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It's cool to conciously see the death of an industry and watch as marketing firms fail to migrate away from traditional ads. You can whinge and whine, but prog

It's cool to conciously see the death of an industry and watch as marketing firms fail to migrate away from traditional ads. You can whinge and whine, but progress stops for nobody. It's also great to see Apple building this into iOS, definitely a highlight of WWDC, for me. I often see the location indicator come on and wonder what else I'm not seeing.

rubber_duck 6y ago
Progress ? There's money to be made and this looks like posturing and story telling to justify tapping in to another revenue stream on their platform.
- valuearb 6y ago
  By making it harder to monetize ads? Ok.
  - rubber_duck 6y ago
    By replacing competitors with their own "tracking free" ad tech
    - valuearb 6y ago
      Which by definition makes it harder to monetize ads.
- scarface74 6y ago
  This is merely a “strategy credit”. Apple makes almost all of its money by people giving them money directly and them giving you stuff. They can afford to be privacy focused. If you’re okay with cheap, unpolished products where you are constantly being tracked and getting advertised to, buy a Google product. If you want products where you give the company money and they give you stuff - buy Apple.
  - rubber_duck 6y ago
    >Apple makes almost all of its money by people giving them money directly and them giving you stuff. The story used to be "they are making money on hardware", then when that peaked it became "they are making money on services", once they peak in that market it's going to be "they are monitizing the content delivered through the ecosystem to provide a curated and safe experience" - it's all about showing growth an keeping stock prices.
    - scarface74 6y ago
      They have been making money off of curated content that you use with their hardware since 2003 when they introduced the iTunes Music Store. I’m still using my same Apple ID to purchase content from Apple that I used 17 years ago. But that still doesn’t change the equation. I give Apple money == they give me stuff.
    - rsynnott 6y ago
      > The story used to be "they are making money on hardware", then when that peaked it became "they are making money on services", The story is still that they're making money on hardware; over 80% of their revenue (and potentially more of their profits; profit margin on the music stuff in particular can't be great).
      - scarface74 6y ago
        77% but close enough. https://i0.wp.com/laptopcapri.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/financials-2020-4-4-1.png?w=618&ssl=1 https://i0.wp.com/laptopcapri.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05...
        rsynnott 6y ago
        Ah, was looking at data for a different quarter. Probably varies during the year, though; I assume hardware share peaks in Q4.
  - nitrogen 6y ago
papeda 6y ago
There seem to be two conflicting lines of thought about the future of advertising. 1) Companies are learning that non-online advertising is not very worthwhile and so are reducing the resources allocated to, say, network TV ads. This has already happened to a large extent to print and radio advertising. This suggests that the future of online advertising is bright. 2) Companies are learning that online advertising is not very worthwhile. They are learning that clicks are a bad metric, that online ads target people poorly, and that customers dislike online ads. This suggests that the future of online advertising is dim. I'm curious as to what people make of these two positions. Are companies just going to spend less on ads in general?
- koheripbal 6y ago
  3) Companies are learning that Ads that don't appear to be Ads, which also happen to reinforce customers' existing belief system, is a great way to lower their emotional guard and inject a positive product injection. The future of Native Advertising [1] is bright. So many examples already... [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_advertising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_advertising [2] https://old.reddit.com/r/HailCorporate/top/?sort=top&t=year https://old.reddit.com/r/HailCorporate/top/?sort=top&t=year
  - nicbou 6y ago
    Add to that all kinds of affiliate marketing being passed off as legitimate recommendations. This comment was sponsored by Skillshare
- fauigerzigerk 6y ago
  >Are companies just going to spend less on ads in general? That's unlikely. Spending on advertising doesn't appear to change much as a share of GDP: https://www.galbithink.org/ad-spending.htm https://www.galbithink.org/ad-spending.htm
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  User targeted advertising maybe moves the needle 4%. The reason people believe it's so key is that adtech companies need businesses to believe it's vital since they're the only companies with enough user data to do it. That 4% figure came from an independent study, I believe a Google-backed study claimed it had a 50% impact. Remove that and smaller ad companies can sell ads based on the content they're displayed next to. A reasonable "targeting" method which doesn't require tracking users at all. Sites could partner directly with advertisers for similar effectiveness at a drastically lower price.

