19 ms·

Just doesn’t feel good

449 points by coloneltcb 11y ago

joesmo 11y ago
I think the war analogy is right, but it's a one-sided war where the only people losing money in the ad game are the consumers. It takes a significant amount of energy and bandwidth to download those ads. On the other hand, publishers are not really losing money because you can't lose what you don't have. It's unlikely that people who use ad blockers would click on ads anyway, further driving the point home. Nevertheless, one sided wars do exist and this is one of them.
ixtli 11y ago
Also relevant to this discussion: http://peakads.org/ http://peakads.org/
DanBlake 11y ago
Although I have no direct knowledge, it feels like there is something going on behind the scenes forcing this reaction. If I had to guess, I would point the finger at Ghostery causing this. Lifehacker wrote¹ that Ghostery sells some data to marketers, so perhaps the approach taken with the app interferes with Ghostery's model and they were not willing to continue allowing access to their rule list. Alternatively Ghostery saw the success of the app and now wants to launch their own and shut off access to the data. *edit- He just said he is handing the app over to Ghostery on twitter. Very interesting. ¹ http://lifehacker.com/ad-blocking-extension-ghostery-actually-sells-data-to-a-514417864 http://lifehacker.com/ad-blocking-extension-ghostery-actuall...
- w4 11y ago
  > If I had to guess, I would point the finger at Ghostery causing this. Lifehacker wrote that Ghostery sells some data to marketers, so perhaps the approach taken with the app interferes with Ghosterys model Doubtful that's the case. If you read his post, he recommends Ghostery several times. It just sounds like he ultimately didn't feel comfortable about making money off something that takes money out of other people's pockets: "I still believe that ad blockers are necessary today, and I still think Ghostery is the best one, but I’ve learned over the last few crazy days that I don’t feel good making one and being the arbiter of what’s blocked...I suggest you use Ghostery on the desktop"
  - DanBlake 11y ago
    Recommending them means nothing at all. That is practically the status quo when breaking up with another business, employee or whatever when it is done publicly. (and this obviously had to be public)
    - w4 11y ago
      Right...but nothing about Marco's statement suggests anything besides, "It turns out I feel really weird about making an ad blocker, and there isn't any way I can make an ad blocker that works in a way that doesn't make me feel weird with the iOS framework, so I'm not going to make one anymore." Why not take his statement at face value? He's personally reliant on ad income from his site, as are several of his friends, so it makes sense that profiting off an ad blocker makes him uncomfortable. No conspiracy needed. (For background, see: http://www.marco.org/2015/09/17/why-peace-blocks-deck-ads http://www.marco.org/2015/09/17/why-peace-blocks-deck-ads)
      - hullo 11y ago
        Just one clarification, and it will seem picky, but while Marco's site does have ads, Marco-the-person is in no sense "reliant" on ad income, as an early Tumblr employee who did well in the IPO and then didn't blow it on yachts and helicopters. In addition to IAP money from his podcast app, selling Instapaper, etc.
        w4 11y ago
        Fair enough - maybe personally reliant was a bit strong. :) I suspect his own income was less of a concern than his friends' incomes anyways, given he's taking down what is likely a six figure (or seven, over time) app.
- cstross 11y ago
  Alternatively: I am seeing a lot of angry articles by journalists who see adblockers as an existential threat to them, and Marco also developed Instapaper. He's almost certainly already getting hate mail from content sites who don't like the way that Instapaper renders their content readable without allowing annoying intrusions. Releasing Peace on top of Instapaper set him up as a high-profile target -- even higher with that #1 app store ranking -- and that's no fun at all to live with unless you've got a very thick skin. To those who think the pro-ad folks are right: I'd urge you to meditate on just what the #1 ranking of an ad-blocker in the app store implies about the public's appetite for advertising.
  - draw_down 11y ago
    Instapaper is owned by Instapaper Holdings (Betaworks), not Marco. (In addition to starting Instapaper, Marco also started a publication called The Magazine, which he sold and is now shuttered.)
    - sp332 11y ago
      He sold a majority stake to Betaworks, but he is still an owner.
    - scarface74 11y ago
      And let's not gloss over the fact that he made at least a few million from his equity stake in Tumblr when it was sold to Yahoo. He was the first employee of the company. From everything I've heard on his podcast, it is strongly hinted that he really never needs to work another day in his life.
  - tobr 11y ago
    Marco Arment sold Instapaper more than two years ago and as far as I know, is not directly involved with it in any way today. Still, as evident by your comment, his name is of course very much associated with it. http://www.marco.org/2013/04/25/instapaper-next-generation http://www.marco.org/2013/04/25/instapaper-next-generation
  - TillE 11y ago
- carlosrg 11y ago
  Doubt it. He probably just thought the app wasn't going to be so popular. He's selling a lot of copies and he just doesn't feel comfortable with it. Hats off to Marco for putting his ethics first, not the money. I said this yesterday and I'm going to repeat myself in this thread: adblocking is not going to "fix" the web as people are saying, for the simple reason ad blockers block all ads, not only annoying ones. The big publishers probably are not going to even notice it, because they have other ways of making money, but the small blogger will have a hard time when the ads on his blog get blocked, probably the only source of income for his site. And we're forgetting people that can't afford anything besides some little AdSense ad to advertise their business. How are they going to reach people if all their ads get blocked?
  - inversionOf 11y ago
    Hats off to Marco for putting his ethics first, not the money. I find this sentiment, and the moderation supporting it, incredible and almost a demonstration of the Stockholm Syndrome.
  - newscracker 11y ago
    What stops the small blogger from trying to understand why ad revenues are falling and also writing a post asking readers how things can be improved? Readers who like the content will respond, and hopefully, a better ad network could be used and/or other monetization avenues could be considered. Marco has tweeted that he's giving the Peace app code to Ghostery. [1] That can't be considered ethical. That's like being a gunmaker, not feeling comfortable being one, pulling the product from the shelves, and still giving/selling the entire design, patents, manufacturing facilities, etc., to someone else to continue making it and selling it. In this case, even though Ghostery has had its block list and desktop browser extensions for quite sometime, it surely does not need Marco to give away the app's code to it, especially if he had a moral quandary about having made such an app. [1]: https://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/644939796624896000 https://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/644939796624896000
- angryasian 11y ago
  I don't agree, there are plenty of other companies/sources out there that could have provided the list. I think the fact that Marco talks all this moralistic pov, while still endorsing ghostery is bs. Just shows he's for sale.
- gregcohn 11y ago
  It did occur to me that he might have been threatened by a lawsuit (or more than one). I suspect he would have been direct about that, if in a position to, but a large corporation is in a position to put tremendous pressure on a small/indie business, even if they don't have the legal high ground. IIRC, there was a lot of drama between tv networks and Tivo, once upon a time, over the ad-skipping issue, which netted out in a pretty lame detente (Tivo pulling the 30-second-skip button out of standard UI). At the end of the day, the issues are similar (30-second-skip == going the bathroom during the commercial break, but someone productizing it was not). Over a longer period of time, we all started time-shifting tv content and commercials took a big hit anyway (due to Netflix and to Tivo clones and licensees). If anyone thinks a developer like Marco is somehow complicit in the death of traditional, ad-supported media, I hope they're having similar introspection over using spotify instead of buying records. The world doesn't owe a living to people who can steal content, write clickbait headlines, and convert paragraphs into multi-page galleries the most effectively. They will have to adapt. And some will die. And ad-blockers are forever a thing on mobile now.
- chipotle_coyote 11y ago
  I admit the line "Ghostery and I have both decided that it doesn't serve our goals or beliefs well enough" does make me wonder what Ghostery's input in this decision was. A previous post indicated a future release of Peace would have brought a similar granularity level for individual tracker/network blocking that the Ghostery desktop extension provides. If that's enough nuanced control for the desktop, why isn't it for mobile? Having said that, though, I've followed Marco's writing/podcasting long enough to generally take him at his word. He's been pretty forthright about why he makes the choices he does and acknowledging things he considers mistakes. I noticed that several fairly big names in the Mac blogging/podcasting space came across the last couple of days as very hostile to the notion of ad blockers. Imagine having people you respect, work with at times and have considered friends for years attack the essential concept underpinning your new application as an immoral action that will destroy their livelihood. Given that, I don't find the "I stopped feeling good about this" explanation at all hard to swallow.
tylersgordon 11y ago
I wonder why he made this decision after launching. The consequences and economics of ad-blocking are nothing new or surprising, and I'm sure he knew this while developing the app. Sounds like he was threatened or blackmailed.
- markbnj 11y ago
  Meh, who knows, but tossing the word "blackmailed" in there is unnecessarily sensationalist, imo. All sorts of things can be "known" in the abstract, and still feel far more intense when experienced in reality.
  - tylersgordon 11y ago
    Yeah, I agree.
- smacktoward 11y ago
  Probably not "threatened" so much as chagrined by the flood of "ad blockers are killing the independent web" articles that accompanied the release of the iOS ad blockers, such as this one from The Verge: http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/17/9338963/welcome-to-hell-apple-vs-google-vs-facebook-and-the-slow-death-of-the-web http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/17/9338963/welcome-to-hell-ap... It's one thing to know you're hurting somebody's livelihood in the abstract, it's another to have them specifically call you out over it.
- hullo 11y ago
  One can easily take him at his word that he did not expect to be pinned to #1 on the app sales charts, because that would have been a crazy thing to expect. With that came the kind of attention that he's show drives him crazy in the past, it really is a Flappy Bird analog.
  - spike021 11y ago
    Don't adblockers already top browser extension "stores" top downloads lists? Seems like the type of extension that is in fact very popular, rather than some niche one that only a few thousand out of millions of people would use.
TarpitCarnivore 11y ago
Is it me or does it seem like he'll back pedal the moment the backlash gets too big? It's the 'Apple software is buggy' back pedal all over again.
