from doing
| such integrations themselves.
| yunohn wrote:
| There is incredible value provided by a marketplace
| having a forum attached to it. It provides trust and
| community.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Using Reddit, a single forum about Ubuntu (/r/Ubuntu)
| would cost around $5 a month on DO for someone to host
| themselves. Using something like BBForum or something
| similar would not require much in the way of maintenance.
|
| For that $5 however, you're not getting DDoS and spam
| protection.
|
| > The point I am making is that all this stuff existed
| long before the big tech platforms. It can easily exist
| without them too. They are not actually providing
| anything of any worth that couldn't easily be found
| elsewhere (well, used to be found elsewhere!).
|
| There's a reason ye olde ways of communication are pretty
| much dead, replaced by centralized platforms... dealing
| with the obvious noise of hackers, script-kiddies,
| spammers, piracy and CSAM is the biggest IMO. As a
| moderator of a sub-reddit, you don't have to deal with
| _any_ of that, you are free to focus on moderating
| content - and unlike mailing lists, usenet or classic
| forums the users can perform self-moderation by
| downvoting, further lessening your load.
| _Understated_ wrote:
| Spam protection has been around for years and years. It's
| nothing new. Sure, Reddit may have a handful of devs
| dedicated to perfecting it for their platform but there
| are a huge number of solutions to spam and I bet many
| commercial and OSS ones too.
|
| DDOS is provided by many hosting companies now for free.
|
| Now, I'm not trying to make this out like the Dropbox
| post many years ago comparing it to self-hosting, nothing
| of the sort.
|
| But Reddit (and other tech giants) provide very little
| above basic forums imo and in any case, the price is too
| high!
| dwighttk wrote:
| Reddit's scale provides eyeballs Facebook's friend web
| provides a bunch of people you know
| yoz-y wrote:
| Although the point of being centralised is portrayed as a
| negative, that is the single largest benefit these
| platforms provide over forums.
|
| Yes it is easy to make a forum and throw it on some low
| cost hosting, for a person skilled in IT. However FB,
| Reddit et al. provide a platform (heh) to any kind of
| group no matter the size. Nobody wants to create dozens
| of accounts for their local chess club, their local shop,
| their local pub and whatever. I can be a member of a anti
| Phillips screw subreddit, but wouldn't create a forum for
| it.
|
| The value of centralised identity is enormous.
| d110af5ccf wrote:
| > Nobody wants to create dozens of accounts for their
| local chess club, their local shop, their local pub and
| whatever.
|
| > The value of centralised identity is enormous.
|
| That's what OAuth is for. As usual, the technical problem
| has been solved but social problems remain.
| nrdvana wrote:
| Counter anecdote: the last traditional forum that I have
| any interaction with was so plagued by spam that they
| turned off registration and the new registration system
| is "send an email to the admin asking for an account".
| Needless to say, they aren't a growing community anymore.
| They also don't use SSL because none of their admins are
| fluent enough to set up LetsEncrypt. Don't forget that
| lots of non-technical or less-technical people like to
| have forums too.
| jppittma wrote:
| What's missing from his rant is the inclusion of
| wikipedia, showing that platforms can exist without an
| expectation of profit. What's more, I'm not entirely
| convinced, we as a society would be worse off without
| most of the above.
| nwienert wrote:
| There's plenty of room between the current vig (0%) and
| profits.
|
| Which is how I've come around to blockchains for social.
| Not just for equity, but trust: you can see the
| governance contracts / how equitable / how easy to change
| the deal is.
| yunohn wrote:
| > Which is how I've come around to blockchains for
| social.
|
| I'm speechless. If you're actually serious, could you
| give some examples of the social networking apps/features
| you are using via the blockchain?
| nwienert wrote:
| There's a ton of small DAOs, I don't think anyone has
| scaled up yet. But given you're speechless, hard to
| assume you're even open to the idea.
| yunohn wrote:
| I've never heard anyone describe a DAO as a social
| network. Could you explain what that means in relation to
| more commonly known social networks (FB, Reddit, HN)?
| nwienert wrote:
| There are many, but the best are smaller for now. Many
| feel a bit more akin to the early web, on purpose.
|
| - https://www.fwb.help
|
| - https://mirror.xyz
| yunohn wrote:
| I never understand why crypt enthusiasts can't explain
| their crypto applications? Everything is DYOR and links
| to landing pages or white papers.
| nwienert wrote:
| I agree on this point more generally in the space, but
| for DAO's a bit different. Clubs are social and often
| designed to have a barrier to entry, this mirrors the
| real world. Small communities are higher quality, so this
| is rational.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| People are not expecting everything to be free at all.
| But they're making the point that if you are advertising
| something as 'free' when you're actually paying through
| the nose by having every piece of personal data extracted
| and sold to the highest bidder, it should not be
| advertised as 'free'. Becuase it isn't.
|
| Make it free, or make it paid, or if you really must use
| the data harvesting model then at the very least make it
| very clear that it is not _free_ because you are paying
| via a different means.
| ryan93 wrote:
| How are you paying through the nose? i never click on ads
| so every ad service ive used for the last twenty years
| really has been free.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| Did you just stop reading the comment at that phrase? You
| are paying through the data collected, regardless of
| whether you engage with the adverts or not.
| ryan93 wrote:
| What are you paying though. Can anyone explain the
| consequences to me?
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| Indeed. They are giving trinkets to the natives for their
| land. Maybe we need to educate the natives on how
| valuable their land actually is.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _What is missing from your rant is, why would any
| platform exist then? Nobody is building them without
| expecting to profit off the mutual relationship._
|
| Plenty of smaller platforms exist for reasons other than
| profit (e.g. altruism, or desire for feeling important).
| But for-profit platforms are fine too! Mutually
| beneficial relationships are a good thing.
|
| But we're talking about Facebook, et al. here -
| advertising-based platforms. They way they're making
| profit off the relationship is _not_ through mutually
| beneficial exchange of value. The platforms instead are
| abusing their position of power in the relationship to
| pull the users in, keep them glued, and expose to maximum
| amount of advertising. This is not a case "here's an ad
| box because we have some server costs to cover, you
| know". These platforms are _thoroughly_ optimized to
| maximize ad revenue. Every feature they just "can't seem
| to get right", every weird UX blunder, every feature
| that's obvious but missing for unexplained reasons[0] -
| all that are not mistakes, but decisions to give you a
| shitty product in order to make you more exploitable[1].