rubber_duck 6y ago

Progress ? There's money to be made and this looks like posturing and story telling to justify tapping in to another revenue stream on their platform.

valuearb 6y ago
By making it harder to monetize ads? Ok.
- rubber_duck 6y ago
  By replacing competitors with their own "tracking free" ad tech
  - valuearb 6y ago
    Which by definition makes it harder to monetize ads.
scarface74 6y ago
This is merely a “strategy credit”. Apple makes almost all of its money by people giving them money directly and them giving you stuff. They can afford to be privacy focused. If you’re okay with cheap, unpolished products where you are constantly being tracked and getting advertised to, buy a Google product. If you want products where you give the company money and they give you stuff - buy Apple.
- rubber_duck 6y ago
  >Apple makes almost all of its money by people giving them money directly and them giving you stuff. The story used to be "they are making money on hardware", then when that peaked it became "they are making money on services", once they peak in that market it's going to be "they are monitizing the content delivered through the ecosystem to provide a curated and safe experience" - it's all about showing growth an keeping stock prices.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    They have been making money off of curated content that you use with their hardware since 2003 when they introduced the iTunes Music Store. I’m still using my same Apple ID to purchase content from Apple that I used 17 years ago. But that still doesn’t change the equation. I give Apple money == they give me stuff.
  - rsynnott 6y ago
    > The story used to be "they are making money on hardware", then when that peaked it became "they are making money on services", The story is still that they're making money on hardware; over 80% of their revenue (and potentially more of their profits; profit margin on the music stuff in particular can't be great).
    - scarface74 6y ago
      77% but close enough. https://i0.wp.com/laptopcapri.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/financials-2020-4-4-1.png?w=618&ssl=1 https://i0.wp.com/laptopcapri.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05...
      - rsynnott 6y ago
        Ah, was looking at data for a different quarter. Probably varies during the year, though; I assume hardware share peaks in Q4.
- nitrogen 6y ago

papeda 6y ago

There seem to be two conflicting lines of thought about the future of advertising. 1) Companies are learning that non-online advertising is not very worthwhile and so are reducing the resources allocated to, say, network TV ads. This has already happened to a large extent to print and radio advertising. This suggests that the future of online advertising is bright. 2) Companies are learning that online advertising is not very worthwhile. They are learning that clicks are a bad metric, that online ads target people poorly, and that customers dislike online ads. This suggests that the future of online advertising is dim. I'm curious as to what people make of these two positions. Are companies just going to spend less on ads in general?

koheripbal 6y ago
3) Companies are learning that Ads that don't appear to be Ads, which also happen to reinforce customers' existing belief system, is a great way to lower their emotional guard and inject a positive product injection. The future of Native Advertising [1] is bright. So many examples already... [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_advertising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_advertising [2] https://old.reddit.com/r/HailCorporate/top/?sort=top&t=year https://old.reddit.com/r/HailCorporate/top/?sort=top&t=year
- nicbou 6y ago
  Add to that all kinds of affiliate marketing being passed off as legitimate recommendations. This comment was sponsored by Skillshare
fauigerzigerk 6y ago
>Are companies just going to spend less on ads in general? That's unlikely. Spending on advertising doesn't appear to change much as a share of GDP: https://www.galbithink.org/ad-spending.htm https://www.galbithink.org/ad-spending.htm
ocdtrekkie 6y ago
User targeted advertising maybe moves the needle 4%. The reason people believe it's so key is that adtech companies need businesses to believe it's vital since they're the only companies with enough user data to do it. That 4% figure came from an independent study, I believe a Google-backed study claimed it had a 50% impact. Remove that and smaller ad companies can sell ads based on the content they're displayed next to. A reasonable "targeting" method which doesn't require tracking users at all. Sites could partner directly with advertisers for similar effectiveness at a drastically lower price.