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- ixtli 11y ago
  I agree with you. If the consumer doesn't enjoy a part of their experience with your product, you're gonna feel the effects of that whether or not a sympathetic developer helps them out or not. To me this feels the same as big companies bullying small content producers with DMCA requests. Since these small ad-monetized websites have someone to blame, they've browbeaten someone who only set out to help the actual consumer have a better internet experience.
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  - ixtli 11y ago
    http://peakads.org/ http://peakads.org/
draw_down 11y ago
Well that was quick. I see things as he does, the ads are terrible, but it's silly to try to pretend like ad-blockers are an unalloyed good. This situation will continue to worsen, and as I see it, will hasten the popularity of Facebook's new instant-article feature and similar.
Moshe_Silnorin 11y ago
If you are getting money from a legal activity you consider morally unsound, consider donating the profits to a charity GiveWell recommends. Some other service will pick up the slack, so throwing in the towel and your profits is a very inefficient means of stopping that act you consider to be morally unsound. In fact, you're subsidizing those without moral scruples. Stopping this because it "feels wrong" is odd. Donate the profits to a charity. At the absurd extreme, If you honestly feel adblocking is a moral problem, donate the profits to an anti-adblocking lobby. Throwing away your money is throwing away your leverage.
- alangfiles 11y ago
  If utilitarian ethics are better than deontological ethics, then you're right. But it's hard to value one system over the other. I'm guess Marco is acting on principal here, and not on greatest good for the cause.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > If utilitarian ethics are better than deontological ethics, then you're right. But it's hard to value one system over the other. No, its not. Its quite easy to do so, and people do it all the time without any particular effort. Its impossible, not merely hard, to argue that someone else should value one over the other, without first choosing some from of one or the other as the basis for the argument, since you can't get a value conclusion without a value premise.
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  Do what you feel is morally wrong, and give away the profits? That's... bad ethics. "It's wrong, but it's for the greater good, so it's OK!" should be a major red flag. It says that what you're doing is wrong, you know it's wrong, and you're rationalizing. What lies down that road is the destruction of such morals as you currently have. Don't go there.
  - robotresearcher 11y ago
    Governments do this on a massive scale with lotteries. I agree it's very dodgy ethically.
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cjensen 11y ago
Lots of people here trying to infer motives. Why not just believe what he says? He's a guy who has enough money, wants to do what he loves, and doesn't enjoy controversy. He's hacker enough to want to muck about with how to make a blocker, but it's not his joy. Basically, he's what many of us aspire to be.
- inversionOf 11y ago
  and doesn't enjoy controversy So he went all in on something that was already hugely controversial (for weeks regarding iOS, and for years on other platforms). That adblockers would be controversial was blatantly obvious to any of this Earth, and should not be a surprise to anyone. The world didn't need Marco to get in the ad blocking business. Yet he did in a big way, with a big partnership, and put a big amount of his namespace and reputation behind it. People infer motives because the notion that this all came as some big surprise rings hollow.
- chucknelson 11y ago
  Agreed - I think the key point is where he says he's fortunate enough to be able to do this (sacrifice the possible income of this app). Why bother with all of the political mess (much of it from "the internet" I'm sure) when you could just apply your effort elsewhere and avoid a ton of physical and emotional stress? Focusing on Overcast sounds just fine.
- w4 11y ago
  Seriously. This move makes sense without any conspiracy theories. Just look at his other recent blog post about Peace: http://www.marco.org/2015/09/17/why-peace-blocks-deck-ads http://www.marco.org/2015/09/17/why-peace-blocks-deck-ads It looks like he just felt uncomfortable making money off of his friends' and colleagues' loss. Makes sense, really, even if some posters can't seem to fathom giving up money to sleep soundly at night.
  - inversionOf 11y ago
    Makes sense, really, even if some posters can't seem to fathom giving up money to sleep soundly at night. This is like kicking kittens and then announcing to the world that you're going to stop kicking kittens. Then why kick kittens in the first place? No one made Marco create an ad blocking app. No one demanded his coordination with Ghostery. No one demanded that he announce it with great fanfare on his site. Moralizing about him stopping it ignores that it was just a few short days ago that he started it. And now he deserves accolades for stopping it? This is an incredible discussion. Countless other people with the ability and the means, who actually had convictions about this topic, didn't create ad blockers (much less for personal reward). Others still, who have convictions that favor ad blockers, did and stand by their moral compass. Either groups are in a far better position than Arment's "have it both ways" perspective.
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Rainymood 11y ago
What did Peace do? European here I have no clue ...
- slig 11y ago
  It was an adblock app for iOS 9.
codezero 11y ago
A little off topic, but I'd love to chat with anyone who has a significant percentage (leaning towards a majority) of their revenue generated from ads served on the mobile web – shoot me an email.
micahgoulart 11y ago
This series of tweets from Anil Dash might give some insight into why Marco decided to pull Peace. Basically while the big publishers of content can adapt to ads being blocked and create native ads or sell "featured content", small publishers like blogs dont have the time to work on that and rely on third-party ad tech like Google AdSense for monetization. Worth a read: https://twitter.com/anildash/status/644560336369119232 https://twitter.com/anildash/status/644560336369119232 > @anildash Okay, ad blocking advocates and users (I am one, sometimes!), we're going to have a new conversation. You ready?
- aw3c2 11y ago
  It is my honest belief that small, valuable sites can finance themselves through their communities. If they can't, then maybe they not worth running.
- superchink 11y ago
  I think—maybe?—his thesis is based on a flawed assumption: that for advertisements to be a "good user experience" they need to be native and served by the site themselves. I think—maybe?—that ad networks can exist in such a way that they continue to provide outsourced services to sites, without being obnoxious. Is this impossible?
zyxley 11y ago
I wonder how many people will be unable to get a refund from Apple for the app.
- petercooper 11y ago
  This sort of situation is not what refunds on the App Store are typically for. I'm more intrigued if his app gets a colossal number of refund requests if it'll jeopardize his standing with Apple.
- ChrisLTD 11y ago
  My refund was processed immediately.
  - stock_toaster 11y ago
    Mine has not been processed yet, but it has only been a few hours.
    - davidcollantes 11y ago
      The app is still listed under recent, which will not give me the option to ask for a reimbursement. Unsupported new app should be sufficient reason.
mitchty 11y ago
Here is the whole thing about ad supported sites: We are worth a lot less than you think, and also overall an individuals monthly worth in advertisements is also small. https://air.mozilla.org/subscribe2web/ https://air.mozilla.org/subscribe2web/ Turns out, we're worth about $6.20/mo in advertising. Lets just round this up to $10/month to not have ads but still support sites we visit. If content providers aren't working on an alternative like the above, I'll continue to block ads. If you want to stop me from accessing the site by detecting that I will also kill that. If that stops working I won't see your content. Forcing me to watch ads with zero alternative though, nope. Google contributor is a start, but this needs to be across all ad platforms. I'm not against funding people, I'm against funding ad agencies and their tracking and their other maladies. Such as trojaned ad networks, silly amounts of javascript and data, etc.... What I'm saying here is content providers and ad agencies and us ALL need to fix this. In my opinion though, this is all a result of the Faustian bargain the content providers have chosen and the inevitable escalation the ad companies have taken. I value my time and attention and am willing to pay to not have that taken away from me. Just don't force me to buy into ads, do like the twit network does if you have to. I've tried out almost all of their sponsors, not because of the company advertising but because of the person and people recommending it.
- donohoe 11y ago
  Looks like that number was from 2013? Can anyone tell me how they would figure out that number today? I've looked into a similar approach and would love a reliable way to answer "how much does a publisher need to charge to not have ads".
  - rsynnott 11y ago
    Divide Google revenues by Internet penetration to get a rough guideline, perhaps? I doubt it has changed that much.
- notNow 11y ago
  An excerpt from the intro on that landing page of that project or intiative "It is a movement to create an ad-free Web" I find this view to be unlikely to materialize. We're in a consumerist-led capitalist economy and advertising is an integral part of it and the web as communications medium is one of its important assets. This project will fail before it even starts due to the unrealistic end goal advertised - pun intended - on the page.
theworstshill 11y ago
Sounds like marco chose a lump payment model instead (from the advertisers themselves). Speculation of course, but I wouldn't pull something I worked hard on in just a couple of days, especially if it was succeeding and earning a ton of money.
- ryanhuff 11y ago
  It doesn't "sound" like anything of the sort to me. Take off the tin-foil hat.
- macintux 11y ago
  Are you fucking kidding me? You're going to casually call him corrupt and a liar because you're too small-minded to believe he can have a change of heart?
  - theworstshill 11y ago
    I mentioned I was speculating. I don't know a lot of people who spend dozens of hours of their life developing a product, then publish it, then manage to achieve success and then throw it all away. I'm not saying that doesn't happen, but what are the chances?
    - dang 11y ago
      > I mentioned I was speculating That doesn't matter. Insinuations without evidence of astroturfing, shillage, corruption, etc., have no place on HN. Please don't do that again.
      - theworstshill 11y ago
        No problem dung, in around 60 years once Marco is on his deathbed and publishes his autobiography with the actual facts we can come back to this discussion. Not.
  - notNow 11y ago
    Of course!! Our Lord and Savior Marco wouldn't do such a thing, How dare he be skeptic of His intentions and motives? Blessed His name Marco
monochromatic 11y ago
Good for him. I wish more people could walk away from a successful business that doesn't feel good. I wish I could.
mahouse 11y ago
Knowing him, this could be a stunt.
- kgermino 11y ago
  What makes you say that? He's never struck me as that type of person but maybe I've missed something. Do you have any examples?
ixtli 11y ago
