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I think you have to keep in mind that this isn't particularly benevolence, but ecosystem pruning. Apple would prefer that everything be conducted in apps on mo

I think you have to keep in mind that this isn't particularly benevolence, but ecosystem pruning. Apple would prefer that everything be conducted in apps on mobile where they can take a 30% cut of initial sale and IAP revenue and not on the open web where most of these ads take place.

prepend 9y ago
I like how you accurately frame this not as benevolence but just as Apple applying their goals that are different from advertisers. But I’m happy with this as I think Apple’s goals are more in alignment with my own as a user. I don’t expect Apple to support me altruistically, but currently their model of charging a lot for hardware so user data across the web is not necessary for them is one that allows for high levels of user privacy.
- ucaetano 9y ago
  > But I’m happy with this as I think Apple’s goals are more in alignment with my own as a user. Except that Apple having a monopoly on the interactions means they would extract monopolistic rents from the value chain, which will be paid, yep, by you. Apple wants to kill the open web, and charge everyone 30% or topline to access their "users". The best way to do it is to hit the web on the pocket: ad revenues.
  - ThorAndZeus 9y ago
    But it also comes down to trust. I would rather "trust" (in a sense that Apple's business model does not explicitly benefits from selling my user data) than any other business. And yes, I would much rather pay for any service than have it for "free".
    - musage 9y ago
      To me "trust" is an absolute thing; it comes in degrees, but the anchor is absolute, and in you. "rather trust" in contrast is relative and something entirely different. Yeah, sometimes we have to bite bullets or choose poisons, but I'd still set apart from things I really like and want to see prosper in the world. For me, not collecting data warrants trust, not whatever mental gymnastics involving "collecting data, but". If that data is vital for companies or applications beyond a certain scale, then I don't trust companies or applications beyond a certain scale, and would prefer to see them all pruned by consumers using their brains to vote with their wallets. Some behemoths so desperately want a world in which they're vital, to me that's a world doomed to die in important ways. That's not aimed at Apple, but among tech companies, they don't even make my list of considerations for top N thousand I like or trust. Not to mention companies and organizations in general. But more importantly it's not like I have to chose whom of a bunch of shady fucks I trust most. If I don't trust any of them, that's fine with me, too. As for business, I like the people at my local bakery. I trust them with bread, I guess, and I know when they smile they mean it. Those people have stature to me, and the bigger a company is, the more pervasive marketing is in it, the more it resembles a lot of tiny people playing big person. I don't trust that, and I laugh when those then put out marketing to make themselves seem 0.1% as cool as random individual people are to me, to whom the thought of being cool doesn't even occur. True, Apple might be less of a POS than its direct siblings, but that's still a rounding error in the grand scheme of things. I'd say we'll outright settle for one or several of them and the precedents they set at our own peril. Sorry for the rant, please don't take this as some sort of violent disagreement with you, I was really just ranting. But it does sicken me how far we fell.
  - simonh 9y ago
    Hang on a second, Apple aren’t blocking adds this way, only cross-site user tracking. However in Apps they have been locking down cross-App user tracking by advertisers for many years. So your argument makes no sense. The only consistent way I can see this is that Apple genuinely dislikes user tracking, and blocked it on the App Store first because that’s where they had the most control and responsibility, and then did it on the web when they had the tech.
  - LeoNatan25 9y ago
    > Apple wants to kill the open web Such a nonsense saying. Apple doesn't want to "kill the open web"—indeed they have large investments in it—they are just unwilling to prioritize it over the better experience of the OS or to forgo privacy. Enough with this FUD nonsense.
- michaelbuckbee 9y ago
  They want that too [1] they just don't want to compete for it or deal with a "messy" internet. They've currently shut down their iAds product but I think it's likely they'll buy someone else if for no other reason that ads in mobile apps are a huge "hole" allowing revenue to escape their ecosystem. 1 - https://developer.apple.com/app-store/app-analytics/ https://developer.apple.com/app-store/app-analytics/
- r00fus 9y ago
  Personally, I think it's best to be amoral here just like the faceless corporations. If it benefits me (increased privacy), I support it. I reward good behavior.
etchalon 9y ago