|
| Or, in short: as a user, your actual relationship with
| big social media platforms is the same as between a cow
| and a farm. Cows are there to be milked, and make more
| cows for milking. They're not the ones who get to say how
| the farm is run.
|
| > _I never understand the POV that everything should
| somehow magically be provided for free._
|
| Right? They have costs, after all. But you're looking at
| the wrong people. This expectations wasn't created by
| regular people - it was created by companies who figured
| they can do the ultimate undercut of their competition by
| offering their product for free, and make money through a
| side channel. Since most people are extremely price
| sensitive, nobody can compete on price with $0 - so the
| model stuck, and it's because of _this_ that people
| expect everything on the Internet to be free.
|
| > _But every platform you listed is significantly more
| complex than that._
|
| That's mostly because they have more money than they know
| what to do with, and are competing against other
| platforms with similar amount of spending cash. Most of
| that complexity goes to supporting the advertising
| aspects of the platform and the dark patterns that keep
| the users in their pens.
|
| I mean, modern factory farms are significantly more
| complex than the stereotypical family farm of centuries
| past - but as a cow, you probably don't want to
| experience that complexity.
|
| --
|
| [0] - E.g. sorting your feed by date, or searching posts
| by date, or a "dislike" button, or ...
|
| [1] - One interesting facet of attention economy is that
| it seeks to make every task as inefficient as possible -
| because money is being made on friction. The longer it
| takes you to do a thing, the longer you can be exposed to
| advertising. The more frustrated you are, the more
| susceptible you are to that advertising.
| andyferris wrote:
| They aren't really more complicated than Wikipedia,
| though.
|
| Because it's all network effects, it either needs to be a
| centralised walled garden (even Wikipedia fits here to
| certain extent) or else a federated system like email.
| Whether the business model that maintains a centralised
| system is for-profit or not is basically irrelevant.
| Facebook would have as much difficulty taking over
| wikipedia's leadership in online encycolpedias as
| Wikipedia would have trying to become the dominant social
| network. It's just a matter of who got there first (at
| least until they possibly get displaced by something else
| that users drift toward).
| judge2020 wrote:
| Last I checked Wikimedia was primarily funded by big
| donors, with Google.org being one of them (and my
| understanding is that this is not a google donation
| matching program, but a direct contribution)
| https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/2018-annual-
| report/don...
| xmprt wrote:
| Is that purely a donation or is that payment to continue
| using Wikipedia contents in their search result cards and
| IOT devices?
| judge2020 wrote:
| No, not in regards to Google.org in the 2018 financials I
| linked (it's at least not an official quid pro quo).
|
| They have since asked for some compensation it looks
| like: https://www.wired.com/story/wikipedia-finally-
| asking-big-tec...
| ryan_lane wrote:
| Wikimedia Foundation is funded primarily by small
| donations (<$100), during its fundraising campaign once a
| year. You're linking to a page that names donors who
| contributed $1000+.
|
| Notice that Wikimedia Foundation has little to no
| influence over the content or community that runs
| Wikimedia sites. The money is primarily used for running
| the infrastructure, developing the software, paying the
| staff (a large percentage of which is spent on tech and
| legal), and organizing community events.
|
| disclosure: I worked for Wikimedia during the earlier
| years.
| circlefavshape wrote:
| Those are donors who have given over $1k. AIUI the vast
| majority of the wikimedia's money comes from small
| individual donations
| yunohn wrote:
| > They aren't really more complicated than Wikipedia,
| though.
|
| I'm not sure how to reply to someone that compares
| multimedia, feature-filled social networks to a mostly-
| read-only information store.
| cybernautique wrote:
| And yet you did reply, with apparent incredulity.
| Wikipedia is a method by which users generate,
| disseminate, and moderate content of a specific media
| type. Facebook, et al., don't innovate on the content
| being produced, because they do not produce it. They
| innovate on removing friction to the first two, or
| producing new methods for the third.
|
| Yeah, they really aren't that much more complex. More
| complicated, I'll grant you, simply owing to the vast
| amount of cruft and legacy that such privacy-eating
| titans inherently accrue. But the actual media type is
| pretty irrelevant as far as I care.
| yunohn wrote:
| > And yet you did reply, with apparent incredulity.
|
| While you can be pedantic, I did not reply to their
| actual points.
|
| > Yeah, they really aren't that much more complex.
|
| This really reminds me of the infamous HN Dropbox
| comment, but worse.
| cybernautique wrote:
| The comparison to the Dropbox comment is very fair. I
| maintain that I paid the piper his dues; it's
| complicated, but not complex, and I would never dare
| charge that I could make an equivalent service. However,
| I do charge that it's extremely overblown.
| yunohn wrote:
| > it's complicated, but not complex
|
| These are synonyms. Please disambiguate with contextual
| examples, if you believe otherwise.
|
| There are various features provided by Snapchat (camera,
| filters, games) and FB (marketplace, messenger) that
| nobody would ever compare to a BBForum/Wikipedia. They
| are inherently complex and valuable to the majority of
| their users.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > [complicated, complex] are synonyms.
|
| I mean, sure, but you can't just swap them in and out
| like that - you can have something complicated which is
| not complex (say a knitting pattern with four colours)
| and something complex which is not complicated ("put this
| arrow into the centre of that target").
| yunohn wrote:
| I asked for contextual examples, not random ones. Though
| I guess if we're in a thread of people reducing various
| platforms to a BBForum/Wikipedia, it wouldn't make any
| sense to them.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > I asked for contextual examples, not random ones.
|
| I was merely pointing out that you can't toss off
| "complex and complicated are synonyms" as some kind of
| argument "gotcha".
| yunohn wrote:
| There was no gotcha. If the commenter claims their point
| revolves around the difference in meaning between two
| synonyms, they should explain themselves better in the
| given context.
| deathcakes wrote:
| They aren't synonyms, though they are related concepts:
| https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/10459/what-
| is-th...
