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It’s unfortunate to see Microsoft (along with Adobe, etc) expanding into Ads. If nothing else, they could really differentiate and join forces with Apple from p

It’s unfortunate to see Microsoft (along with Adobe, etc) expanding into Ads. If nothing else, they could really differentiate and join forces with Apple from privacy standpoint to oppose Google, Amazon and Facebook. Instead, “Intellisense with AI now available on VS Code” is Microsoft’s nice way of saying “We harvest the shit out of your data”. Ah, like a true Ad company. Don’t get me started on Windows 10 telemetry. I really believe that Apple’s bet on privacy will pay off well in the long term. They’re different companies (Apple is selling hardware) but boy they could have gone into Ads with a MASSIVE user base but they chose to limit Ads in the App Store. It would have been huge expansion opportunity but they didn’t pursue it. And it will pay off as privacy awareness spreads and Microsoft could join them as operating system providers.

exelius 7y ago
Yeah, Apple had the foresight to see the next big thing in tech was going to be privacy. But I think it’s reflective of a larger societal problem: we don’t know who to trust anymore. It seems like every company is trying to scam its users, so Apple is betting that there is a valuable segment of the market willing to pay a premium to do business with a brand that has no ulterior motives past selling you a device at a high markup, and maybe some value-add services. To be fair, this has always been a problem — I think the recent failings of the historical trust model are due to better information rather than any increase in exploitative behavior. But prior to the smartphone era, trust was a fuzzy, emotional problem where a customer’s trust in a brand could be influenced by marketing alone. Today it is an explicit, quantifiable problem where users are willing to vote with their feet. What companies are we bestowing authority upon? Do those companies’ business models truly have our best interests at heart? What guarantees do users have that their trust won’t be violated? I firmly believe that whoever can solve these questions to the market’s satisfaction will own the future.
- scarface74 7y ago
  Apple being big into privacy is just a benefit of their business model - they don’t need to make money off a data as a hardware company.
  - nacs 7y ago
    It's also a conscious decision in the way they build their products. If they wanted to, they could also continue being a hardware company and add data-mining/ads on top of that -- but they choose not to.
  - spectramax 7y ago
    Correct, it is also important to recognize that they could have exploited their user base (500 million iPhones sold) to serve ads or collect data and sell it - that is a real business expansion idea. "They don't need to make money as a hardware company" sidesteps the investor-company relationship: Public companies are obligated to expand under investor pressure, but the strategy is always in the hands of the executives. Apple didn't succumb under the pressure.
  - exelius 7y ago
    I wouldn’t say it’s “just” a benefit of their business model; it’s the entire point. I don’t see Samsung making any of these moves. Any good product organization (and Apple is one of the best) focuses on their customer. We all know that. But Apple goes further and takes their customers’ side — the iTunes Music Store was an absolute disaster for the recording industry but a huge boon for the consumer (and, of course, iPod sales). Apple is only in a position to do this effectively because they have such a large and loyal customer base. They have a large and loyal customer base because they have consistently driven innovation in personal computing while making high-quality devices that people are willing to pay a premium for. Why would they betray that loyalty? Apple’s business model is simple and easy to understand. I look at their balance sheet and see where the money comes from: hardware sales to consumers. You can do the same with Amazon and Google too — which shows you why their definition of “customer focus” is so different from Apple’s.
    - spectramax 7y ago
      I agree 100%. Everything from hardware level encryption, localized machine learning, face-id(and Touch ID), T2 Chip, Secure Enclave, afps, secure vault, etc are all not needed for “normal business” but are focusing specifically on privacy as a differentiating factor. Out of many large corporations the only company I trust is Apple. I’m happy to pay more. I’m happy to sit through their repair bullshit. I trust their motives.
newsoul2019 7y ago
>> If nothing else, they could really differentiate >> and join forces with Apple from privacy standpoint >> to oppose Google, Amazon and Facebook. I didn't realize I wanted this, but now I do.
- oneplane 7y ago
  Same here. But we should keep in mind that there is no guarantee that their stance stays the same, and they pretty much only answer to money and nothing/nobody else.
  - spectramax 7y ago
    The thing with privacy stance is that it is primarily based on trust. If Microsoft now goes into privacy centric company, nothing makes me trust them as much as I trust them going back into selling ads after 5 years. It is a sensitive branding issue.
    - exelius 7y ago