I'm not sure how much of a fan I am of taking an action that is clearly user-beneficial, and implying, sans any evidence, that it is actually malevolent. Apple has shown, through multiple product releases, that it cares deeply about the privacy of users in a way that other companies have not. Those releases are a clear counter-point to the notion that Apple is only doing this to drive people towards the App Store.
- stinkytaco 9y ago
  None of these behaviors are mutually exclusive. They can both care about customer experience and want to drive developers to the app store, where they will both get a cut and possibly provide users a better experience. I think that Volvo and Kia make cars that are safer than they need to be, but that might be as much in their interest as anyone else's.
  - etchalon 9y ago
    They aren't mutually exclusive, but there is no evidence for the accusation. It's just a thing people say is true and people accept as true because … reasons.
    - jackpirate 9y ago
      Claiming that Apple is acting in its own best interests is not an "accusation". There doesn't have to be an especially negative connotation to Apple acting in their own interest, and I don't think /u/michaelbuckbee was intending to "accuse" Apple. I think they were just reminding us why Apple is behaving the way it is, but not passing the negative moral judgement you implied.
      - etchalon 9y ago
        It's very precisely an accusation. The idea is that Apple's efforts to protect user privacy online are motivated by a selfish business case towards incentivizing people away from the web. /u/michaelbuckbee wasn't "reminding us why Apple was behaving" this way, as he has absolutely no insight or insider knowledge as to the motivations of the team who developed and deployed this feature.
jxdxbx 9y ago
Nothing about what Apple has done has any effect on web sites or services that do not engage in tracking.
naravara 9y ago
>Apple would prefer that everything be conducted in apps on mobile where they can take a 30% cut of initial sale and IAP revenue and not on the open web where most of these ads take place. There is zero evidence that this is a priority for them or their long term business model. Their focus is on selling you hardware and making sure you're happy enough with their hardware that you're willing to pay a premium for it. Everything else is gravy or in support of that central goal. No-Tracking and privacy are two of the major value adds they have over their competitors. If they're going to forego things that their competitors get through privacy invasion, it makes perfect sense to turn that weakness into a strength.
- FireBeyond 9y ago
  With the App Store accounting for approximately 20% of their revenue (as at 4Q 2017), I'm not sure how you describe this as "zero evidence of priority". I'm fairly certain they don't consider it "strictly optional bonus income".
Retric 9y ago
The App Store is penuts. The average user spends nowhere near as much on Apps as they do on their phone and accessories and Apple has even better margins on those sales. Remember, Apple loses out on credit card processing frees from their '30%' and phones are several hundred dollars.
- ceejayoz 9y ago
  > Remember, Apple loses out on credit card processing frees from their '30%'... I strongly doubt that. Even in the worst case scenario - all $1 charges and Stripe's "you charge a card every six weeks" 2.9% + $0.30/transaction fee - they'd be just about breaking even... and Apple's certainly big enough to get some volume discounts.
  - Retric 9y ago
    I think you misunderstood, "loses out" as in "needs to pay for" basically 30% is clearly not not profit it's revenue. And the App Store has plenty of real expenses.
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> Apple would prefer that everything be conducted in apps on mobile Or they just want to sell more phones, which makes Apple way more money than any conversion of web traffic to in-app purchases this privacy stance could bring. Or—shocker—their management wants to make a device they themselves enjoy using? All these suppositions have the same amount of evidence: practically zero.
- FireBeyond 9y ago
  Q4 2017, iPhone accounts for 54% of revenue. App Store for 16%. This whole "Apple doesn't care about the App Store revenues" argument doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Most companies are going to care about a revenue stream of that size that is also very much a non-negligible percentage of company revenue.
  - AlphaSite 9y ago
    Isn’t it 30% of 16%?
    - FireBeyond 9y ago
      No, that number is the revenue they earn from the App Store. Money they act as a middleman for (the 70%) is not company revenue as it was never theirs. (If you give me $100 with the understanding I'm to give $70 to a friend and keep $30 "for my efforts", I can't claim I made or earned $100, only $30).
siidooloo 9y ago
I think the easier explanation is that Apple's actions cut into Google's bottom line. Strategically Apple gets to be the good guy while making Google look like the bad guy.
- AllenKids 9y ago
  Google is the bad guy to me. Apple is not necessarily good, but 1000 times more trustworthy when it comes to user privacy. Google is the cult leader of sucking every little details off its users because it genuinely believes it has the right to do so, nay, it has the moral obligation to do so for the good of all humanity.

