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Facebook isn’t happy about Apple’s upcoming ad tracking restrictions

115 points by elorant 6y ago

nottorp 6y ago
It just occured to me that we're looking at Facebook wrong. Why do people come to FB? For the content that other people post. There would be no eyeballs for the ads if the users didn't post content. Shouldn't Facebook give us a piece of that ad revenue then?
- mk4 6y ago
  That sounds like youtube
  - nottorp 6y ago
    Oh, so there is a precedent :)
cheeze 6y ago
... And nothing of value was lost. If it's detremental to your business to not be able to track users on such a granular level, it's a bad business. I'm sure Facebook will survive here. 100% biased, can't stand that company.
- DLA 6y ago
  Same. Good if FB takes a hit!
- hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
  > If it's detremental to your business to not be able to track users on such a granular level, it's a bad business. Except that Apple still allows tracking on this granular level, it's just that now they have to explicitly ask users to allow this. Says a lot about Facebook's (and others) business model if it only works when the vast majority of users are mostly unaware of the amount of tracking they do, but the minute you make these users aware of the tracking and ask for their permission, the business model falls apart.
  - ghj 6y ago
    To be fair if you add an opt-in step to anything, it will kill that thing. No moral judgement, just human laziness. If it doesn't kill it, it still becomes something everyone loathes (e.g., how you need an extra click to accept cookies on every site you use).
    - tmhrtly 6y ago
      I think in some situations if users see value in the opt-in then it can be ok. E.g. your phone asking you if you're happy to share your location with an app. I sure as hell want my mapping app to know where I am, but I also feel very comforted that I still get a say in the process. The thing about this tracking opt-in is that no user would ever want it because it's solely there to exploit them. So in this case I think you're 100% right.
      - cortesoft 6y ago
        Wouldn't the value in this situation be "you get to use Facebook"? If they didn't make money off their users, Facebook wouldn't exist. Would you be ok if they did it that way? A warning that says "by using Facebook, you are agreeing to be tracked", at which point the user could either continue or uninstall the app?
        maps7 6y ago
        I think the new changes will hurt facebook competitors more. Everyone knows Facebook and it has a brand. They want to collect some info? Most people won't care - they just want to use the app like they always have. They might think twice with a new app that they don't know
        tmhrtly 6y ago
        I hope it might have the effect that those newer apps instead choose to innovate with their business models and pursue directions that don't require the user to sacrifice their privacy.
- switch11 6y ago
  agree 100% with you To me it's a miracle Facebook is allowed to do business given how many scummy things they do The Western World claims to be honest and transparent and talks a lot about ethics etc However, you never see stuff like Facebook or the Tik Tok ban in countries like China and INdia which are supposedly riddled with corruption America it seems corruption is completely OK as long as there is enough bread and circuses for the common people
  - raverbashing 6y ago
    Facebook is banned in China
    - snazz 6y ago
      And TikTok is banned in India
      - raverbashing 6y ago
        Yes and good for them. Nothing of value was lost.
- dathinab 6y ago
  Facebook owns masses of Photos "gifted" to them by their users many with good quality. That alone can be turned into endless streams of money (selling them to advertisement companies). And that's just one of many points. So yes this won't get anywhere close to killing FB even if it is adopted by other platforms like Android. Still it hurts revenue and this companies don't work on a morlaic basis but a pure monetary one, moral only matter because overstepping it to far makes you lose customers and trust from the government and with that potential more regulations.
- jokoon 6y ago
  Why do you think it will survive? If one is optimistic, this could be the the downfall of facebook. If FB is scummy it doesn't increase its chances of survival. To be honest I'm sure there will be millions of other opportunities to gather data, by other companies. Facebook does it the easy way. Data gathering is a business now, I'm sure there are people who specialize in data gathering operations, a little like oil prospecting, the obstacle here is just getting the legal consent of consumers.