|
| I admit the distinction got me at first as it is quite a
| subtle one but the point made by the parent commenter is
| valid.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _This really reminds me of the infamous HN Dropbox
| comment, but worse._
|
| Or at least the common misconception about it. See [0]
| for a summary of how the comment was actually mostly spot
| on, and even YC agreed[1]. Quoting dang, "we should see
| it as a successful conversation with a graceful ending,
| rather than mocking someone for not knowing the future".
|
| --
|
| [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229275
|
| [1] - "When YC funded Dropbox, it was because they
| believed in Drew, not file synchronization"
| yunohn wrote:
| No, I disagree. Similar to that infamous comment, the
| person above was reducing multiple full featured social
| media platforms to BBForums. While the context and
| outcome night be different, the gist is still the same.
| criddell wrote:
| > why would any platform exist then?
|
| If your users are unwilling to pay for the service, then
| perhaps the value it provides is zero and it shouldn't
| exist.
| shandor wrote:
| But that bullshit of course. Advertising has existed for
| hundreds of years in different forms, and it also existed in
| the Internet, without the planet-scale tracking and spying
| networks the tech giants have now set up.
|
| Nobody was complaining or refusing to use advertising to
| their benefit pre-internet, so why wouldn't the same non-
| privacy-destroying methods work just as well as previously?
| [deleted]
| judge2020 wrote:
| Advertisers already settle for non-targeted ads when they
| need to, ie. the contextual App Store ads pre-iOS 15 (15 or
| maybe 14.x added personalized ads based on location).
|
| But advertisers will always go to the ad exchange that
| promises more conversions, and website owners will partner
| with the ad exchange that promises the highest payout. If
| you can achieve the highest of both without tracking, I can
| guarantee you advertisers and web admins will jump ship and
| swim to your ad exchange.
| shandor wrote:
| Well, the advertisers that have no morals will,
| naturally. That's why setting up these global spying
| networks should be made illegal. Or, like what TFA is
| about, why other parts of the modern technology stack
| providers should be making a stand that those advertisers
| are going much too far with much too little upsides.
|
| Don't get me wrong, I'm all for advertising as a business
| model and it's awesome how advertising on the web has
| allowed at least some of the content creators on the web
| to monetize their valuable work. But I'm strongly against
| the idea that anything in that equation actually depends
| on the global spy network of the advertisers.
| grecy wrote:
| Facebook makes $9.5B in profits per quarter.
|
| I think it's safe to say their ads are doing A LOT more than
| just paying for the service.
| _nalply wrote:
| Good. And bad.
|
| I am not sure that Apple deserves this power. What if Apple is
| the next evil megacorp?
|
| For me this sounds like science fiction. Megacorps waging
| subtle war against each other. What's next?
| caskstrength wrote:
| > I am not sure that Apple deserves this power. What if Apple
| is the next evil megacorp?
|
| Power to... present user with dialog asking whether they
| consent to be tracked? The horror!
| SXX wrote:
| Uh. Imagine presenting user with dialog asking if they want
| to pay 30% apple tax or they want an option to use 3rd-
| party app stores.
|
| Oops, users are too dumb for that, but Apple will protect
| them!
| breakfastduck wrote:
| They are presented with that. Just in real life. When
| they choose to buy the iPhone or something else.
| throwinawaysoon wrote:
| Russia asked to block Putin's rivals apps. Google and
| Apple complied. The only people who could side-load it
| were Android users. I guess that's good for Democracy,
| right? because Apple said so...
|
| It totally wouldn't happen to us...
| breakfastduck wrote:
| How is that relevant to the post I replied to?
| LunaSea wrote:
| But they aren't because users aren't aware of this.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| Users aren't aware that the only way to install apps on
| an iPhone officially is through the App Store?
| oneplane wrote:
| If users aren't aware that for-profit companies make
| money and one of the ways they do that is by adding
| margins to the prices of items sold, I don't think Apple,
| Microsoft or Google are your real problems.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| Wait till they learn about how shops operate!
| caskstrength wrote:
| All this "wAlLeD gArDeN!!!11" cries are so trite. People
| who want 3rd-party app stores are long gone to other
| platforms (me included).
| solarkraft wrote:
| I'm a new Apple user because I was so fed up with the
| atrocious UX on other platforms. Yet I still expect
| normal freedoms.
| Damogran6 wrote:
| My decisions to pick one platform over the other have
| nothing to do with something so subtle.
|
| I kept both platforms for _years_...then in a time where
| I was actively looking for work, discovered that my Nexus
| phone and GoogleFi was sending folks to voicemail without
| actually ringing me through. When my phone can't phone,
| that's a pretty good reason to jump ship.
|
| The processors are similar, the form-factors are similar,
| the OS's are at near feature parity...it's the glue that
| binds it all together that seems to time the scales
| slightly to Apple.
|
| (Where did that SMS go? I swear, I can choose from 3 or 4
| different places for it to do, and now I can't tell if
| it's in the SMS app, Messenger, GoogleChat...or?)
| ethagknight wrote:
| Surreptitious tracking and breakout of proceed
| distributions are not really comparable. Does Best Buy
| tell you "we take a 20% cut out of every purchase you
| make here." If they did, would you care? I'm not sure I
| would, especially if the in store experience is
| excellent.
| zcmack wrote:
| you bet your ass consumers would care. ignorance is
| bliss.
| mthoms wrote:
| Framing matters. What if instead the message was "You're
| paying 30% more than the developer wants for EVERY
| digital good you buy on iPhone. Forever. " and "We are
| the wealthiest company in the world and this portion of
| our business operates at a 75% profit margin but cannot
| protect you from fraud."
|
| "Opt out? Yes/No."