I hate this supposition that everyone should bend over backwards to allow people who make money in a certain way continue making money in that way. Am I the only one thinks that the user's experience should be more important than everything else? Annoying advertisements are, in practice, the result of people failing to be creative in monetization. Ars Technica, for instance, has done a great job of integrating ads into their website in a way that doesn't bother me or detract from the experience. This is no doubt due to careful consideration of the needs of both the user and the owner.
- superuser2 11y ago
  When advertisers have the ability to masquerade their for-hire opinion manipulation as journalism, the public can no longer be in any meaningful way begin to hold government and corporate interests accountable. Native advertising is an existential threat to democracy and its profiteers belong in prison. I'd much rather pay journalists to tell me the truth than read what people with money are paying them to tell me.
  - ixtli 11y ago
    While I agree with you in principle, I don't think that people not wanting intrusive advertising in their blogs and acting to avoid it is going to effect this problem one way or another. What you're asking for is a BBC-style news service in America which is something I would love. If you had that, every few links on hackernews would still try to autoplay some sort of sound in a flash ad.
- benihana 11y ago
  >Am I the only one thinks that the user's experience should be more important than everything else? No. I value UX over almost everything, but you have to realize that your values don't exist in a vacuum. Without something to keep the lights on and the AC blowing air on the servers, UX is pointless and doesn't amount to anything.
  - ixtli 11y ago
    But what you're supposing is that there is _no way_ for people to profit off of their content except to bother me with invasive advertising. I simply can't accept this: the history of our industry and capitalism as a whole is a case study in how clever people are at monetization.
Osmium 11y ago
> I’m sorry to all of my fans and customers who bought this on my name, expecting it to be supported for longer than two days. Well, that was me. Funnily enough I haven't had a good experience with Overcast either (vs. Pocket Casts), so I think next time Marco releases a product I'll be a lot more skeptical. It's an awkward position too: I know I should request a refund since the app will become progressively less useful as its blocklist becomes out of date, but I would've liked to keep using it until then. As for the alternatives, I chose to support Peace instead of Purify because the latter has seems to be involved with some mild controversy [1], in addition previous controversy the developer was involved with previously over uBlock [2]. I honestly have no idea if this is innocent misunderstanding or a genuine attempt to mislead on the developer's part (because wording on the uBlock website does seem to have been clarified now), but it was enough to give me pause. So I guess this just leaves Crystal as the main alternative at the moment? [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/3leyux/say_purify_get_gilded/ https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/3leyux/say_purify_ge... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/ublock/comments/32mos6/ublock_vs_ublock_origin/cte0a3n https://www.reddit.com/r/ublock/comments/32mos6/ublock_vs_ub...
- vermontdevil 11y ago
  Agreed. I recommended his app to many friends because of Marco's stance on web ads, his passion for quality, etc. Oops - my mistake. Pulling an app two days after a long period of development without really thinking through seemed odd to me. But that's his choice. My choice - I won't buy anything from him again. Life goes on.
  - Osmium 11y ago
    > Pulling an app two days after a long period of development without really thinking through seemed odd to me. But that's his choice. Right, absolutely it's his choice. I wouldn't even go as far as saying I'll never buy a product from him again, just that I wouldn't on day one. It's not that I necessarily disagree with what he's saying (I'm glad the conversation is being had), I'm just surprised he didn't anticipate this reaction. On a broader note, if he is concerned about the ethics of ad blocking, perhaps it would've been better to maintain control of one of the most popular ad blockers? Then he would at least have been able to influence the outcome, e.g. encourage his users to adopt whitelists or similar.
shanecleveland 11y ago
I applaud the move on his part, but should have had some forethought before releasing it. He has skin in the game: profited from Instapaper (essentially an ad-stripper), sells ads on his blog and produces a podcast that profits from ad sales. His advertising may be more acceptable in terms of aesthetics and privacy, but it is an acknowledgement, nonetheless, that advertising is the best possible monetization model and one that is depended upon by many to support what they do. Can it be done in a better way? Sure. Is jeopardizing "publishers'" livelihood the answer? No. By saying "But my ads are blocked, too," as he did, was not an acceptable solution. If a big chunk of people visiting his site already paid him $3 to defer his advertising, then he's already won. But nobody else with their ads blocked will see that money. He makes good arguments about both aesthetically and privacy intrusive advertising, but A definite conflict of interest on his part.
- derefr 11y ago
  He expected to make a tiny ad-blocker nobody cared about, and then keep tinkering with it. Instead, he captured the majority of the market—at which point he realized that his ad-blocker is not nearly "nice" enough (in the ABP "whitelist sites that display non-intrusive ads" sense of nice) to make sense as the one the majority of iOS users use, and he has no idea how to do the work required to get it there (I.e. building a manual whitelist of all "good" sites ever) without stepping on millions of toes. Basically, he just never planned for success.
  - shanecleveland 11y ago
    He announced it on his highly trafficked blog and Twitter account. He carries pretty significant weight within a large circle of folks likely to install such an app. This isn't his breast feeding timer app we are talking about.
    - derefr 11y ago
      Alright; he expected to be competitive, perhaps, but I still don't think he expected to win. He's never won a market before, so why would he think his current base is enough to start winning now? Instead, he likely expected it to be another Instapaper: an app existing amicably along with a few other similar offerings, one of which is an entire company (Pocket), and one of which is Apple's own service (Reading List).
msoad 11y ago
* I don't want ads * I don't want native advertising or sponsored content * I don't want to pay for content * I don't want my tax goes to government sponsored content * I want free independent content That's me nowadays... I don't even know what's the answer!
- te_chris 11y ago
  There isn't one, because your position is idealistic and naive.
  - steve-howard 11y ago
    I saw a list of statements describing what he wants and does not want. In a world of compromises, it helps to describe what you actually want before you start identifying which of those things you'll have to give up.
  - Spivak 11y ago
    There is one, and I can name an easy example. The Welcome To Night Vale Podcast. All of their content is completely free and isn't supported by ads at all. They make money through live shows, merchandising, and donations, and I guess now book sales. It's exactly the model he's describing, free content that's not sponsored, has no strings attached, and is still hugely successful.
    - mjklin 11y ago
      Also: Answer Me This, whose recent content is free but who charge for older content, special "albums", their book, and merch. Helen and Olly seem to be doing quite well.
- smacktoward 11y ago
  The answer is learning to live with the fact that you can't always get what you want.
- jaimebuelta 11y ago
  I have absolutely no problem with sponsored ads, the kind John Gruber run on his blog, for example. On the same page, the sponsorships on Marco's podcasts I think are absolutely fine. I found them even useful (which SHOULD be the objective of advertising) I think that the main problem with ads are crappy, annoying, low-value ads. I'd love to see more interesting and relevant ads, I may, you know, BUY something from time to time...
lips 11y ago
Oh, tots scam/plot/hijinx. Because everyone knows it's easy to game the system and become #1 in the broken thing that we call the app store :/
publicfig 11y ago
I'm really disappointed by the amount of support he has gotten for this. He has directly mislead consumers into buying a product with an intent of support, and then immediately pulls it and forces the user into a difficult process with Apple to reclaim that money. Anyone that is unsuccessful in the process will have their money go directly to the developer. I understand the possibility change of heart, but that doesn't change the fact that every action of this matches what would happen in a scam, other than the fact that I truly believe he didn't set out to intentionally scam users. He really should have thought about this before releasing the app, and I feel like the support he's getting will convince him or other developers that this is at all a decent move. I think Apple should be at least overly cautious any time he attempts to release another application. I know many developers that would have been effectively blocked for less, but he has the fortune of being in good with Apple so I don't see that happening.
- kaolinite 11y ago
  I think you're forgetting the fact that this application still works. Sure, when iOS 10 is released it may break - but the same could be said for any now-abandoned app. It's a shame but he gave people notice (instead of just stopping development) and recommended people request refunds. This is nowhere close to being a scam.
  - drakenot 11y ago
    This isn't an ordinary application. Ad blocking applications live and die by their blocklist. Many people purchased this application with the implied assumption that the blocklist would continue to be updated for the foreseeable future. Without an updated blocklist, this app will quickly become useless.
    - sangnoir 11y ago
      Ghostery is providing the blocklist, not Marco.I doubt they are going to stop anytime soon as they also have a browser extenstion that relies on it
makeitsuckless 11y ago
I would have been a lot more understanding if he bothered to explain how protecting people's privacy against malicious exploitation hurts people that "don't deserve to be hit". Without any reason other than vague hints, this sounds like someone got to him. I'm not buying any of this. He suggest he feels bad about his product, but at no point explains why.
sergiotapia 11y ago
So what can I download now that does the same thing? I don't care about advertising companies revenue at all.
dageshi 11y ago
Mediocre.
privacy-lover 11y ago
My money is on Ghostery terminating the tracker database license deal with Marco. I wouldn't be surprised if a Ghostery client made a complaint to the CEO.
- ihuman 11y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if they talked about this before he pulled the application, and that none of what you said would happen.
rdancer 11y ago
Marco Arment thinks very differently from how I, and perhaps most other hackers, think. It is valuable to have people to disagree with.
masterleep 11y ago
I don't care about the money, but it's annoying that he wasted my time and some of my credibility (because I recommended the app to some of my friends).
amyjess 11y ago
Should probably get a better title. Sure, it's the name of the blog post, but that's a really ambiguous name. I suggest "Making an ad blocker myself just doesn't feel good".
davidhariri 11y ago
This feels very authentic. I'm impressed, that's a tough decision to make, especially given there were others involved in the dev. Reminds me of what happened with Flappy Bird