  - asutekku 6y ago
    Why would it not survive? Facebook is a huge advertsing platform. Only thing that changes is that they can’t target iOS users as well as before, but that’s it. People will still pay fb to show ads.
    - thehappypm 6y ago
      If anything, the entire advertising industry takes a hit, and Facebook being Facebook, is still going to have the best targeting of iOS users out there.
  - austhrow743 6y ago
    Facebook isn't running on tight margins. It can eat a huge blow to revenue and just keep trucking.
- jariel 6y ago
  "... And nothing of value was lost." This is definitely not true. There is considerable value in advertising, it's just not apparent to you. In fact - advertising that is 'well targeted' is considerably less annoying than ads that are poorly targetted. The economic value of a well targeted ad is probably 10x otherwise. Ergo - unless you are willing to pay for apps - you might now see 10x more ads appearing on pages than otherwise. The moment you build something, and have to get the word out - your perspective will turn right upside down. As a creator you don't want to bother people who are not interested, but you definitely want to put up ads for those who may be. A lot of ads are just a waste of time, but there is a lot of efficiency in the communication there and that has value. The better we are able to connect people with the things they want, the better we all are. Of course, privacy matters as well, and this presents with a great paradox, in that, losing privacy may not be worth it for some people, but it's surprisingly hard to be objective when we've only been on one side of the fence.
  - snazz 6y ago
    I agree that relevant ads are better than completely random ones for everyone involved. But there is a significant middle ground between “show this user a random ad” and “show this user an ad based on data collected through tracking”. There’s also “show this user an ad similar to what they’re currently looking at”, like the search ads on DuckDuckGo. I find that these kinds of ads are just as relevant as targeted ads. The big disadvantage compared to using tracking is the inability for advertisers to select demographics directly (instead, they would have to choose pages or search terms to appear near).
    - wolco 6y ago
      A random ad would be strange. An ad based on the content of the page or type of site would actually fit in better.
  - johnday 6y ago
    > The economic value of a well targeted ad is probably 10x otherwise. > Ergo - unless you are willing to pay for apps - you might now see 10x more ads appearing on pages than otherwise. I'm afraid that this is nonsense. If the economic value of selling bread went down by 10x, do you think people would start offering you 10x as much bread?
- ie7eyrdueu 6y ago
  I'm a fanboy for most of the 'evil' companies but I still see all the appstore drama as silly. If people are already willing to pay 30% then they're either making a significant return anyway or the production>distribution overhead is just that much simpler. Either way, they are clearly already getting something worth the price, they would just prefer to be making even more. Nothing stops people from only publishing Android apps, people chase Apple because of the convenience of the platform and the spending habits of its users. Both of these things are results of Apple's aggressive micromanagement of its platform not things that happened despite of it.
wintorez 6y ago
Good!
cblconfederate 6y ago
> Now Apple is going to slowly shut off the oxygen in order to take the value for themselves. what happened was that developers left the facebook platform and all those viral games consolidated into zynga . Also , with targeted channels closed, ad money will have to flow to non-targeted ads, which actually benefits small publishers who can sell a lot of impressions. It's not like ad spending will stop
- jariel 6y ago
  Gaming devs leaving facebook is not part of the equation and switching to non-targeted ads absolutely does not benefit publishers - their ads are now worth 10x less than they were before. Any 'small publisher' using FB display ads will be hurt by this. For better or worse.
- celestialcheese 6y ago
  Untargeted ads are worse for small publishers, not better. Avg cpms right now for targeted ads are around $3-3.50. Untargeted, ~$.50 (Safari/Firefox CPMs). What I think we'll see is ad spend will flow more to the walled gardens since targeted ads still will be available, and perform significantly better than untargeted. Source: I own websites that make money with ads.
  - cblconfederate 6y ago
    if there are no targeted ads, cpms have no way to go but up There is only so much inventory to sell in walled gardens, people don't spend all their time on FB properties. And if apple makes it more difficult for FB to target users, the line between targeted/untargeted gets blurry
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
pcurve 6y ago
I wonder how long it will be before Apple gets into serious ad business themselves.