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Ok, let's not dismiss the one dialog they show as harmful
| just because they choose to harm their users by not
| showing those other two.
| badwolf wrote:
| Why should a user care what percentage of a transaction a
| platform takes?
|
| Do you ask every grocery store or 7/11 what their
| processing fees for the transaction are?
| jiscariot wrote:
| When Facebook does it, "consent to be tracked online". When
| Apple does it, "customized user experience".
|
| I am not a fan of either company, but one sells thousand
| dollar phones to the global 1%, an the other provides
| services to 2B people, supporting infrastructure through
| ads.
|
| The fact that one of these companies is considered evil and
| other other "the good guys who care about your data" blows
| my mind.
| ben_w wrote:
| As far as I can tell, what Apple is doing with their privacy
| settings is merely what is required of data controllers (e.g.
| Facebook) by GDPR anyway, and as an EU resident by choice, I
| don't personally see it as a huge issue for them to say "all
| apps must be compliant with EU law" (but then, if I did have
| a problem, I would not have migrated to here).
| kergonath wrote:
| As long as they are not acting illegally, I am fine with them
| stomping on Facebook. Our interests align here.
| silexia wrote:
| Apple is a company that plans the obsolence of billions of
| expensive devices per year, wasting more CO2 and energy than
| almost any other company on the planet.
| krageon wrote:
| > What if Apple is the next evil megacorp?
|
| Apple is one of the evil megacorps, this is not in question.
|
| > What's next?
|
| Given that apparently the thing that is in vogue now is
| making the universe of snow crash more real, probably a long
| slide into (more) corporatism.
| simonh wrote:
| I'm sure corporations have been waging war against each other
| for as long as corporations have existed.
| chrisBob wrote:
| > Hell, US intelligence agencies block ads at the network level
| because the ad industry is so infested with
| tracking/malware/spyware/exploits/etc. That's a hell of an
| indictment.
|
| I think this just means that they have a different threat
| profile than I do, and they take it seriously. There is a
| chance that an ad could attempt to attack me, but I am not
| likely to be targeted. If I thought state level attacks were
| going to target me specifically I would do a bunch of things
| differently, but it is not currently worth the effort.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| I think its not about attacks as much as its about
| information gathering. There is value in knowing what the US
| Gov is searching for, visiting, from where, and when. The
| potential for attacks is just an added bonus. The problem is
| the tracking.
| randcraw wrote:
| I suspect US Intel staff who browse fear being identified,
| tracked, and their interests monitored more than they fear
| being attacked. The host from which they browse should be
| free of any sensitive data and easily disposable if hacked.
| dangerface wrote:
| The two times I ever got a virus was both from an advert
| exploiting flash, the threat is real.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| > The fraud bots will keep the ecosystem running
|
| It's like that everywhere.
|
| Yesterday a friend of mind was revealing to me that crypto
| currency exchanges were pressuring them to create bots so that
| their coin trading volume would go up or they would be
| delisted.
|
| There are bots to write comments on trip advisor and to star on
| amazon. Bots to follow on twitter. Bot to click on referal
| links and bot to farm in games.
|
| I'm pretty sure if we all suddenly went offline, half the
| internet would seem to keep going as usual.
| thow-58d4e8b wrote:
| One aspect that shouldn't be lost - the implicit framing of
| the platforms being "under attack" by the bots is wrong - the
| bots are likely a net positive for the platforms - they're
| very much complicit with the fraud, or at least condone it.
| They sell views and clicks - if bots create more views and
| clicks, so be it. It's the advertisers who bear the cost.
|
| Taking Facebook as an example:
|
| Creating an account, linking Oculus Quest to it and leaving
| the account dormant - accounts locked en masse.
|
| US account that logs in from Indonesian IPs, never posts
| anything, likes 5000 random things ranging from a shampoo to
| a cafe in a small Ohio town, to the new shirts of an Albanian
| soccer club - in Facebook's view that's a perfectly
| legitimate account.
| im3w1l wrote:
| Maybe in the short term it works like that, but ultimately
| a platform's value comes from its real users. And bots make
| the platform less attractive to real users.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| Movies make billions of dollars from users who don't
| contribute any content. As long as users consume content,
| who cares who makes it?
| funcDropShadow wrote:
| But Facebook, like most social media platforms, is
| addictive, so it is not obvious that in the long term a
| reasonable usage of them will emerge.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Lack of movement in sales after paying Facebook for
| advertisements will emerge, and that will certainly be
| noticed.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| You may overestimate the sophistication of ad buyers, and
| underestimate the ability of Facebook to convince buyers
| that their ads are working
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The increased ability to track the efficacy of ads is the
| value of the tracking that the internet enabled, hence
| the value of Facebook. Hampering this ability to match
| ads to purchases reduces the price these ads can be sold
| at, it is what the whole article and situation are
| talking about.
| gleenn wrote:
| The people bearing the real cost are the people trying to
| sell products with ads. Facebook more or less sets up the
| system to pass that cost along.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| To be fair the cost of ads varies based on demand;
| advertisers wouldn't pay more than the ROI they're seeing
| from their ads, so the prices have the cost of ad fraud
| somewhat priced in?
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Most marketing departments I've met don't check their
| ROI. They request budget, spend it on campaign, then make
| power points to tell the rest of the company that they
| were successful.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| Thats not Facebook's fault, that ad people lying to
| product people or product people not caring.
| pontus wrote:
| Beep beep boop boop. I regular person, like your comment!
| drawkbox wrote:
| > I'm pretty sure if we all suddenly went offline, half the
| internet would seem to keep going as usual.
|
| That could be a good Black Mirror like scifi movie, everyone
| dies but chatter and social media just keep living on.
|
| "Did you guys see that amazing sunset last night? Check out
| this book to capture these amazing moments!"
|
| "Can't wait to see the new [ _dystopian movie_ ] this
| weekend!"
|
| "Amazing shows to see this weekend. Download our event app to
| log on and find the fun!"
|
| "The [other party] are a it again today... protests should be
| intense today at the capitol."
|
| _... no one there ..._
| jareklupinski wrote:
| I love these kinds of stories
|
| > CGI 3D Animated Shorts : "LAST DAY OF WAR" - by Dima
| Fedotov https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjJmTeBSEzU
| V-eHGsd_ wrote:
| sounds a little like autofac by philip k dick[1]. there's
| an electric dreams episode about it, ironically streaming
| on amazon[2].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autofac
|
| [2] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6902176/
| SuchAnonMuchWow wrote:
| > I'm pretty sure if we all suddenly went offline, half the
| internet would seem to keep going as usual.
|
| Seems like a reasonable estimate if half the internet is
| porn.