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smackfu 11y ago
An ad blocker on iOS 9 is basically just an app wrapper around a JSON file. I'm not surprised a decent iOS developer would figure they could whip one out in a day or two of coding just as a proof of concept, and then release it to see if they make a few bucks. Not a lot of deep introspection involved. If you suddenly sell 20k copies at $3 each, and make enough in a day to buy a BMW, then maybe you think a bit more.
mrsaint 11y ago
Let's say I don't care about a refund but I want to continue using it, albeit unsupported. The developer says, "It’ll keep working for a long time if you already have it, but with no updates."... but this is what I am not so sure about. I looked at my iTunes backups and didn't see Peace. It's also not in the list of my updated apps in iTunes, presumably because it got pulled from the store. Suggestion to the developer: how about a heads up next time you're planning something like this? It wouldn't have hurt anyone. Do you know of any way how I can backup Peace that is currently sitting in my phone, in case I need to do a full iPhone restore?
- smoser 11y ago
  You can always download previously purchased apps from your purchased list unless it was removed due to a legal reason.
  - mrsaint 11y ago
    There we go... muchas gracias.
facepalm 11y ago
If we accept ad blocking as an act of war, doesn't that imply we think humans can't help being manipulated by ads? Otherwise, where would be the difference between somebody using an ad blocker and somebody being indifferent to the ads? I must admit if that is the fundamental belief, how one can prefer to side with the people who manipulate other people. I am not against ads myself, I just don't understand the rationale.
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napoleoncomplex 11y ago
There's no need to make up dark motives on Marco's side, his blogpost on blocking The Deck (http://www.marco.org/2015/09/17/why-peace-blocks-deck-ads http://www.marco.org/2015/09/17/why-peace-blocks-deck-ads) pretty clearly showed where the cracks were. A lot of people and business will get hurt in this, plenty of them not at fault or at least with no better way to monetize. Now to be clear, I use ad blockers on the web myself, and intend to install the Android ones once I root my phone. But it's getting tiring reading people standing on some moral high ground to justify their use of ad blockers. There is no scenario where this leads to better-behaving ad networks, or to better monetization models for the web. The final winner of this ad blocker war is a no-frills ad blocker that blocks as much ads as possible, regardless of the quality of the ad network and its ads. The majority won't go and fiddle with the settings to approve ads on sites they like, or from ad networks that are cool. Give people a chance to block all ads and they will, even if some "innocent bystanders" get hurt. And I think Marco saw that scenario unfolding in real life with Peace's success. One example, Daring Fireball is proud of how his monetization strategy is working out for him, and justly so, he hand picks his promotions and packages them into little promotional posts. But that's basically a native ad. So let's say the next big idea from everyone hurt by blocking is that native ads are the big thing now (not that it isn't already being used heavily), and everyone should hide them among the real content, undetectable to current ad blockers. So ad blockers will evolve, and people will build filters that hide the content of these native ads in smart ways. And they might build a filter that hides posts on Daring Fireball that contain the words "my thanks" or "sponsoring this week". Will Gruber still be so supportive of content blockers then? And where's the line? Who decides what the right types of ads are? It's not that I have any smart answers about this, but I think it's disingenuous to pretend this "culling" of the shitty ads will lead into a brave new world with fair ad networks where everyone decides to turn off ad blocking on The Verge, because gosh, they've really improved, or into some kind of fairytale where people pay for The Verge's content through subscriptions. But they will keep visiting The Verge en masse, and expecting fresh content served in miliseconds. Who will pay for it and who will write it, I sincerely don't know.
- slantyyz 11y ago
  >> Will Gruber still be so supportive of content blockers then? And where's the line? Who decides what the right types of ads are? From your linked article, it appears that Gruber's already not supportive of content blockers that block the Deck by default: "I think if your Safari Content Blocker blocks The Deck by default, it’s wrong. I dare you to defend it." https://twitter.com/gruber/status/644409410048106496 https://twitter.com/gruber/status/644409410048106496 I get that there are bad ads and good ads, but in the grand scheme of things, they're all still ads. Do people who skip through commercials on a PVR'ed TV show care if one or two of the ads are worth watching? I'd argue that in most cases, the answer is "no". So this all reminds me of the famous line from Animal Farm - "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".
daxfohl 11y ago
Robin Hood the thing. Give exactly 100% of the money to starving children. Literally. Personally, not through some charity. Literally go to a 3rd-world nation (on your own money, don't dare touch money collected through the app), find parents of starving children, and give them each a $100 bill. Start a trend. Start that trend. Be that person. Not just the person who had a hit iOS app. Be the person who eliminates hunger by setting a simple, obvious, example. Does that feel good?
EGreg 11y ago
I don't get it. What was this Peace app? How did it get to the top of the charts right away upon release? How is an App Store app able to block ads in other apps? These are all questions I wish marco would have answered for the developers reading his piece.
- ljk 11y ago
  http://www.marco.org/2015/09/16/peace-content-blocker http://www.marco.org/2015/09/16/peace-content-blocker It's an ad blocking app. ad blocking is a new feature for iOS 9
wildpeaks 11y ago
Even with the app [temporary] pulled, it now showed there is money to be made from ad blockers, so it's only a matter of time before clones appear in the appstore.
stock_toaster 11y ago
After this (pulling the app after 2 days) I will be very hesitant to ever buy anything made by Marco again. Hopefully Apple processes my refund.
pushnpop 11y ago
When I visit a site, I want to see content from that site. I did not consent to view ads from a third party. I would be happy to view ads that a site decides to host and display. The problem is that most sites have absolutely no idea what ads they are displaying. They just want money. It is probably not even feasible to block ads that a site hosts themselves.
untangle 11y ago
I have no idea what he intended, but what he created by this reversal was news. That the move adds a martyrdom flavor to an already-rich personal brand is a bankable asset beyond the $100K (or whatever) that would be made in the App Store. This is a 60 Minutes or GMA-level story now.
trocodine 11y ago
what an idiot
nugget 11y ago
I have a huge amount of respect for Marco but this decision makes no sense to me. Was he afraid of hurting journalist friends and losing invites to the hottest media parties around NYC? Or pissing off other friends and ex-colleagues who now work at analytics and optimization companies? I hate to be a cynic but that's how his post read to me - this launch had cast a personal shadow that he didn't want to deal with. Some % of users don't want to be tracked and they downloaded an app to stop it. It's not like he removed the Safari API that enabled this. Now that Peace is gone, it will just be replaced by other similar apps, likely from far less scrupulous authors (such as ABP with their ''acceptable ads'').
nsnick 11y ago
When I visit a site, I want to see content from that site. I did not consent to view ads from a third party. I would be happy to view ads that a site decides to host and display. The problem is that most sites have absolutely no idea what ads they are displaying. They just want money. It is probably not even feasible to block ads that a site hosts themselves.
endymi0n 11y ago
There seems to be quite some confusion around "tracking" and "tasteful" ads. Reality is, "tastefulness" is mostly a personal feeling based on relevance to the user which usually is a direct consequence of tracking (and taking the right action on it). I'm not talking about intrusiveness, which is a whole different UX issue and the only thing I think we all agree on. But from all my experience in AdTech I don't think there's a single ads provider that "does not track", as it's basically the same as having a store that does not have a cashier's desk. "We don't track" is simply a big lie. But tracking isn't black and white. At least, networks will track impressions and clicks, otherwise publishers won't get paid. But then there's Cookies. Advertising IDs. Audiences. You can even break it down on the individual user level. The biggest problem is simply responsibility and where to stop. Most large ad networks enforce responsibility by mandating minimum sized audiences by now, but with RTB it's possible to break down the last barriers. The ecosystem is mostly based on trust in the advertisers right now and only the worst offenders get pulled, but mostly after the fact. Marco made a good choice by not even trying to be judge, police and policymaker in the same person. It's an impossible task to begin with.
neoschiller 11y ago
Ad Blocking should be illegal, this is like stealing money from people who work on creating content, I believe that people will leave content providers who serve too many ads in an intrusive way anyway. so there is a balance in place already.
- kardos 11y ago
  Why does it have to be so black and white? What we need is an optional micropayment system such that I can pay 1-2 cents per article in lieu of seeing ads. Choice one, see the article in an ad-infested page, or choice two, pay a couple cents to "buy out" the ad experience. Ad rates are on the order of $5 per 1000 views, ie, 0.5 cents, so a 2 cent buyout is entirely feasible.
chmaynard 11y ago
This is really sad. Arment has made an impulsive, flakey decision that tarnishes his reputation as one of the leading independent iOS developers. Instead of removing Peace from the App Store, Arment could choose to improve and refine the app, satisfying his own objections and encouraging his customers to follow his lead.
braum 11y ago
Marco lost my trust after I purchased Overcast app and it has been mostly ignored by him other than fixing bugs. The Overcast app has seen very few new features. There is still no streaming (100% download before playing) and no bookmarking (so you can come back to something interesting). He mentioned on his blog that he had made a few minor fixes but nothing major.
yattahri 11y ago
If we got to the point that we need ad blockers to navigate the internet peacefully without interruption, I’m sorry to say but it is the publishers’ fault. They had a right and they abused it. Maybe now they will put a little more UX consideration before they plaster ads everywhere in your face. I personally tend to avoid the buzzfeeds, the CNNs and a lot of other sources of all crappy journalism for lack for better words. This is the only weapon we have as consumers to help us fight back or voice our choice. Customer is always king and always will be. Produce something that works for me and I’ll buy it. But if I make it to your restaurant and while I’m eating you are having a round of people sit across from me and speed pitch me while using sometimes unacceptable methods… then don’t be surprised if I fight back. One, ad fine. two ads, fine. A gazillion ads… what am I here for again?