      That’s why I think whatever trust solution we come up with will have a heavy audit component to it. I know everyone here hates SOX compliance, but the entire goal of SOX was to increase investors’ trust in financial reporting in the wake of the Enron accounting scandal. And it worked. SaaS companies already make ridiculous margins. Applying a sensible regulatory framework around privacy and data usage auditing would add overhead to be sure, but I’m also sure software margins will cover it.
johnday 7y ago
> “Intellisense with AI now available on VS Code” is Microsoft’s nice way of saying “We harvest the shit out of your data”. What? The IntelliCode description says that "Contextual recommendations are based on practices developed in thousands of high quality, open-source projects on GitHub each with high star ratings.". I'm not clear on how you think Microsoft will harvest data from doing this - much less how it is related to ads.
- spectramax 7y ago
  There is telemetry built into VS Code that you can turn off, but it is turned on by default. There is no way to know how they're using that data. Microsoft also collects data on Office365 platform and even local Office 2019 installs. I was trying was to make a tongue in cheek point, rather than specifically digging into exact methods of how they collect data. You may be right but it is besides the core issue we are discussing here. At the end, it is irrelevant how they're collecting data - all you need to know is this: https://about.ads.microsoft.com/en-us https://about.ads.microsoft.com/en-us
  - TheIronYuppie 7y ago
    We don't do any training on your data. Telemetry is largely for feature use tracking (eg we should really do better around this component, everyone is using it). There is absolutely no ads overlap at all. Literally none. Disclosure: I work at Azure but not on VS Code
    - spectramax 7y ago
      Thank you for the insight. Would you know if this is written somewhere on the VS Code homepage or privacy policy? I think it should be highlighted!
      - TheIronYuppie 7y ago
        Yep - here! https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/compliance/gdpr-dsr-visual-studio-family https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/compliance/gd...
max76 7y ago
From the cloud perspective Azure has a better privacy pitch than AWS has. Amazon is currently expanding into markets at such a rate everyone is afraid their market will be next. Microsoft currently is staying in their lane. If someone is going to be invading my privacy I'd rather it not be a direct competitor.
- scarface74 7y ago
  What does expanding its product portfolio have to do with privacy?
  - max76 7y ago
    I don't want my data in the hands of my competitors. Amazon is either competing with or threatening to compete with a wide range of organizations.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      Whether you are using Azure or AWS, if you’re concerned about your data, you should be encrypting it with customer managed keys. Netflix is AWS’s largest customer, even though it competes with Amazon Prime Video.
      - max76 7y ago
        Encryption doesn't hide everything. For example, Amazon could estimate the geographical location of everyone watching Netflix and use that information to determine optimal billboard advertisement locations for it's advertisement campaign.
      - jacques_chester 7y ago
        Netflix's video streams are delivered from devices installed at ISPs. Their most valuable data: what is being watched, where, by whom, is hidden from Amazon.
        7y ago
chappi42 7y ago
If people don't pay for software maintenance, e.g. Windows 10 updates, what do you do? Ads, harvest data... Windows (likely) always could offer better privacy for a fee. You can buy a Windows computer incl. services at a price point you can only dream of Apple hardware. Facebook/Inst/Wapp and Google show that the majority of people go with 'Geiz ist geil' (cheap is cool), privacy be damned. Awareness doesn't necessarily lead to actions (read: payments).
- kuzehanka 7y ago
  Linux seems to be doing just fine keeping software maintained without ads or harvesting data. This mindset is toxic and needs to die.
  - MagicPropmaker 7y ago
    Oh yes! They're taking the desktop by storm!
    - saghm 7y ago
      I think it's a lot more plausible that Microsoft could still do fine with Windows if they took out ads than that Linux would be doing much better in the desktop market if they started bundling in ads.
      - MagicPropmaker 7y ago
        I run Windows 10 as my primary operating system. We do Erlang, and C++/CUDA programming here. Are there ads? I've never seen anything other than a very occasional promotional tile for a Microsoft product. Apple cross-promotes, too.
  - chillacy 7y ago
    Fine among our crowd but how many non technical people are using Linux?
    - 7y ago
mixmastamyk 7y ago
Remember MS was first to jump on the NSA PRISM slide. While they’ve made some better decisions recently, this one has shown no signs of change. It’s why I still relegate anything MS to VMs.
cutenewt 7y ago
I think Satya would be pretty open joining forces w/ Apple. But Tim Cook, I would bet, would be averse to it.
cutenewt 7y ago
I feel like Microsoft has a bigger ads opportunity now, after the LinkedIn acquisition.
jasonlotito 7y ago
> but boy they could have gone into Ads with a MASSIVE user base but they chose to limit Ads in the App Store But they still with with Ads. And they've tried Ads in the past, with iAds. That they failed doesn't mean they didn't try, and doesn't mean they won't try again. Apple is all about advertising. Now, we can discuss how they handle privacy related to ads, but let's not pretend Apple is in no way a contributor to ad ecosystem.