| bongoman37 wrote:
| There are massive bot farms that watch videos, click on ads,
| sometimes even do a download of the app after clicking and
| open the app. I've sometimes thought Google could cut out the
| middleman and just allow creators to outright buy 'views' on
| YouTube. You could pay like $100 to get 10,000 additional
| views which would translate to some additional ad revenue,
| which ad companies would know is inflated so they would
| discount the rates appropriately and no money would need to
| be sent to bot farms. This would also be far greener and need
| less servers and bandwidth and would be an overall win-win.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| But what about the workers. It's likely that those working
| at the bot farms aren't wealthy, and that they're from less
| wealthy countries. So this is good, addressing the
| immediate problem of energy waste, but doesn't address the
| underlying problem of wealth inequality that - in general -
| drives people to work on systems to rip others off.
|
| Those who run the bot farms will find other scummy work,
| and no end of desperate workers.
| thow-58d4e8b wrote:
| It's one thing to read about the click farms, but nothing
| can prepare one to actually see the videos of them in
| action - just visceral. It has an eerie Matrix-like feeling
| to it.
|
| 13 sec video of a Chinese click farm (quite loud):
|
| https://twitter.com/mbrennanchina/status/107211451121210982
| 4
|
| 10 sec - thousands of phones (not loud):
|
| https://twitter.com/mbrennanchina/status/114844786636646400
| 0
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| That is laughably sad. I've been depressed, but for some
| reason started to laugh.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| There's a name for this: The Dead Internet theory[0]
|
| It postulates that the majority of the "organic" content is
| actually generated by bots, and the number of human
| interactions online is a tiny subset. We are all wandering
| unknowingly through a wasteland haunted by robot ghosts.
|
| [0] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/08/de
| ad-...
| vxNsr wrote:
| In this case at least the article implies this not to be
| true, one of the interviewed ceos said he used to generate
| 80% of his revenue from Facebook ad buys and now it's only
| 20%. This would imply he's getting his ads in front of real
| people.
| nielsbot wrote:
| And the other 4% tapped the wrong button by mistake...
| 1cvmask wrote:
| It seems Apple wants that money for itself.
|
| It will take a couple of years to see how much of FB ads (amongst
| others) have shifted to Apple.
| busymom0 wrote:
| I dislike both companies but definitely Facebook more. So it's
| good to watch one eat the other.
| asimpletune wrote:
| Wow can you imagine if the rest of the internet worked like that?
| mpalmer wrote:
| "I don't think that Tim Cook is this benevolent privacy person,"
| said Kelcey Lehrich, CEO of 365 Holdings, a company that owns
| e-commerce brands and advertises extensively online. "They're
| making strategic decisions that affect the market cap, not
| practical decisions that serve their customers or serve their
| users," he said, speaking broadly of the Big Tech companies.
|
| Talk about sour grapes. I think it might be possible to make
| strategic decisions that both affect the market cap and serve
| one's customers!
| dylan604 wrote:
| "Concern over Facebook's ability to weather Apple's attack"
|
| It's funny how this is described clearly shows how it is viewed
| by the writer/speaker. Attack is definitely not neutral.
| collaborative wrote:
| As a small advertiser, this year I will be pulling all ads. In
| fact, I may even set the company dormant. What used to work
| (keyword based advertising) no longer does. The whole ad market
| is so fraudulent... the only winner here is Amazon
| vincentmarle wrote:
| In my country there's a saying: "a cornered cat makes weird
| jumps". Expect Facebook to start working on their own mobile
| phones soon..
| gigatexal wrote:
| This move alone will keep me buying iOS devices: any move that
| attempts to curb FB (would be nice if the company folded and
| ceased to exist but ...) is laudable by me.
| ziftface wrote:
| I think I agree with your broader point, but it would be a
| mistake to trust apple to keep your data private.
| gigatexal wrote:
| At this point I'd rather Apple monetize my data and destroy
| FB than keep it 100% private.
| dhosek wrote:
| It seems to me that few if any of the businesses that _need_ all
| the tracking information are really productive. Most of them are
| really just playing arbitrage games between the rates for
| advertising and fees paid for leads from other businesses (I 've
| worked in this industry in the past and it's kind of an icky
| place to be). If every single business that does this
| disappeared, outside of their employees, no one would ever notice
| that they no longer existed.
| blendergeek wrote:
| I have a slightly more cynical take on this than it seems most of
| Hacker News does.
|
| Facebook had found a way to monetize it's iOS app without Apple
| getting a 30% cut.
|
| Apple decided to cut that off to prevent Facebook from making
| money without Apple taking their cut. The fact that Apple can
| sell this to users as "privacy" is all the better for Apple.
|
| At the end of the day Apple is still a corporation. They are
| beholden to shareholders, not privacy advocates. Apple will
| maximize profits and has found a way to cut off revenue to
| competitor and breed goodwill at the same time.
|
| Judging by this comments thread, it is working very well.
| r00fus wrote:
| Your cynical take would make sense if you think Apple would
| somehow get that 30% if Facebook were allowed to collect this
| data. Apple gets nothing either way.
|
| Apple isn't holding Facebook hostage, it's simply allow FB
| users to relinquish giving Facebook their usage patterns for
| free.
| [deleted]
| yarcob wrote:
| Facebook might pivot towards other monetization strategies
| when their cross-platform web tracking ads don't work
| anymore.
|
| For example, Facebook offers you to pay to "increase the
| reach" of your posts. This happens for example when you try
| to post a message to a Facebook group. If you want to make
| sure all members see the message, you have to pay.
|
| This is a way that Facebook monetizes without tracking
| (targeting is based on people who opted in to join a group)
| and the users pay directly in the app (allowing Apple to get
| their 30% for the in-app payment).
|
| With Apples changes, Facebook (and others) might focus more
| on strategies like that.
| annadane wrote:
| > For example, Facebook offers you to pay to "increase the
| reach" of your posts. This happens for example when you try
| to post a message to a Facebook group. If you want to make
| sure all members see the message, you have to pay.
|
| That actually sounds incredibly cynical, and criminal
|
| Edit: Would the person who downvoted me within literally a
| minute of posting this please explain why?
| yarcob wrote:
| I thought the same thing when I found out about that, but
| it kinda makes sense.
|
| Facebook tries to show you the most "interesting" posts.
| If you are a member of many groups, there are probably
| too many posts in your groups to show all of them in your
| newsfeed. So Facebook just picks whatever they think is
| interesting.
|
| Or the poster can pay to have everyone see the post.
|
| Anyway, I prefer this monetisation strategy to creepy
| tracking.