449 points by coloneltcb 11y ago

I think the war analogy is right, but it's a one-sided war where the only people losing money in the ad game are the consumers. It takes a significant amount of energy and bandwidth to download those ads. On the other hand, publishers are not really losing money because you can't lose what you don't have. It's unlikely that people who use ad blockers would click on ads anyway, further driving the point home. Nevertheless, one sided wars do exist and this is one of them.

ixtli 11y ago

Also relevant to this discussion: http://peakads.org/ http://peakads.org/

DanBlake 11y ago

Although I have no direct knowledge, it feels like there is something going on behind the scenes forcing this reaction. If I had to guess, I would point the finger at Ghostery causing this. Lifehacker wrote¹ that Ghostery sells some data to marketers, so perhaps the approach taken with the app interferes with Ghostery's model and they were not willing to continue allowing access to their rule list. Alternatively Ghostery saw the success of the app and now wants to launch their own and shut off access to the data. *edit- He just said he is handing the app over to Ghostery on twitter. Very interesting. ¹ http://lifehacker.com/ad-blocking-extension-ghostery-actually-sells-data-to-a-514417864 http://lifehacker.com/ad-blocking-extension-ghostery-actuall...

w4 11y ago
> If I had to guess, I would point the finger at Ghostery causing this. Lifehacker wrote that Ghostery sells some data to marketers, so perhaps the approach taken with the app interferes with Ghosterys model Doubtful that's the case. If you read his post, he recommends Ghostery several times. It just sounds like he ultimately didn't feel comfortable about making money off something that takes money out of other people's pockets: "I still believe that ad blockers are necessary today, and I still think Ghostery is the best one, but I’ve learned over the last few crazy days that I don’t feel good making one and being the arbiter of what’s blocked...I suggest you use Ghostery on the desktop"
- DanBlake 11y ago
  Recommending them means nothing at all. That is practically the status quo when breaking up with another business, employee or whatever when it is done publicly. (and this obviously had to be public)
  - w4 11y ago
    Right...but nothing about Marco's statement suggests anything besides, "It turns out I feel really weird about making an ad blocker, and there isn't any way I can make an ad blocker that works in a way that doesn't make me feel weird with the iOS framework, so I'm not going to make one anymore." Why not take his statement at face value? He's personally reliant on ad income from his site, as are several of his friends, so it makes sense that profiting off an ad blocker makes him uncomfortable. No conspiracy needed. (For background, see: http://www.marco.org/2015/09/17/why-peace-blocks-deck-ads http://www.marco.org/2015/09/17/why-peace-blocks-deck-ads)
    - hullo 11y ago
      Just one clarification, and it will seem picky, but while Marco's site does have ads, Marco-the-person is in no sense "reliant" on ad income, as an early Tumblr employee who did well in the IPO and then didn't blow it on yachts and helicopters. In addition to IAP money from his podcast app, selling Instapaper, etc.
      - w4 11y ago
        Fair enough - maybe personally reliant was a bit strong. :) I suspect his own income was less of a concern than his friends' incomes anyways, given he's taking down what is likely a six figure (or seven, over time) app.
cstross 11y ago
Alternatively: I am seeing a lot of angry articles by journalists who see adblockers as an existential threat to them, and Marco also developed Instapaper. He's almost certainly already getting hate mail from content sites who don't like the way that Instapaper renders their content readable without allowing annoying intrusions. Releasing Peace on top of Instapaper set him up as a high-profile target -- even higher with that #1 app store ranking -- and that's no fun at all to live with unless you've got a very thick skin. To those who think the pro-ad folks are right: I'd urge you to meditate on just what the #1 ranking of an ad-blocker in the app store implies about the public's appetite for advertising.
- draw_down 11y ago
  Instapaper is owned by Instapaper Holdings (Betaworks), not Marco. (In addition to starting Instapaper, Marco also started a publication called The Magazine, which he sold and is now shuttered.)
  - sp332 11y ago
    He sold a majority stake to Betaworks, but he is still an owner.
  - scarface74 11y ago
    And let's not gloss over the fact that he made at least a few million from his equity stake in Tumblr when it was sold to Yahoo. He was the first employee of the company. From everything I've heard on his podcast, it is strongly hinted that he really never needs to work another day in his life.
- tobr 11y ago
  Marco Arment sold Instapaper more than two years ago and as far as I know, is not directly involved with it in any way today. Still, as evident by your comment, his name is of course very much associated with it. http://www.marco.org/2013/04/25/instapaper-next-generation http://www.marco.org/2013/04/25/instapaper-next-generation
- TillE 11y ago
carlosrg 11y ago
Doubt it. He probably just thought the app wasn't going to be so popular. He's selling a lot of copies and he just doesn't feel comfortable with it. Hats off to Marco for putting his ethics first, not the money. I said this yesterday and I'm going to repeat myself in this thread: adblocking is not going to "fix" the web as people are saying, for the simple reason ad blockers block all ads, not only annoying ones. The big publishers probably are not going to even notice it, because they have other ways of making money, but the small blogger will have a hard time when the ads on his blog get blocked, probably the only source of income for his site. And we're forgetting people that can't afford anything besides some little AdSense ad to advertise their business. How are they going to reach people if all their ads get blocked?
- inversionOf 11y ago
  Hats off to Marco for putting his ethics first, not the money. I find this sentiment, and the moderation supporting it, incredible and almost a demonstration of the Stockholm Syndrome.
- newscracker 11y ago
  What stops the small blogger from trying to understand why ad revenues are falling and also writing a post asking readers how things can be improved? Readers who like the content will respond, and hopefully, a better ad network could be used and/or other monetization avenues could be considered. Marco has tweeted that he's giving the Peace app code to Ghostery. [1] That can't be considered ethical. That's like being a gunmaker, not feeling comfortable being one, pulling the product from the shelves, and still giving/selling the entire design, patents, manufacturing facilities, etc., to someone else to continue making it and selling it. In this case, even though Ghostery has had its block list and desktop browser extensions for quite sometime, it surely does not need Marco to give away the app's code to it, especially if he had a moral quandary about having made such an app. [1]: https://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/644939796624896000 https://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/644939796624896000
angryasian 11y ago
I don't agree, there are plenty of other companies/sources out there that could have provided the list. I think the fact that Marco talks all this moralistic pov, while still endorsing ghostery is bs. Just shows he's for sale.
gregcohn 11y ago
It did occur to me that he might have been threatened by a lawsuit (or more than one). I suspect he would have been direct about that, if in a position to, but a large corporation is in a position to put tremendous pressure on a small/indie business, even if they don't have the legal high ground. IIRC, there was a lot of drama between tv networks and Tivo, once upon a time, over the ad-skipping issue, which netted out in a pretty lame detente (Tivo pulling the 30-second-skip button out of standard UI). At the end of the day, the issues are similar (30-second-skip == going the bathroom during the commercial break, but someone productizing it was not). Over a longer period of time, we all started time-shifting tv content and commercials took a big hit anyway (due to Netflix and to Tivo clones and licensees). If anyone thinks a developer like Marco is somehow complicit in the death of traditional, ad-supported media, I hope they're having similar introspection over using spotify instead of buying records. The world doesn't owe a living to people who can steal content, write clickbait headlines, and convert paragraphs into multi-page galleries the most effectively. They will have to adapt. And some will die. And ad-blockers are forever a thing on mobile now.
chipotle_coyote 11y ago
I admit the line "Ghostery and I have both decided that it doesn't serve our goals or beliefs well enough" does make me wonder what Ghostery's input in this decision was. A previous post indicated a future release of Peace would have brought a similar granularity level for individual tracker/network blocking that the Ghostery desktop extension provides. If that's enough nuanced control for the desktop, why isn't it for mobile? Having said that, though, I've followed Marco's writing/podcasting long enough to generally take him at his word. He's been pretty forthright about why he makes the choices he does and acknowledging things he considers mistakes. I noticed that several fairly big names in the Mac blogging/podcasting space came across the last couple of days as very hostile to the notion of ad blockers. Imagine having people you respect, work with at times and have considered friends for years attack the essential concept underpinning your new application as an immoral action that will destroy their livelihood. Given that, I don't find the "I stopped feeling good about this" explanation at all hard to swallow.

tylersgordon 11y ago

I wonder why he made this decision after launching. The consequences and economics of ad-blocking are nothing new or surprising, and I'm sure he knew this while developing the app. Sounds like he was threatened or blackmailed.

markbnj 11y ago
Meh, who knows, but tossing the word "blackmailed" in there is unnecessarily sensationalist, imo. All sorts of things can be "known" in the abstract, and still feel far more intense when experienced in reality.
- tylersgordon 11y ago
  Yeah, I agree.
smacktoward 11y ago
Probably not "threatened" so much as chagrined by the flood of "ad blockers are killing the independent web" articles that accompanied the release of the iOS ad blockers, such as this one from The Verge: http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/17/9338963/welcome-to-hell-apple-vs-google-vs-facebook-and-the-slow-death-of-the-web http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/17/9338963/welcome-to-hell-ap... It's one thing to know you're hurting somebody's livelihood in the abstract, it's another to have them specifically call you out over it.
hullo 11y ago
One can easily take him at his word that he did not expect to be pinned to #1 on the app sales charts, because that would have been a crazy thing to expect. With that came the kind of attention that he's show drives him crazy in the past, it really is a Flappy Bird analog.
- spike021 11y ago
  Don't adblockers already top browser extension "stores" top downloads lists? Seems like the type of extension that is in fact very popular, rather than some niche one that only a few thousand out of millions of people would use.