- Grakel 6y ago
  Negative a decade, at least. :)
- rahoulb 6y ago
  Well, one side effect of this is developers will rely on App Store adverts to promote their apps, whereas before Facebook ads were an effective way to promote them. So indirectly, Apple will be gaining revenue from this move.
  - cblconfederate 6y ago
    It's probably their plan, though tbh the App Store discovery process is atrocious. You re much more likely to find an app through google, and then you have to type the exact full name of the app in the store to have a chance of finding it
mr__y 6y ago
Maybe this will encourage switching to context-based ads. If I'm reading blog post about Rust, I might be interested in buying books or online training in Rust. Or, if I'm watching a video on how to take care of kitten, food or vaccination for kitten might be of interest for me. Nobody needs to track all my activity to guess that.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  If I'm reading blog post about Rust, I might be interested in buying books or online training in Rust I have been repeatedly assured by ad tech experts on HN that Facebook (and Google's) advertisements which are custom-tailored to my tabulated interests are far superior to the ads I would get through traditional context advertising. You can tell by all the ads I see on Facebook for feminine hygiene products for the lady parts I don't have, the concert ads for bands I don't like, and the restaurant ads for cities where I don't live in places I've never been. Life is so much better with the ad tech algorithms in charge.
  - mr__y 6y ago
    >advertisements which are custom-tailored to my tabulated interests are far superior to the ads I would get through traditional context advertising. actually my post is not arguing with that, however facing the reality where interest tracking/profiling will become harder or impossible good old context-based ads might at some point become better alternative. Not because they're inherently more efficient but because, with changes like that, interest tracking might become infisible or too resource consuming
  - nottorp 6y ago
    Don't forget the ads following you across websites for the expensive product (that you only need one of) you just bought.
- aaaxyz 6y ago
  I'm not sure if it's intentional or not but this is what some online stores appear to do (poorly). E.g. suggesting me office chairs after I just ordered one, suggesting motherboards incompatible with a CPU I'm looking at...
duk 6y ago
a bit off topic, how much time does your spouse spend on Facebook? I just peeked at her iPhone time tracking thingy and it's 26 hours a week. That sounds crazy to me. The scarier thing is that she doesn't see anything wrong with it. But I can't say anything to her; I chose being happy than being right. But then again not very happy either. Oh well.
- lukevp 6y ago
  Don’t know you so take this with a grain of salt, but personally if I could not discuss how we spend that much of our time with my spouse, I would feel that we had a fundamental problem with the way we communicate. You should also be talking about how you are not that happy. Maybe it is related to other things left unsaid. That is quite a deal of time that you all are choosing as a couple to spend on FB instead of in person. For my spouse and I, we quit FB a few years ago (for similar reasons - mindlessly scrolling, fomo and jealous feelings about others, watching everyone’s highlight reel instead of real life.) We did the same with IG and Reddit. Now I read HN and she IGs/YouTubes some for her business, and we spend the rest of our time away from social media, playing games, making art, reading, working, etc.
  - duk 6y ago
    Thanks for the input. It makes sense.
Razengan 6y ago
Not a rhetoric question, I'm honestly curious: Has there been any case where an entity who complained about Apple's restrictions, turned out to genuinely be in the favor of users, instead of just trying to make more money?
- dudus 6y ago
  These are not exclusives. You can be in favor of users and also happen to make more money.
  - Razengan 6y ago
    “Instead of just about money” and asking for specific examples where the complainant actually did something that benefited end users.
- asd282892892 6y ago
  This is genuinely in favor of users and small business: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/14/facebook-says-apple-refused-to-waive-30percent-fee-on-new-feature.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/14/facebook-says-apple-refused-... For example, some of my friends run a dog care training business and they had to switch to using facebook streaming to make money. This 30% fee is something they are quite unhappy about because it runs in the thousands of dollars for their scenario.