exelius 7y ago

Yeah, Apple had the foresight to see the next big thing in tech was going to be privacy. But I think it’s reflective of a larger societal problem: we don’t know who to trust anymore. It seems like every company is trying to scam its users, so Apple is betting that there is a valuable segment of the market willing to pay a premium to do business with a brand that has no ulterior motives past selling you a device at a high markup, and maybe some value-add services. To be fair, this has always been a problem — I think the recent failings of the historical trust model are due to better information rather than any increase in exploitative behavior. But prior to the smartphone era, trust was a fuzzy, emotional problem where a customer’s trust in a brand could be influenced by marketing alone. Today it is an explicit, quantifiable problem where users are willing to vote with their feet. What companies are we bestowing authority upon? Do those companies’ business models truly have our best interests at heart? What guarantees do users have that their trust won’t be violated? I firmly believe that whoever can solve these questions to the market’s satisfaction will own the future.

scarface74 7y ago
Apple being big into privacy is just a benefit of their business model - they don’t need to make money off a data as a hardware company.
- nacs 7y ago
  It's also a conscious decision in the way they build their products. If they wanted to, they could also continue being a hardware company and add data-mining/ads on top of that -- but they choose not to.
- spectramax 7y ago
  Correct, it is also important to recognize that they could have exploited their user base (500 million iPhones sold) to serve ads or collect data and sell it - that is a real business expansion idea. "They don't need to make money as a hardware company" sidesteps the investor-company relationship: Public companies are obligated to expand under investor pressure, but the strategy is always in the hands of the executives. Apple didn't succumb under the pressure.
- exelius 7y ago
  I wouldn’t say it’s “just” a benefit of their business model; it’s the entire point. I don’t see Samsung making any of these moves. Any good product organization (and Apple is one of the best) focuses on their customer. We all know that. But Apple goes further and takes their customers’ side — the iTunes Music Store was an absolute disaster for the recording industry but a huge boon for the consumer (and, of course, iPod sales). Apple is only in a position to do this effectively because they have such a large and loyal customer base. They have a large and loyal customer base because they have consistently driven innovation in personal computing while making high-quality devices that people are willing to pay a premium for. Why would they betray that loyalty? Apple’s business model is simple and easy to understand. I look at their balance sheet and see where the money comes from: hardware sales to consumers. You can do the same with Amazon and Google too — which shows you why their definition of “customer focus” is so different from Apple’s.
  - spectramax 7y ago
    I agree 100%. Everything from hardware level encryption, localized machine learning, face-id(and Touch ID), T2 Chip, Secure Enclave, afps, secure vault, etc are all not needed for “normal business” but are focusing specifically on privacy as a differentiating factor. Out of many large corporations the only company I trust is Apple. I’m happy to pay more. I’m happy to sit through their repair bullshit. I trust their motives.

newsoul2019 7y ago

>> If nothing else, they could really differentiate >> and join forces with Apple from privacy standpoint >> to oppose Google, Amazon and Facebook. I didn't realize I wanted this, but now I do.

oneplane 7y ago
Same here. But we should keep in mind that there is no guarantee that their stance stays the same, and they pretty much only answer to money and nothing/nobody else.
- spectramax 7y ago
  The thing with privacy stance is that it is primarily based on trust. If Microsoft now goes into privacy centric company, nothing makes me trust them as much as I trust them going back into selling ads after 5 years. It is a sensitive branding issue.
  - exelius 7y ago
    That’s why I think whatever trust solution we come up with will have a heavy audit component to it. I know everyone here hates SOX compliance, but the entire goal of SOX was to increase investors’ trust in financial reporting in the wake of the Enron accounting scandal. And it worked. SaaS companies already make ridiculous margins. Applying a sensible regulatory framework around privacy and data usage auditing would add overhead to be sure, but I’m also sure software margins will cover it.