prepend 9y ago

I like how you accurately frame this not as benevolence but just as Apple applying their goals that are different from advertisers. But I’m happy with this as I think Apple’s goals are more in alignment with my own as a user. I don’t expect Apple to support me altruistically, but currently their model of charging a lot for hardware so user data across the web is not necessary for them is one that allows for high levels of user privacy.

ucaetano 9y ago
> But I’m happy with this as I think Apple’s goals are more in alignment with my own as a user. Except that Apple having a monopoly on the interactions means they would extract monopolistic rents from the value chain, which will be paid, yep, by you. Apple wants to kill the open web, and charge everyone 30% or topline to access their "users". The best way to do it is to hit the web on the pocket: ad revenues.
- ThorAndZeus 9y ago
  But it also comes down to trust. I would rather "trust" (in a sense that Apple's business model does not explicitly benefits from selling my user data) than any other business. And yes, I would much rather pay for any service than have it for "free".
  - musage 9y ago
    To me "trust" is an absolute thing; it comes in degrees, but the anchor is absolute, and in you. "rather trust" in contrast is relative and something entirely different. Yeah, sometimes we have to bite bullets or choose poisons, but I'd still set apart from things I really like and want to see prosper in the world. For me, not collecting data warrants trust, not whatever mental gymnastics involving "collecting data, but". If that data is vital for companies or applications beyond a certain scale, then I don't trust companies or applications beyond a certain scale, and would prefer to see them all pruned by consumers using their brains to vote with their wallets. Some behemoths so desperately want a world in which they're vital, to me that's a world doomed to die in important ways. That's not aimed at Apple, but among tech companies, they don't even make my list of considerations for top N thousand I like or trust. Not to mention companies and organizations in general. But more importantly it's not like I have to chose whom of a bunch of shady fucks I trust most. If I don't trust any of them, that's fine with me, too. As for business, I like the people at my local bakery. I trust them with bread, I guess, and I know when they smile they mean it. Those people have stature to me, and the bigger a company is, the more pervasive marketing is in it, the more it resembles a lot of tiny people playing big person. I don't trust that, and I laugh when those then put out marketing to make themselves seem 0.1% as cool as random individual people are to me, to whom the thought of being cool doesn't even occur. True, Apple might be less of a POS than its direct siblings, but that's still a rounding error in the grand scheme of things. I'd say we'll outright settle for one or several of them and the precedents they set at our own peril. Sorry for the rant, please don't take this as some sort of violent disagreement with you, I was really just ranting. But it does sicken me how far we fell.
- simonh 9y ago
  Hang on a second, Apple aren’t blocking adds this way, only cross-site user tracking. However in Apps they have been locking down cross-App user tracking by advertisers for many years. So your argument makes no sense. The only consistent way I can see this is that Apple genuinely dislikes user tracking, and blocked it on the App Store first because that’s where they had the most control and responsibility, and then did it on the web when they had the tech.
- LeoNatan25 9y ago
  > Apple wants to kill the open web Such a nonsense saying. Apple doesn't want to "kill the open web"—indeed they have large investments in it—they are just unwilling to prioritize it over the better experience of the OS or to forgo privacy. Enough with this FUD nonsense.
michaelbuckbee 9y ago
They want that too [1] they just don't want to compete for it or deal with a "messy" internet. They've currently shut down their iAds product but I think it's likely they'll buy someone else if for no other reason that ads in mobile apps are a huge "hole" allowing revenue to escape their ecosystem. 1 - https://developer.apple.com/app-store/app-analytics/ https://developer.apple.com/app-store/app-analytics/
r00fus 9y ago
Personally, I think it's best to be amoral here just like the faceless corporations. If it benefits me (increased privacy), I support it. I reward good behavior.

etchalon 9y ago

I'm not sure how much of a fan I am of taking an action that is clearly user-beneficial, and implying, sans any evidence, that it is actually malevolent. Apple has shown, through multiple product releases, that it cares deeply about the privacy of users in a way that other companies have not. Those releases are a clear counter-point to the notion that Apple is only doing this to drive people towards the App Store.