| annadane wrote:
| That actually does make sense in a newsfeed way. I had
| this mental image of a person physically reading the
| group (being in the group specifically) and just not
| seeing any posts by x because x didn't pay to play
| javagram wrote:
| I didn't downvote you, but perhaps it's because you
| didn't back up the word "criminal" with a source. What
| law does it break if facebook doesn't send your post to
| everyone in the group?
|
| If you wanted to send a letter to all of your friends in
| the traditional post, you'd have to pay 58 cents per
| person to do so, the business model hardly seems unusual.
| HeyZuess wrote:
| I would say that a lot of this is about domination of the chat
| space. FB has the most used messenger app, and iMessage is a
| predominant feature of Apple.
|
| FB is also an easy target at the moment, so Apple can use them
| to sell the "privacy" of their product.
|
| That and I think Tim Apple has a bone or two to pick with
| Zucks.
| random314 wrote:
| Except imessages get uploaded in its entirety to the Chinese
| government, FB messages don't.
| HeyZuess wrote:
| Does FB exist in China?
|
| Yes iMessage can be decrypted by the Chinese government.
| But China is a much different arena than the rest of the
| world, it is an almost totalitarian state by default.
| random314 wrote:
| FB doesn't exist in China because they don't want to
| upload their user data to the Chinese government.
|
| And it's not like Chinese government "can decrypt". Its
| not encryption if you share the key in plaintext. All
| imessages in china are scanned by the government.
| rsuelzer wrote:
| It is hard to dominate the messaging space when Apple does
| not offer messaging service to android users.
| HeyZuess wrote:
| Do they need to dominate the space, or does Apple just need
| to dominate their own space? I would suggest that the high
| usage of iMessage is also a driver for new customers to
| come on board with iOS and remain there.
| simonklitj wrote:
| This right here. I think a lot of people don't consider
| jumping ship at all, primarily because of iMessage (no
| source, just personal experience).
| kaba0 wrote:
| That's mostly a US thing. Where apple doesn't have big
| enough market share, it doesn't work and people use
| alternative chat programs (messenger, whatsapp, telegram)
| simonklitj wrote:
| True! Having moved from Denmark to the US makes this very
| apparent. In DK _everyone_ uses Facebook Messenger.
| amatecha wrote:
| Yeah, I know tons of people who won't even consider
| anything other than iPhone, and their first response is
| "then I won't have iMessage!"
| kergonath wrote:
| I have literally never heard anyone say that. IMessage is
| a nice thing to have, but other than the blue bubbles has
| almost zero effect on communications. SMS text messages
| work fine and are free. Same for WhatsApp and FB
| Messenger.
| imchillyb wrote:
| > other than the blue bubbles has almost zero effect on
| communications. SMS text messages work fine and are free.
| Same for WhatsApp and FB Messenger.
|
| That is simply, objectively, untrue.
|
| There are so many falsities with your statement I don't
| know where to begin.
|
| Lets start with money transfer. I often use applepay
| right in iMessage to split bills between parties right at
| the table. I iMessage them the bill and their portion,
| and right there through iMessage they reimburse me
| through apple-pay, right to my bank.
|
| During the last major Hurricane in FL, iMessages would
| send while SMS and all TEXTING would not. Cellular
| services were down. Texting was down, but iMessage worked
| just fine with a WiFi connection.
|
| My interactions on iMessage are saved to iCloud. Prior to
| switching to Apple devices, in 2016, my work phone was
| damaged beyond repair at a construction site. All of my
| texts were saved on device, and not recoverable. This
| does not and cannot occur on iMessage saved to iCloud.
|
| This is all just off the top of my head, and these are
| features that are desirable and utilized in iMessage, and
| not available through sms.
|
| Objectively speaking, your statement about iMessage is
| just plain wrong.
| cglong wrote:
| I saw someone once say that if they don't have a blue
| bubble, they're not worth talking to.
| vxNsr wrote:
| I've heard it to, it's mostly about seeing the delivery
| receipt. I think that's why apple refuses to implement
| RCS.
| kergonath wrote:
| That does sound like an arrogant arsehole if serious,
| though that's the kind of things one would say in jest
| around here. Not sure how prevalent that is, if sincere.
| Even in the UK, where Apple has a near-50% market share
| AFAIK, it means not communicating with half the
| population, which sounds impractical.
| dbatten wrote:
| "Remain there" indeed.
|
| As anyone who has ever switched from an iPhone to an
| Android device will tell you, iMessage makes the process
| extremely painful, and in totally unexpected ways. You
| get your new Android phone set up, and suddenly find that
| you're not getting messages from any of your friends that
| have iPhones... because those messages are being routed
| over iMessage instead of SMS.
|
| So you do a bunch of Googling or contact support for your
| phone manufacturer or wireless carrier, who directs you
| to an Apple tool for de-registering your number from
| iMessage. You go through that process, but it takes
| days/weeks for your de-registration to finally make it
| through "the system" to everybody's iPhones so that
| messaging with your friends on iPhones finally starts
| working again.
|
| Did Apple do this intentionally? No, probably not. Could
| they solve this problem? You bet they could. But why
| solve something that makes switching to Android a
| nightmare?
| lamnk wrote:
| I remember reading from the Epic vs Apple debacle that
| Apple decided to not open iMessage for Android phones
| since 2013:
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/9/22375128/apple-
| imessage-an...
| jeremyis wrote:
| This doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Google also makes a lot
| off their apps and circumvents the App Store. Airbnb too. Apple
| is doing what it thinks is best for its customers. Perhaps
| people will pick iPhones over Android due to Apples strength
| with privacy.
| brokenmachine wrote:
| Google pays Apple billions to be the default search engine
| for iphone. They've paid their way into good graces.
|
| Privacy on iPhone, that's a laugh! The only company ever to
| ship phones with an automated, unverifiable on-device
| scanning/reporting to authorities system. As we know, CSAM is
| just to get the foot in the door, of course.
|
| Fuck Apple and their locked-down consumer hostile disposable
| garbage, and while we're at it, fuck Facebook for just about
| everything they do. I have no need for either of those
| garbage companies.
| realityking wrote:
| > The only company ever to ship phones with an automated,
| unverifiable on-device scanning/reporting to authorities
| system.
|
| Nitpick but so far this hasn't shipped.