TarpitCarnivore 11y ago

Is it me or does it seem like he'll back pedal the moment the backlash gets too big? It's the 'Apple software is buggy' back pedal all over again.

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ixtli 11y ago
I agree with you. If the consumer doesn't enjoy a part of their experience with your product, you're gonna feel the effects of that whether or not a sympathetic developer helps them out or not. To me this feels the same as big companies bullying small content producers with DMCA requests. Since these small ad-monetized websites have someone to blame, they've browbeaten someone who only set out to help the actual consumer have a better internet experience.
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- ixtli 11y ago
  http://peakads.org/ http://peakads.org/

draw_down 11y ago

Well that was quick. I see things as he does, the ads are terrible, but it's silly to try to pretend like ad-blockers are an unalloyed good. This situation will continue to worsen, and as I see it, will hasten the popularity of Facebook's new instant-article feature and similar.

Moshe_Silnorin 11y ago

If you are getting money from a legal activity you consider morally unsound, consider donating the profits to a charity GiveWell recommends. Some other service will pick up the slack, so throwing in the towel and your profits is a very inefficient means of stopping that act you consider to be morally unsound. In fact, you're subsidizing those without moral scruples. Stopping this because it "feels wrong" is odd. Donate the profits to a charity. At the absurd extreme, If you honestly feel adblocking is a moral problem, donate the profits to an anti-adblocking lobby. Throwing away your money is throwing away your leverage.

alangfiles 11y ago
If utilitarian ethics are better than deontological ethics, then you're right. But it's hard to value one system over the other. I'm guess Marco is acting on principal here, and not on greatest good for the cause.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > If utilitarian ethics are better than deontological ethics, then you're right. But it's hard to value one system over the other. No, its not. Its quite easy to do so, and people do it all the time without any particular effort. Its impossible, not merely hard, to argue that someone else should value one over the other, without first choosing some from of one or the other as the basis for the argument, since you can't get a value conclusion without a value premise.
AnimalMuppet 11y ago
Do what you feel is morally wrong, and give away the profits? That's... bad ethics. "It's wrong, but it's for the greater good, so it's OK!" should be a major red flag. It says that what you're doing is wrong, you know it's wrong, and you're rationalizing. What lies down that road is the destruction of such morals as you currently have. Don't go there.
- robotresearcher 11y ago
  Governments do this on a massive scale with lotteries. I agree it's very dodgy ethically.

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cjensen 11y ago

Lots of people here trying to infer motives. Why not just believe what he says? He's a guy who has enough money, wants to do what he loves, and doesn't enjoy controversy. He's hacker enough to want to muck about with how to make a blocker, but it's not his joy. Basically, he's what many of us aspire to be.

inversionOf 11y ago
and doesn't enjoy controversy So he went all in on something that was already hugely controversial (for weeks regarding iOS, and for years on other platforms). That adblockers would be controversial was blatantly obvious to any of this Earth, and should not be a surprise to anyone. The world didn't need Marco to get in the ad blocking business. Yet he did in a big way, with a big partnership, and put a big amount of his namespace and reputation behind it. People infer motives because the notion that this all came as some big surprise rings hollow.
chucknelson 11y ago
Agreed - I think the key point is where he says he's fortunate enough to be able to do this (sacrifice the possible income of this app). Why bother with all of the political mess (much of it from "the internet" I'm sure) when you could just apply your effort elsewhere and avoid a ton of physical and emotional stress? Focusing on Overcast sounds just fine.
w4 11y ago
Seriously. This move makes sense without any conspiracy theories. Just look at his other recent blog post about Peace: http://www.marco.org/2015/09/17/why-peace-blocks-deck-ads http://www.marco.org/2015/09/17/why-peace-blocks-deck-ads It looks like he just felt uncomfortable making money off of his friends' and colleagues' loss. Makes sense, really, even if some posters can't seem to fathom giving up money to sleep soundly at night.
- inversionOf 11y ago
  Makes sense, really, even if some posters can't seem to fathom giving up money to sleep soundly at night. This is like kicking kittens and then announcing to the world that you're going to stop kicking kittens. Then why kick kittens in the first place? No one made Marco create an ad blocking app. No one demanded his coordination with Ghostery. No one demanded that he announce it with great fanfare on his site. Moralizing about him stopping it ignores that it was just a few short days ago that he started it. And now he deserves accolades for stopping it? This is an incredible discussion. Countless other people with the ability and the means, who actually had convictions about this topic, didn't create ad blockers (much less for personal reward). Others still, who have convictions that favor ad blockers, did and stand by their moral compass. Either groups are in a far better position than Arment's "have it both ways" perspective.

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Rainymood 11y ago

What did Peace do? European here I have no clue ...

slig 11y ago
It was an adblock app for iOS 9.

codezero 11y ago

A little off topic, but I'd love to chat with anyone who has a significant percentage (leaning towards a majority) of their revenue generated from ads served on the mobile web – shoot me an email.

micahgoulart 11y ago

This series of tweets from Anil Dash might give some insight into why Marco decided to pull Peace. Basically while the big publishers of content can adapt to ads being blocked and create native ads or sell "featured content", small publishers like blogs dont have the time to work on that and rely on third-party ad tech like Google AdSense for monetization. Worth a read: https://twitter.com/anildash/status/644560336369119232 https://twitter.com/anildash/status/644560336369119232 > @anildash Okay, ad blocking advocates and users (I am one, sometimes!), we're going to have a new conversation. You ready?

aw3c2 11y ago
It is my honest belief that small, valuable sites can finance themselves through their communities. If they can't, then maybe they not worth running.
superchink 11y ago
I think—maybe?—his thesis is based on a flawed assumption: that for advertisements to be a "good user experience" they need to be native and served by the site themselves. I think—maybe?—that ad networks can exist in such a way that they continue to provide outsourced services to sites, without being obnoxious. Is this impossible?

zyxley 11y ago

I wonder how many people will be unable to get a refund from Apple for the app.

petercooper 11y ago
This sort of situation is not what refunds on the App Store are typically for. I'm more intrigued if his app gets a colossal number of refund requests if it'll jeopardize his standing with Apple.
ChrisLTD 11y ago
My refund was processed immediately.
- stock_toaster 11y ago
  Mine has not been processed yet, but it has only been a few hours.
  - davidcollantes 11y ago
    The app is still listed under recent, which will not give me the option to ask for a reimbursement. Unsupported new app should be sufficient reason.

mitchty 11y ago

Here is the whole thing about ad supported sites: We are worth a lot less than you think, and also overall an individuals monthly worth in advertisements is also small. https://air.mozilla.org/subscribe2web/ https://air.mozilla.org/subscribe2web/ Turns out, we're worth about $6.20/mo in advertising. Lets just round this up to $10/month to not have ads but still support sites we visit. If content providers aren't working on an alternative like the above, I'll continue to block ads. If you want to stop me from accessing the site by detecting that I will also kill that. If that stops working I won't see your content. Forcing me to watch ads with zero alternative though, nope. Google contributor is a start, but this needs to be across all ad platforms. I'm not against funding people, I'm against funding ad agencies and their tracking and their other maladies. Such as trojaned ad networks, silly amounts of javascript and data, etc.... What I'm saying here is content providers and ad agencies and us ALL need to fix this. In my opinion though, this is all a result of the Faustian bargain the content providers have chosen and the inevitable escalation the ad companies have taken. I value my time and attention and am willing to pay to not have that taken away from me. Just don't force me to buy into ads, do like the twit network does if you have to. I've tried out almost all of their sponsors, not because of the company advertising but because of the person and people recommending it.

donohoe 11y ago
Looks like that number was from 2013? Can anyone tell me how they would figure out that number today? I've looked into a similar approach and would love a reliable way to answer "how much does a publisher need to charge to not have ads".
- rsynnott 11y ago
  Divide Google revenues by Internet penetration to get a rough guideline, perhaps? I doubt it has changed that much.
notNow 11y ago
An excerpt from the intro on that landing page of that project or intiative "It is a movement to create an ad-free Web" I find this view to be unlikely to materialize. We're in a consumerist-led capitalist economy and advertising is an integral part of it and the web as communications medium is one of its important assets. This project will fail before it even starts due to the unrealistic end goal advertised - pun intended - on the page.

theworstshill 11y ago

Sounds like marco chose a lump payment model instead (from the advertisers themselves). Speculation of course, but I wouldn't pull something I worked hard on in just a couple of days, especially if it was succeeding and earning a ton of money.

ryanhuff 11y ago
It doesn't "sound" like anything of the sort to me. Take off the tin-foil hat.
macintux 11y ago
Are you fucking kidding me? You're going to casually call him corrupt and a liar because you're too small-minded to believe he can have a change of heart?
- theworstshill 11y ago
  I mentioned I was speculating. I don't know a lot of people who spend dozens of hours of their life developing a product, then publish it, then manage to achieve success and then throw it all away. I'm not saying that doesn't happen, but what are the chances?
  - dang 11y ago
    > I mentioned I was speculating That doesn't matter. Insinuations without evidence of astroturfing, shillage, corruption, etc., have no place on HN. Please don't do that again.
    - theworstshill 11y ago
      No problem dung, in around 60 years once Marco is on his deathbed and publishes his autobiography with the actual facts we can come back to this discussion. Not.
- notNow 11y ago
  Of course!! Our Lord and Savior Marco wouldn't do such a thing, How dare he be skeptic of His intentions and motives? Blessed His name Marco

monochromatic 11y ago

Good for him. I wish more people could walk away from a successful business that doesn't feel good. I wish I could.