stinkytaco 9y ago
None of these behaviors are mutually exclusive. They can both care about customer experience and want to drive developers to the app store, where they will both get a cut and possibly provide users a better experience. I think that Volvo and Kia make cars that are safer than they need to be, but that might be as much in their interest as anyone else's.
- etchalon 9y ago
  They aren't mutually exclusive, but there is no evidence for the accusation. It's just a thing people say is true and people accept as true because … reasons.
  - jackpirate 9y ago
    Claiming that Apple is acting in its own best interests is not an "accusation". There doesn't have to be an especially negative connotation to Apple acting in their own interest, and I don't think /u/michaelbuckbee was intending to "accuse" Apple. I think they were just reminding us why Apple is behaving the way it is, but not passing the negative moral judgement you implied.
    - etchalon 9y ago
      It's very precisely an accusation. The idea is that Apple's efforts to protect user privacy online are motivated by a selfish business case towards incentivizing people away from the web. /u/michaelbuckbee wasn't "reminding us why Apple was behaving" this way, as he has absolutely no insight or insider knowledge as to the motivations of the team who developed and deployed this feature.

jxdxbx 9y ago

Nothing about what Apple has done has any effect on web sites or services that do not engage in tracking.

naravara 9y ago

>Apple would prefer that everything be conducted in apps on mobile where they can take a 30% cut of initial sale and IAP revenue and not on the open web where most of these ads take place. There is zero evidence that this is a priority for them or their long term business model. Their focus is on selling you hardware and making sure you're happy enough with their hardware that you're willing to pay a premium for it. Everything else is gravy or in support of that central goal. No-Tracking and privacy are two of the major value adds they have over their competitors. If they're going to forego things that their competitors get through privacy invasion, it makes perfect sense to turn that weakness into a strength.

FireBeyond 9y ago
With the App Store accounting for approximately 20% of their revenue (as at 4Q 2017), I'm not sure how you describe this as "zero evidence of priority". I'm fairly certain they don't consider it "strictly optional bonus income".

Retric 9y ago

The App Store is penuts. The average user spends nowhere near as much on Apps as they do on their phone and accessories and Apple has even better margins on those sales. Remember, Apple loses out on credit card processing frees from their '30%' and phones are several hundred dollars.

ceejayoz 9y ago
> Remember, Apple loses out on credit card processing frees from their '30%'... I strongly doubt that. Even in the worst case scenario - all $1 charges and Stripe's "you charge a card every six weeks" 2.9% + $0.30/transaction fee - they'd be just about breaking even... and Apple's certainly big enough to get some volume discounts.
- Retric 9y ago
  I think you misunderstood, "loses out" as in "needs to pay for" basically 30% is clearly not not profit it's revenue. And the App Store has plenty of real expenses.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

> Apple would prefer that everything be conducted in apps on mobile Or they just want to sell more phones, which makes Apple way more money than any conversion of web traffic to in-app purchases this privacy stance could bring. Or—shocker—their management wants to make a device they themselves enjoy using? All these suppositions have the same amount of evidence: practically zero.

FireBeyond 9y ago
Q4 2017, iPhone accounts for 54% of revenue. App Store for 16%. This whole "Apple doesn't care about the App Store revenues" argument doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Most companies are going to care about a revenue stream of that size that is also very much a non-negligible percentage of company revenue.
- AlphaSite 9y ago
  Isn’t it 30% of 16%?
  - FireBeyond 9y ago
    No, that number is the revenue they earn from the App Store. Money they act as a middleman for (the 70%) is not company revenue as it was never theirs. (If you give me $100 with the understanding I'm to give $70 to a friend and keep $30 "for my efforts", I can't claim I made or earned $100, only $30).

siidooloo 9y ago

I think the easier explanation is that Apple's actions cut into Google's bottom line. Strategically Apple gets to be the good guy while making Google look like the bad guy.

AllenKids 9y ago
Google is the bad guy to me. Apple is not necessarily good, but 1000 times more trustworthy when it comes to user privacy. Google is the cult leader of sucking every little details off its users because it genuinely believes it has the right to do so, nay, it has the moral obligation to do so for the good of all humanity.