| ohashi wrote:
| Apple's revenue stream isn't as tied to internet advertising as
| any of its large competitors. They sell products. And also an
| ecosystem around those products.
|
| The two for one of hurting competitors and making customers
| happy is about as good a play as they could make. It makes
| making the 'right' decision easy. Blocking facebook from
| tracking everything we do online is a win most people can
| appreciate, except Facebook (and potentially some advertisers
| taking advantage of it).
| deadmutex wrote:
| > Apple's revenue stream isn't as tied to internet
| advertising as any of its large competitors
|
| I am curious what your take on this is:
|
| https://9to5mac.com/2021/08/25/analysts-google-to-pay-
| apple-...
| ohashi wrote:
| Free money. They don't even have to develop the ad
| business.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| Apple does run a very large ad network themselves in the app
| store. They tried to run their own 'traditional' ad network
| and failed, so I agree with parent this is a business
| decision.
|
| The article has multiple mentions of an upcoming broader
| Apple network? Is there any solid information on that?
|
| They could win big $ if they rolled out a universal ID and
| controlled the infra/bids. Similar to their login button, it
| could be a more privacy focused UUID that users can revoke or
| maybe partition. Would love to see their marketing sell this
| as groundbreaking privacy lol
| parthdesai wrote:
| > Apple's revenue stream isn't as tied to internet
| advertising
|
| It's tied to China instead, an outstanding example of human
| rights. Yay Apple :)
| robocat wrote:
| > Apple's revenue stream isn't as tied to internet
| advertising
|
| Actually a significant percentage of Apple's profit comes
| from free-to-play iPhone games, which contain a _lot_ of
| adverts.
|
| Grabbing some figures from different sources:
|
| * "Apple reported a profit of $23.6 billion in its second
| quarter, on record sales of $89.6"
|
| * "According to the ruling, gaming apps account for
| approximately 70% of all App Store revenue. That 70% is
| generated by less than 10% of all App"
|
| * "Barnes calculated that the App Store had hefty profit
| margins, which increased to 78% in 2019"
|
| * "Apple's App Store had gross sales around $64 billion last
| year"
|
| 78% of 64G$ is ~50G$, and 23.6G$ x4 is ~95G$, so let us say
| that 50% of profits come from the App Store.
|
| I would guess that at least 25% of Apple profits come
| indirectly from in app advertising for apps related to in-
| app-purchases. You know, those annoying adverts in free
| games, that are mostly nothing like YouTube adverts, because
| the highest payout for the adverts is by advertising gambling
| and pay to play games. The adverts pay well because the in
| app purchases pay developers well, and Apple takes their cut
| from that.
|
| Note that Apple do not provide a clear breakdown of App Store
| profits compared to iPhone sales profits:
| https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-profitable-is-
| apples-a...
| vxNsr wrote:
| Btw, I recently (as in 2 months ago, before the epic
| ruling) downloaded one of those apps (bec I was given a $40
| incentive to spend $10 in app) and they used PayPal not
| apple to sell their in app coins. I thought that was
| interesting, that they got around the apple censors.
| viktorcode wrote:
| Games that run advertisement don't pay Apple a single cent
| out of their ad revenues.
| celticninja wrote:
| but they will generate advertising revenue for Apple.
| Just like the developer gets cut of the advertising so
| does Apple. The developer isn't paying but the
| advertisers certainly are.
| dangerface wrote:
| Its not advertising revenue unless the revenue is
| generated by selling advertising.
| sidlls wrote:
| How do you figure? 100% of in-app advertising goes to the
| split between the ad provider and the developer. Apple
| doesn't get 1 cent from that (unless the ad comes from
| Apple, obviously).
| charwalker wrote:
| It's a loop. The ads don't make Apple money but they
| market games that profit off in app purchases. Apple gets
| 30% of those purchases so is incentivized to enable these
| ads and participate in making them more effective like
| providing metrics.
| mzkply wrote:
| Apple gets a cut of a Google ad in an iOS app?
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| > I would guess that at least 25% of Apple profits come
| indirectly from in app advertising for apps related to in-
| app-purchases
|
| With that logic you could say that nearly all Apples
| profits come indirectly from advertising as they trigger
| people to buy hardware, apps and services.
|
| If people spend x hours and $10 a month on in-app purchases
| on their favourite game and that game was taken away, many
| would just spend the time and $10 on another game - ie
| Apple will always get their share, the ads just help decide
| which app developer gets the rest.
| random314 wrote:
| Apple doesn't want a 30% cut. They want a 100% cut.
|
| Watch as Apple rolls out "privacy compliant" ads api that will
| route all ads through apple.com and block out other
| advertisers. Apple wants to be the only Ad company on iOS.
|
| Notice the hypocrisy of providing privacy for your internet
| shopping behavior while dumping your imessages to CCP without a
| thought as well as your albums to any government entity.
| 93po wrote:
| What services or products do Apple and Facebook share that make
| them competitors?
| random314 wrote:
| iAds. The 2.5T behemoth is looking for new revenue streams.
| blendergeek wrote:
| Apple and Facebook both provides means for other apps to
| monetize. Facebook provides it's ads SDK and Apple provides
| in-app purchases/subscriptions.
|
| While these may seem like totally different markets, Apple
| and Facebook are directly competing for the same dollars
| here.
| 93po wrote:
| I guess I see that. If I'm an app developer I am choosing
| between selling my app or placing ads in the app, and I'm
| directing revenue to either Facebook or Apple depending on
| that decision.
| na85 wrote:
| >Apple decided to cut that off to prevent Facebook from making
| money without Apple taking their cut. The fact that Apple can
| sell this to users as "privacy" is all the better for Apple.
|
| Whatever. As long as it's damaging Facebook it's a net win for
| society.
| danmur wrote:
| I agree, even though it feels a bit icky. I'm sure Apple have
| their eye on that advertising money in some way but anything
| that damages Facebook is highly likely to be a net positive.
| kergonath wrote:
| > I agree, even though it feels a bit icky.
|
| Giving the users the opportunity to make an educated
| decision feels the opposite of icky. This in itself is
| unambiguously good. Now, other aspects of Apple's behaviour
| are less great, but let's keep some perspective: asking for
| user consent should be the legal bare minimum.
| danmur wrote:
| I meant it feels icky to approve of anything Apple does
| :P.