  - reaperducer 6y ago
    I think the OP's definition of "user" is the end user, meaning the person who sees the ad, not the company placing the ad. they had to switch to using facebook streaming to make money This I find hard to believe. The could easily have streamed on another service like YouTube, Zoom, or any of a dozen other solutions. Nobody "has" to switch to Facebook streaming.
  - Razengan 6y ago
    > some of my friends I have my doubts about a new user account being specifically created to post an unverifiable anecdote. And ironically, that link is unreadable when using an ad blocker.
mike_n 6y ago
I'm sure they have plenty of other data points to help them get a pretty good idea of who the phone belongs to
reaperducer 6y ago
I think we have to get away from calling these things "ad tracking." They're not tracking ads, they're tracking people, and their response to the ads. If Facebook was a guy with a notepad and a trench coat doing what it does in meatspace, you could get a restraining order against him.
- switch11 6y ago
  yeah, and almost everyone would You take a normal parent and tell them - This guy from Facebook is going to follow your teenage daughter around high school, the mall, her room, everywhere she goes, and keep a record of every single thing she does on the computer and they would be running for their guns or their lawyers Online, Facebook does all that and most people don't even have a clue
  - the_snooze 6y ago
    What Facebook (and adtech writ large) does is sniff your farts trying to figure out what you had for breakfast. If you shoo them away, they sniff your friends' farts to indirectly infer that. I'm sure the folks who work on this are proud of their accomplishments.
  - thoughtstheseus 6y ago
    Curious if there is case law here?
Traster 6y ago
I think it’s really kind of funny that you’ve got all these companies decrying Apple completely destroying their business with onerous conditions. Then you have facebook chiming in. No Facebook. Not you.
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  If facebook pulls its app though, and goes web-only it will be a big blow to apples products. Users spend most of their time on those apps.
clement_b 6y ago
This is a tsunami for ad tech. Facebook just being the tip of the iceberg here. Tracking or not tracking is not really the topic here. Rather, this is yet another proof of how abusive Apple is. They claim killing IDFA is for the sake of users' privacy, while they do track users and their behavior and feed them sponsored search results on the App Store (via Apple Search Ads). This ability is just too good to share! Apple is giving 3 months notice to an entire industry, this is just not nice. They do it for tracking this time, 'social' login next, and you name it. This idea of doing business unilaterally will backfire at some point... Regardless, the next 12 months are going to be as interesting as the rise of Facebook Ads on mobile, the rise of re-targeting or SEM. Because the entire ad tech stack is looking for alternatives and doing anything it can to remain effective on iOS. Get ready for some good and some ugly! Looking forward to seeing what Google will do with their own advertising ID on Android.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ethanbond 6y ago
  Good luck convincing Apple users that they’re the bad guys here. “Facebook (renowned monopolist) needs the right to take your data, otherwise Apple is a monopoly!” is really, really unconvincing.
- asadkn 6y ago
  Seems like they have to overcompensate for the PR to appear as the good guys after all the PR damage they took lately. Nothing more, nothing less. Perfunctory privacy efforts.
  - theklr 6y ago
    What damage? Outside of here and tech/gaming sites, the Apple v. Epic Games slap fight is low on the zeitgeist, at least in the US. Outside of those tribes, no one knew about the case, or cared enough to want to know when I explained it to them.
- aqme28 6y ago
aowerijwaerj 6y ago
Facebook is 21st-century cigarettes. Thousands of brilliant scientists and engineers testing and optimizing their product to be as addictive as possible. No concern for the effects on their users or on society. The only concern is making money. Just like with cigarettes, at first it was cool, then it became mainstream, then the dangers became better known, then the CEO was ordered to appear before Congress and gave a lot of misleading and empty responses, now it's used primarily by laggards and poorly-educated demographics. I'll be glad to see them go. Because one day they will go.