mahouse 11y ago

Knowing him, this could be a stunt.

kgermino 11y ago
What makes you say that? He's never struck me as that type of person but maybe I've missed something. Do you have any examples?

ixtli 11y ago

I hate this supposition that everyone should bend over backwards to allow people who make money in a certain way continue making money in that way. Am I the only one thinks that the user's experience should be more important than everything else? Annoying advertisements are, in practice, the result of people failing to be creative in monetization. Ars Technica, for instance, has done a great job of integrating ads into their website in a way that doesn't bother me or detract from the experience. This is no doubt due to careful consideration of the needs of both the user and the owner.

superuser2 11y ago
When advertisers have the ability to masquerade their for-hire opinion manipulation as journalism, the public can no longer be in any meaningful way begin to hold government and corporate interests accountable. Native advertising is an existential threat to democracy and its profiteers belong in prison. I'd much rather pay journalists to tell me the truth than read what people with money are paying them to tell me.
- ixtli 11y ago
  While I agree with you in principle, I don't think that people not wanting intrusive advertising in their blogs and acting to avoid it is going to effect this problem one way or another. What you're asking for is a BBC-style news service in America which is something I would love. If you had that, every few links on hackernews would still try to autoplay some sort of sound in a flash ad.
benihana 11y ago
>Am I the only one thinks that the user's experience should be more important than everything else? No. I value UX over almost everything, but you have to realize that your values don't exist in a vacuum. Without something to keep the lights on and the AC blowing air on the servers, UX is pointless and doesn't amount to anything.
- ixtli 11y ago
  But what you're supposing is that there is _no way_ for people to profit off of their content except to bother me with invasive advertising. I simply can't accept this: the history of our industry and capitalism as a whole is a case study in how clever people are at monetization.

Osmium 11y ago

> I’m sorry to all of my fans and customers who bought this on my name, expecting it to be supported for longer than two days. Well, that was me. Funnily enough I haven't had a good experience with Overcast either (vs. Pocket Casts), so I think next time Marco releases a product I'll be a lot more skeptical. It's an awkward position too: I know I should request a refund since the app will become progressively less useful as its blocklist becomes out of date, but I would've liked to keep using it until then. As for the alternatives, I chose to support Peace instead of Purify because the latter has seems to be involved with some mild controversy [1], in addition previous controversy the developer was involved with previously over uBlock [2]. I honestly have no idea if this is innocent misunderstanding or a genuine attempt to mislead on the developer's part (because wording on the uBlock website does seem to have been clarified now), but it was enough to give me pause. So I guess this just leaves Crystal as the main alternative at the moment? [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/3leyux/say_purify_get_gilded/ https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/3leyux/say_purify_ge... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/ublock/comments/32mos6/ublock_vs_ublock_origin/cte0a3n https://www.reddit.com/r/ublock/comments/32mos6/ublock_vs_ub...

vermontdevil 11y ago
Agreed. I recommended his app to many friends because of Marco's stance on web ads, his passion for quality, etc. Oops - my mistake. Pulling an app two days after a long period of development without really thinking through seemed odd to me. But that's his choice. My choice - I won't buy anything from him again. Life goes on.
- Osmium 11y ago
  > Pulling an app two days after a long period of development without really thinking through seemed odd to me. But that's his choice. Right, absolutely it's his choice. I wouldn't even go as far as saying I'll never buy a product from him again, just that I wouldn't on day one. It's not that I necessarily disagree with what he's saying (I'm glad the conversation is being had), I'm just surprised he didn't anticipate this reaction. On a broader note, if he is concerned about the ethics of ad blocking, perhaps it would've been better to maintain control of one of the most popular ad blockers? Then he would at least have been able to influence the outcome, e.g. encourage his users to adopt whitelists or similar.

shanecleveland 11y ago

I applaud the move on his part, but should have had some forethought before releasing it. He has skin in the game: profited from Instapaper (essentially an ad-stripper), sells ads on his blog and produces a podcast that profits from ad sales. His advertising may be more acceptable in terms of aesthetics and privacy, but it is an acknowledgement, nonetheless, that advertising is the best possible monetization model and one that is depended upon by many to support what they do. Can it be done in a better way? Sure. Is jeopardizing "publishers'" livelihood the answer? No. By saying "But my ads are blocked, too," as he did, was not an acceptable solution. If a big chunk of people visiting his site already paid him $3 to defer his advertising, then he's already won. But nobody else with their ads blocked will see that money. He makes good arguments about both aesthetically and privacy intrusive advertising, but A definite conflict of interest on his part.

derefr 11y ago
He expected to make a tiny ad-blocker nobody cared about, and then keep tinkering with it. Instead, he captured the majority of the market—at which point he realized that his ad-blocker is not nearly "nice" enough (in the ABP "whitelist sites that display non-intrusive ads" sense of nice) to make sense as the one the majority of iOS users use, and he has no idea how to do the work required to get it there (I.e. building a manual whitelist of all "good" sites ever) without stepping on millions of toes. Basically, he just never planned for success.
- shanecleveland 11y ago
  He announced it on his highly trafficked blog and Twitter account. He carries pretty significant weight within a large circle of folks likely to install such an app. This isn't his breast feeding timer app we are talking about.
  - derefr 11y ago
    Alright; he expected to be competitive, perhaps, but I still don't think he expected to win. He's never won a market before, so why would he think his current base is enough to start winning now? Instead, he likely expected it to be another Instapaper: an app existing amicably along with a few other similar offerings, one of which is an entire company (Pocket), and one of which is Apple's own service (Reading List).

msoad 11y ago

* I don't want ads * I don't want native advertising or sponsored content * I don't want to pay for content * I don't want my tax goes to government sponsored content * I want free independent content That's me nowadays... I don't even know what's the answer!

te_chris 11y ago
There isn't one, because your position is idealistic and naive.
- steve-howard 11y ago
  I saw a list of statements describing what he wants and does not want. In a world of compromises, it helps to describe what you actually want before you start identifying which of those things you'll have to give up.
- Spivak 11y ago
  There is one, and I can name an easy example. The Welcome To Night Vale Podcast. All of their content is completely free and isn't supported by ads at all. They make money through live shows, merchandising, and donations, and I guess now book sales. It's exactly the model he's describing, free content that's not sponsored, has no strings attached, and is still hugely successful.
  - mjklin 11y ago
    Also: Answer Me This, whose recent content is free but who charge for older content, special "albums", their book, and merch. Helen and Olly seem to be doing quite well.
smacktoward 11y ago
The answer is learning to live with the fact that you can't always get what you want.
jaimebuelta 11y ago
I have absolutely no problem with sponsored ads, the kind John Gruber run on his blog, for example. On the same page, the sponsorships on Marco's podcasts I think are absolutely fine. I found them even useful (which SHOULD be the objective of advertising) I think that the main problem with ads are crappy, annoying, low-value ads. I'd love to see more interesting and relevant ads, I may, you know, BUY something from time to time...

lips 11y ago

Oh, tots scam/plot/hijinx. Because everyone knows it's easy to game the system and become #1 in the broken thing that we call the app store :/

publicfig 11y ago

I'm really disappointed by the amount of support he has gotten for this. He has directly mislead consumers into buying a product with an intent of support, and then immediately pulls it and forces the user into a difficult process with Apple to reclaim that money. Anyone that is unsuccessful in the process will have their money go directly to the developer. I understand the possibility change of heart, but that doesn't change the fact that every action of this matches what would happen in a scam, other than the fact that I truly believe he didn't set out to intentionally scam users. He really should have thought about this before releasing the app, and I feel like the support he's getting will convince him or other developers that this is at all a decent move. I think Apple should be at least overly cautious any time he attempts to release another application. I know many developers that would have been effectively blocked for less, but he has the fortune of being in good with Apple so I don't see that happening.

kaolinite 11y ago
I think you're forgetting the fact that this application still works. Sure, when iOS 10 is released it may break - but the same could be said for any now-abandoned app. It's a shame but he gave people notice (instead of just stopping development) and recommended people request refunds. This is nowhere close to being a scam.
- drakenot 11y ago
  This isn't an ordinary application. Ad blocking applications live and die by their blocklist. Many people purchased this application with the implied assumption that the blocklist would continue to be updated for the foreseeable future. Without an updated blocklist, this app will quickly become useless.
  - sangnoir 11y ago
    Ghostery is providing the blocklist, not Marco.I doubt they are going to stop anytime soon as they also have a browser extenstion that relies on it

makeitsuckless 11y ago

I would have been a lot more understanding if he bothered to explain how protecting people's privacy against malicious exploitation hurts people that "don't deserve to be hit". Without any reason other than vague hints, this sounds like someone got to him. I'm not buying any of this. He suggest he feels bad about his product, but at no point explains why.

sergiotapia 11y ago

So what can I download now that does the same thing? I don't care about advertising companies revenue at all.

dageshi 11y ago

Mediocre.

privacy-lover 11y ago

My money is on Ghostery terminating the tracker database license deal with Marco. I wouldn't be surprised if a Ghostery client made a complaint to the CEO.

ihuman 11y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if they talked about this before he pulled the application, and that none of what you said would happen.

rdancer 11y ago

Marco Arment thinks very differently from how I, and perhaps most other hackers, think. It is valuable to have people to disagree with.

masterleep 11y ago

I don't care about the money, but it's annoying that he wasted my time and some of my credibility (because I recommended the app to some of my friends).

amyjess 11y ago

Should probably get a better title. Sure, it's the name of the blog post, but that's a really ambiguous name. I suggest "Making an ad blocker myself just doesn't feel good".