johnday 7y ago

> “Intellisense with AI now available on VS Code” is Microsoft’s nice way of saying “We harvest the shit out of your data”. What? The IntelliCode description says that "Contextual recommendations are based on practices developed in thousands of high quality, open-source projects on GitHub each with high star ratings.". I'm not clear on how you think Microsoft will harvest data from doing this - much less how it is related to ads.

spectramax 7y ago
There is telemetry built into VS Code that you can turn off, but it is turned on by default. There is no way to know how they're using that data. Microsoft also collects data on Office365 platform and even local Office 2019 installs. I was trying was to make a tongue in cheek point, rather than specifically digging into exact methods of how they collect data. You may be right but it is besides the core issue we are discussing here. At the end, it is irrelevant how they're collecting data - all you need to know is this: https://about.ads.microsoft.com/en-us https://about.ads.microsoft.com/en-us
- TheIronYuppie 7y ago
  We don't do any training on your data. Telemetry is largely for feature use tracking (eg we should really do better around this component, everyone is using it). There is absolutely no ads overlap at all. Literally none. Disclosure: I work at Azure but not on VS Code
  - spectramax 7y ago
    Thank you for the insight. Would you know if this is written somewhere on the VS Code homepage or privacy policy? I think it should be highlighted!
    - TheIronYuppie 7y ago
      Yep - here! https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/compliance/gdpr-dsr-visual-studio-family https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/compliance/gd...

max76 7y ago

From the cloud perspective Azure has a better privacy pitch than AWS has. Amazon is currently expanding into markets at such a rate everyone is afraid their market will be next. Microsoft currently is staying in their lane. If someone is going to be invading my privacy I'd rather it not be a direct competitor.

scarface74 7y ago
What does expanding its product portfolio have to do with privacy?
- max76 7y ago
  I don't want my data in the hands of my competitors. Amazon is either competing with or threatening to compete with a wide range of organizations.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    Whether you are using Azure or AWS, if you’re concerned about your data, you should be encrypting it with customer managed keys. Netflix is AWS’s largest customer, even though it competes with Amazon Prime Video.
    - max76 7y ago
      Encryption doesn't hide everything. For example, Amazon could estimate the geographical location of everyone watching Netflix and use that information to determine optimal billboard advertisement locations for it's advertisement campaign.
    - jacques_chester 7y ago
      Netflix's video streams are delivered from devices installed at ISPs. Their most valuable data: what is being watched, where, by whom, is hidden from Amazon.
      - 7y ago

chappi42 7y ago

If people don't pay for software maintenance, e.g. Windows 10 updates, what do you do? Ads, harvest data... Windows (likely) always could offer better privacy for a fee. You can buy a Windows computer incl. services at a price point you can only dream of Apple hardware. Facebook/Inst/Wapp and Google show that the majority of people go with 'Geiz ist geil' (cheap is cool), privacy be damned. Awareness doesn't necessarily lead to actions (read: payments).

kuzehanka 7y ago
Linux seems to be doing just fine keeping software maintained without ads or harvesting data. This mindset is toxic and needs to die.
- MagicPropmaker 7y ago
  Oh yes! They're taking the desktop by storm!
  - saghm 7y ago
    I think it's a lot more plausible that Microsoft could still do fine with Windows if they took out ads than that Linux would be doing much better in the desktop market if they started bundling in ads.
    - MagicPropmaker 7y ago
      I run Windows 10 as my primary operating system. We do Erlang, and C++/CUDA programming here. Are there ads? I've never seen anything other than a very occasional promotional tile for a Microsoft product. Apple cross-promotes, too.
- chillacy 7y ago
  Fine among our crowd but how many non technical people are using Linux?
  - 7y ago

mixmastamyk 7y ago

Remember MS was first to jump on the NSA PRISM slide. While they’ve made some better decisions recently, this one has shown no signs of change. It’s why I still relegate anything MS to VMs.

cutenewt 7y ago

I think Satya would be pretty open joining forces w/ Apple. But Tim Cook, I would bet, would be averse to it.

cutenewt 7y ago

I feel like Microsoft has a bigger ads opportunity now, after the LinkedIn acquisition.

jasonlotito 7y ago

> but boy they could have gone into Ads with a MASSIVE user base but they chose to limit Ads in the App Store But they still with with Ads. And they've tried Ads in the past, with iAds. That they failed doesn't mean they didn't try, and doesn't mean they won't try again. Apple is all about advertising. Now, we can discuss how they handle privacy related to ads, but let's not pretend Apple is in no way a contributor to ad ecosystem.