|
| EDIT: just to clarify, I 100% agree it's a great change,
| it's just that "right thing for the wrong reasons"
| situation. But it's a very good change and I hope it
| continues.
| kergonath wrote:
| > I meant it feels icky to approve of anything Apple does
| :P.
|
| Oh, right. Sorry, I misread :)
| viktorcode wrote:
| Only the privacy changes go way beyond Facebook.
| [deleted]
| Voloskaya wrote:
| > Judging by this comments thread, it is working very well.
|
| Good. A company's motives don't matter. Companies are just
| reinforcement machines that go where they think money is.
|
| If they release a "privacy" feature, for whatever hidden
| motive, and users flock to it, they will infer that there is
| money to be made here and continue in that direction, which is
| good for us. It makes no difference what their reason to move
| there was in the first place.
| swiley wrote:
| Smartphone Apps are universally shit.
| Despegar wrote:
| If Apple wants a cut, they can just change the terms of the
| developer agreement so they get a cut from advertising revenue.
| The more Facebook earns, the more Apple would earn.
| celloductor wrote:
| if Apple wanted money I'm sure they could've struck a deal with
| FB just like how they made a pact with Google to put them as a
| default search engine.
| anshumankmr wrote:
| What would they have made FB into? Default social network?
| Google provides a value addition for most people which is
| better search results than its competitors and they keep
| paying Apple for the privilege of being the default search
| engine. Facebook provides no such "value". There is no such
| thing as the best social media app. Twitter, Facebook,
| Whatsapp, Reddit, Hackernews etc provide different services
| to people.
| soheil wrote:
| Wait, what's the alternative? FB pays Apple 30% of what
| exactly? Its ad revenue? How is that in any shape or form
| feasible for Apple to demand from FB, logistically? If there is
| no clear way for Apple to force FB to pay it has no reason to
| find an excuse to hinder FB's tracking activities on iOS for
| monetary reasons.
|
| The world is also not black and white. Just because Apple is
| not beholden to privacy advocates, but instead its
| shareholders, doesn't mean it gives 0-fucks about privacy
| concerns. Of course Apple cares about privacy if it helps it
| sell more iPhones without lowering its profit margin.
| simonh wrote:
| Apple has been vehemently against tracking their users from the
| start. Steve Jobs was adamant about it, it's even why they
| ditched Google Maps and developed their own mapping service
| starting in 2009. So Apple has a very long history to back this
| up, and have sunk billions of dollars into avoiding commercial
| entanglements that compromised their user's data.
|
| Imagine if Apple had gone heavily into tracking back in 2009,
| as a lot of analysts predicted they would. They'd have been
| giants in the tracking industry. Imagine how much the detailed
| social graph of Apple users for more than a decade must be
| worth? They would have hauled in tens, maybe hundreds of
| billions. They walked away from all of that on principle.
| KoftaBob wrote:
| This reads like someone _starting_ with the conclusion that
| Apple did this to prevent Facebook from making money without an
| Apple cut, and then looking hard for evidence to support that.
| ParanoidShroom wrote:
| The amount of bias in tech savvy people here is scary. This is
| def a power move, don't think they do it for us as consumers tho.
| viktorcode wrote:
| This is also a very expected move. Apple was cutting down
| trackable stuff from iOS for a very long time now. Obviously,
| they going to keep improving on that.
| bingohbangoh wrote:
| Antonio Garcia Martinez of the Pull Request mentioned that
| Facebook will move all of the advertising matching work to the
| phone.
|
| Facebook certainly has the intellectual firepower and motivation
| to pull this off, if it can be.
| Epskampie wrote:
| The issue is not where the matching is done with data gathered
| on facebook, the issue is whether they can track you accross
| other apps. They can't anymore, and "matching on the phone"
| won't make a lick of difference.
| Abrownn wrote:
| This post is just an ad. It's a brand new Substack with literally
| only one article that's more than 50% ad text. All of the
| comments here are addressing overall HN sentiment or the title,
| not the article and the giant ad text which I would think would
| stick out to more people if they had actually read it??
| 6nf wrote:
| This is the kind of ad that makes me feel good about buying
| Apple products. Unlike the ads that give me creepy vibes from
| being tracked across the internet by Facebook.
| Lio wrote:
| Also, I note, you can't opt out of tracking on the site either.
|
| The irony of that jumps out at me.
| eqtn wrote:
| The bigtechnology substack's first post was on May 16, 2020 and
| has around 70 posts.
| Abrownn wrote:
| Odd, only one is showing up for me, that one. Same issue on
| multiple browsers with extensions off.
| iainmerrick wrote:
| You're not wrong that this has a lot of ad copy, but it's a
| different kind of ad -- a paid sponsorship, personalised to the
| site rather than to individual users. It's a more old-fashioned
| model, like magazine ads.
|
| I think a lot of people saying "but ads are what let us get
| stuff for free!" would point to this kind of thing as an
| example of doing it right.
| 0xFreebie wrote:
| It's jarring because I've never seen advertising on any of
| the dozen substacks I've visited before. This one has _so
| many ads_.
| Abrownn wrote:
| I couldn't stand magazines back in the day for the same
| reason. Frankly, magazines are worse in my mind as I've
| already actually paid several dollars to purchase it. You'd
| think that'd allow them to get away with less ads as a result
| but apparently not. TV is the same way - I'm already paying
| for cable, stop showing me MORE stuff! I cut the cord in
| 2011, I don't miss it and I'd rather that model of
| payment+more ads not make a comeback.
| ImaCake wrote:
| I would say this is an ad aimed at a professional audience. I
| read the science equivalent of these in _Nature_ sometimes.
| Sure, they are biased and misleading. But it is usually clear
| enough who sponsored the piece and so you get a useful
| perspective of the sponsor on some topic.
| burnished wrote:
| You don't think that its important that there aren't any
| irritating banners, that it opens with the content, and that
| any advertising copy sits below the article itself? I had to go
| back and check because the thing you are complaining about
| literally did not interrupt my flow in any way.
| Abrownn wrote:
| Banner ads don't masquerade as content and aren't nearly as
| screen-covering as that on-average in my experience. The only
| way this is better is that there's no chance for malicious JS
| to be served from the ad (Forbes, cough cough)
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