- Dahoon 6y ago
  Too bad you had to ruin an otherwise good post with >now it's used primarily by laggards and poorly-educated demographics I dislike Facebook too (and don't use it) but the above statement is a clear lie. Normal people are who use Facebook, like it or not.
  - marmaduke 6y ago
    I agree with this: closest family, well educated, use Facebook though I ask them not to.
- marmshallow 6y ago
  Welp, don't hold your breath. Facebook has 1.79B people on the side daily, 2.7B on monthly, and $18B in revenue in the last 3 months alone. It's going to be a while before that momentum slows down and/or collapses.
- op03 6y ago
  Cigarettes aren't free and haven't caused society to implode in every country on the planet. Dopamine on the other hand, that the Facebook cartel pushes through their Like counting, attention capturing/engagement maximizing algos is Free and Unlimited. If cigarettes were handed out for free and in unlimited quantities to everyone, for watching cat videos and accumulating Likes by insulting each other 24x7 then sure comparing Facebook to Big Tobacco would be apt. They are a type of drug cartel that has never existed in history and their execs need to be thrown in jail for being completely clueless for so long.
ffggvv 6y ago
so if epic wins their lawsuit, will facebook just make their own app store and track as much as they want?
- mcintyre1994 6y ago
  I don’t think Epic are asking to be able to add their own APIs to iOS so I doubt it, unless Apple’s implementation of these permission requests is tied to the App Store for some reason and disappears if the app is distributed some other way.
andrewstuart 6y ago
I bet they're talking about how the heck they can own their own platform/browser. Facebook is too big to be under the thumb of the operating system and browser vendors, who are possibly hostile towards Facebook's way of doing things. Not an easy problem to solve.
- lambdasquirrel 6y ago
  Apple's control over its app ecosystem is unsettling at times. The tactics against Epic seem heavy-handed. But then you have to remember how Facebook scraped the contacts list on Android phones, when users installed the Android app. Ugh. Maybe an ideal world is one where there's more than one app store for iOS, but Apple still maintains control over the developer APIs. Apple bans plenty of legit content that isn't Disney kiddie-ish enough for its tastes. Imagine if the web were like that.
mark_l_watson 6y ago
Well, Facebook can go to h*ll with their complaints. There is a little something called freedom: corporations like Apple have the right to make their own business decisions as long as they don’t break laws. People have the right to buy and use products that make it more difficult for Facebook to harvest their digital data. Facebook also has the right to run their business as they see fit, again, as long as they don’t break any laws. An entirely different conversation: as much as I like free markets and capitalism, without governments enforcing laws that put some restraints on capitalism, that take into account externalities/costs to society, then capitalism and free markets will die.
imnothere__ 6y ago
Good to see that they're not happy, it's our time to be happy.
spacemanmatt 6y ago
As this is about a terrible company suffering another terrible company, I don't know who to cheer for.
wdr1 6y ago
This change is good for Facebook. When it plays out that way they just don't want to get blamed for it. A lot of articles seem to think Facebook won't be able to monetize you anymore. Far from the case. Within their apps -- the Facebook app, Instagram -- where they make most of their profit, there won't be any change. They don't need anything like IDFA because you're signed in. What this will hurt is the ROI on non-Facebook apps. Publishers will get less money & advertisers will see less return. So where will those dollars start to shift to? Facebook.
SergeAx 6y ago
This may actually be good. For years, all the mobile app developers had motto "iOS first", because iOS users are bringing more revenue per install. If ads in iOS apps will underperform because of Apple keeping all the user's data to itself, those money could flow to Android devices.

115 points by elorant 6y ago

It just occured to me that we're looking at Facebook wrong. Why do people come to FB? For the content that other people post. There would be no eyeballs for the ads if the users didn't post content. Shouldn't Facebook give us a piece of that ad revenue then?