davidhariri 11y ago

This feels very authentic. I'm impressed, that's a tough decision to make, especially given there were others involved in the dev. Reminds me of what happened with Flappy Bird

deleted 11y ago

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smackfu 11y ago

An ad blocker on iOS 9 is basically just an app wrapper around a JSON file. I'm not surprised a decent iOS developer would figure they could whip one out in a day or two of coding just as a proof of concept, and then release it to see if they make a few bucks. Not a lot of deep introspection involved. If you suddenly sell 20k copies at $3 each, and make enough in a day to buy a BMW, then maybe you think a bit more.

mrsaint 11y ago

Let's say I don't care about a refund but I want to continue using it, albeit unsupported. The developer says, "It’ll keep working for a long time if you already have it, but with no updates."... but this is what I am not so sure about. I looked at my iTunes backups and didn't see Peace. It's also not in the list of my updated apps in iTunes, presumably because it got pulled from the store. Suggestion to the developer: how about a heads up next time you're planning something like this? It wouldn't have hurt anyone. Do you know of any way how I can backup Peace that is currently sitting in my phone, in case I need to do a full iPhone restore?

smoser 11y ago
You can always download previously purchased apps from your purchased list unless it was removed due to a legal reason.
- mrsaint 11y ago
  There we go... muchas gracias.

facepalm 11y ago

If we accept ad blocking as an act of war, doesn't that imply we think humans can't help being manipulated by ads? Otherwise, where would be the difference between somebody using an ad blocker and somebody being indifferent to the ads? I must admit if that is the fundamental belief, how one can prefer to side with the people who manipulate other people. I am not against ads myself, I just don't understand the rationale.

deleted 11y ago

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napoleoncomplex 11y ago

There's no need to make up dark motives on Marco's side, his blogpost on blocking The Deck (http://www.marco.org/2015/09/17/why-peace-blocks-deck-ads http://www.marco.org/2015/09/17/why-peace-blocks-deck-ads) pretty clearly showed where the cracks were. A lot of people and business will get hurt in this, plenty of them not at fault or at least with no better way to monetize. Now to be clear, I use ad blockers on the web myself, and intend to install the Android ones once I root my phone. But it's getting tiring reading people standing on some moral high ground to justify their use of ad blockers. There is no scenario where this leads to better-behaving ad networks, or to better monetization models for the web. The final winner of this ad blocker war is a no-frills ad blocker that blocks as much ads as possible, regardless of the quality of the ad network and its ads. The majority won't go and fiddle with the settings to approve ads on sites they like, or from ad networks that are cool. Give people a chance to block all ads and they will, even if some "innocent bystanders" get hurt. And I think Marco saw that scenario unfolding in real life with Peace's success. One example, Daring Fireball is proud of how his monetization strategy is working out for him, and justly so, he hand picks his promotions and packages them into little promotional posts. But that's basically a native ad. So let's say the next big idea from everyone hurt by blocking is that native ads are the big thing now (not that it isn't already being used heavily), and everyone should hide them among the real content, undetectable to current ad blockers. So ad blockers will evolve, and people will build filters that hide the content of these native ads in smart ways. And they might build a filter that hides posts on Daring Fireball that contain the words "my thanks" or "sponsoring this week". Will Gruber still be so supportive of content blockers then? And where's the line? Who decides what the right types of ads are? It's not that I have any smart answers about this, but I think it's disingenuous to pretend this "culling" of the shitty ads will lead into a brave new world with fair ad networks where everyone decides to turn off ad blocking on The Verge, because gosh, they've really improved, or into some kind of fairytale where people pay for The Verge's content through subscriptions. But they will keep visiting The Verge en masse, and expecting fresh content served in miliseconds. Who will pay for it and who will write it, I sincerely don't know.

slantyyz 11y ago
>> Will Gruber still be so supportive of content blockers then? And where's the line? Who decides what the right types of ads are? From your linked article, it appears that Gruber's already not supportive of content blockers that block the Deck by default: "I think if your Safari Content Blocker blocks The Deck by default, it’s wrong. I dare you to defend it." https://twitter.com/gruber/status/644409410048106496 https://twitter.com/gruber/status/644409410048106496 I get that there are bad ads and good ads, but in the grand scheme of things, they're all still ads. Do people who skip through commercials on a PVR'ed TV show care if one or two of the ads are worth watching? I'd argue that in most cases, the answer is "no". So this all reminds me of the famous line from Animal Farm - "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".

daxfohl 11y ago

Robin Hood the thing. Give exactly 100% of the money to starving children. Literally. Personally, not through some charity. Literally go to a 3rd-world nation (on your own money, don't dare touch money collected through the app), find parents of starving children, and give them each a $100 bill. Start a trend. Start that trend. Be that person. Not just the person who had a hit iOS app. Be the person who eliminates hunger by setting a simple, obvious, example. Does that feel good?

EGreg 11y ago

I don't get it. What was this Peace app? How did it get to the top of the charts right away upon release? How is an App Store app able to block ads in other apps? These are all questions I wish marco would have answered for the developers reading his piece.

ljk 11y ago
http://www.marco.org/2015/09/16/peace-content-blocker http://www.marco.org/2015/09/16/peace-content-blocker It's an ad blocking app. ad blocking is a new feature for iOS 9

wildpeaks 11y ago

Even with the app [temporary] pulled, it now showed there is money to be made from ad blockers, so it's only a matter of time before clones appear in the appstore.

stock_toaster 11y ago

After this (pulling the app after 2 days) I will be very hesitant to ever buy anything made by Marco again. Hopefully Apple processes my refund.

pushnpop 11y ago

When I visit a site, I want to see content from that site. I did not consent to view ads from a third party. I would be happy to view ads that a site decides to host and display. The problem is that most sites have absolutely no idea what ads they are displaying. They just want money. It is probably not even feasible to block ads that a site hosts themselves.

untangle 11y ago

I have no idea what he intended, but what he created by this reversal was news. That the move adds a martyrdom flavor to an already-rich personal brand is a bankable asset beyond the $100K (or whatever) that would be made in the App Store. This is a 60 Minutes or GMA-level story now.

trocodine 11y ago

what an idiot

nugget 11y ago

I have a huge amount of respect for Marco but this decision makes no sense to me. Was he afraid of hurting journalist friends and losing invites to the hottest media parties around NYC? Or pissing off other friends and ex-colleagues who now work at analytics and optimization companies? I hate to be a cynic but that's how his post read to me - this launch had cast a personal shadow that he didn't want to deal with. Some % of users don't want to be tracked and they downloaded an app to stop it. It's not like he removed the Safari API that enabled this. Now that Peace is gone, it will just be replaced by other similar apps, likely from far less scrupulous authors (such as ABP with their ''acceptable ads'').

nsnick 11y ago

endymi0n 11y ago

There seems to be quite some confusion around "tracking" and "tasteful" ads. Reality is, "tastefulness" is mostly a personal feeling based on relevance to the user which usually is a direct consequence of tracking (and taking the right action on it). I'm not talking about intrusiveness, which is a whole different UX issue and the only thing I think we all agree on. But from all my experience in AdTech I don't think there's a single ads provider that "does not track", as it's basically the same as having a store that does not have a cashier's desk. "We don't track" is simply a big lie. But tracking isn't black and white. At least, networks will track impressions and clicks, otherwise publishers won't get paid. But then there's Cookies. Advertising IDs. Audiences. You can even break it down on the individual user level. The biggest problem is simply responsibility and where to stop. Most large ad networks enforce responsibility by mandating minimum sized audiences by now, but with RTB it's possible to break down the last barriers. The ecosystem is mostly based on trust in the advertisers right now and only the worst offenders get pulled, but mostly after the fact. Marco made a good choice by not even trying to be judge, police and policymaker in the same person. It's an impossible task to begin with.

neoschiller 11y ago

Ad Blocking should be illegal, this is like stealing money from people who work on creating content, I believe that people will leave content providers who serve too many ads in an intrusive way anyway. so there is a balance in place already.

kardos 11y ago
Why does it have to be so black and white? What we need is an optional micropayment system such that I can pay 1-2 cents per article in lieu of seeing ads. Choice one, see the article in an ad-infested page, or choice two, pay a couple cents to "buy out" the ad experience. Ad rates are on the order of $5 per 1000 views, ie, 0.5 cents, so a 2 cent buyout is entirely feasible.

chmaynard 11y ago

This is really sad. Arment has made an impulsive, flakey decision that tarnishes his reputation as one of the leading independent iOS developers. Instead of removing Peace from the App Store, Arment could choose to improve and refine the app, satisfying his own objections and encouraging his customers to follow his lead.

braum 11y ago

Marco lost my trust after I purchased Overcast app and it has been mostly ignored by him other than fixing bugs. The Overcast app has seen very few new features. There is still no streaming (100% download before playing) and no bookmarking (so you can come back to something interesting). He mentioned on his blog that he had made a few minor fixes but nothing major.

yattahri 11y ago

If we got to the point that we need ad blockers to navigate the internet peacefully without interruption, I’m sorry to say but it is the publishers’ fault. They had a right and they abused it. Maybe now they will put a little more UX consideration before they plaster ads everywhere in your face. I personally tend to avoid the buzzfeeds, the CNNs and a lot of other sources of all crappy journalism for lack for better words. This is the only weapon we have as consumers to help us fight back or voice our choice. Customer is always king and always will be. Produce something that works for me and I’ll buy it. But if I make it to your restaurant and while I’m eating you are having a round of people sit across from me and speed pitch me while using sometimes unacceptable methods… then don’t be surprised if I fight back. One, ad fine. two ads, fine. A gazillion ads… what am I here for again?