mk4 6y ago
That sounds like youtube
- nottorp 6y ago
  Oh, so there is a precedent :)

cheeze 6y ago

... And nothing of value was lost. If it's detremental to your business to not be able to track users on such a granular level, it's a bad business. I'm sure Facebook will survive here. 100% biased, can't stand that company.

DLA 6y ago
Same. Good if FB takes a hit!
hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
> If it's detremental to your business to not be able to track users on such a granular level, it's a bad business. Except that Apple still allows tracking on this granular level, it's just that now they have to explicitly ask users to allow this. Says a lot about Facebook's (and others) business model if it only works when the vast majority of users are mostly unaware of the amount of tracking they do, but the minute you make these users aware of the tracking and ask for their permission, the business model falls apart.
- ghj 6y ago
  To be fair if you add an opt-in step to anything, it will kill that thing. No moral judgement, just human laziness. If it doesn't kill it, it still becomes something everyone loathes (e.g., how you need an extra click to accept cookies on every site you use).
  - tmhrtly 6y ago
    I think in some situations if users see value in the opt-in then it can be ok. E.g. your phone asking you if you're happy to share your location with an app. I sure as hell want my mapping app to know where I am, but I also feel very comforted that I still get a say in the process. The thing about this tracking opt-in is that no user would ever want it because it's solely there to exploit them. So in this case I think you're 100% right.
    - cortesoft 6y ago
      Wouldn't the value in this situation be "you get to use Facebook"? If they didn't make money off their users, Facebook wouldn't exist. Would you be ok if they did it that way? A warning that says "by using Facebook, you are agreeing to be tracked", at which point the user could either continue or uninstall the app?
      - maps7 6y ago
        I think the new changes will hurt facebook competitors more. Everyone knows Facebook and it has a brand. They want to collect some info? Most people won't care - they just want to use the app like they always have. They might think twice with a new app that they don't know
        tmhrtly 6y ago
        I hope it might have the effect that those newer apps instead choose to innovate with their business models and pursue directions that don't require the user to sacrifice their privacy.
switch11 6y ago
agree 100% with you To me it's a miracle Facebook is allowed to do business given how many scummy things they do The Western World claims to be honest and transparent and talks a lot about ethics etc However, you never see stuff like Facebook or the Tik Tok ban in countries like China and INdia which are supposedly riddled with corruption America it seems corruption is completely OK as long as there is enough bread and circuses for the common people
- raverbashing 6y ago
  Facebook is banned in China
  - snazz 6y ago
    And TikTok is banned in India
    - raverbashing 6y ago
      Yes and good for them. Nothing of value was lost.
dathinab 6y ago
Facebook owns masses of Photos "gifted" to them by their users many with good quality. That alone can be turned into endless streams of money (selling them to advertisement companies). And that's just one of many points. So yes this won't get anywhere close to killing FB even if it is adopted by other platforms like Android. Still it hurts revenue and this companies don't work on a morlaic basis but a pure monetary one, moral only matter because overstepping it to far makes you lose customers and trust from the government and with that potential more regulations.
jokoon 6y ago
Why do you think it will survive? If one is optimistic, this could be the the downfall of facebook. If FB is scummy it doesn't increase its chances of survival. To be honest I'm sure there will be millions of other opportunities to gather data, by other companies. Facebook does it the easy way. Data gathering is a business now, I'm sure there are people who specialize in data gathering operations, a little like oil prospecting, the obstacle here is just getting the legal consent of consumers.
- asutekku 6y ago
  Why would it not survive? Facebook is a huge advertsing platform. Only thing that changes is that they can’t target iOS users as well as before, but that’s it. People will still pay fb to show ads.
  - thehappypm 6y ago
    If anything, the entire advertising industry takes a hit, and Facebook being Facebook, is still going to have the best targeting of iOS users out there.
- austhrow743 6y ago
  Facebook isn't running on tight margins. It can eat a huge blow to revenue and just keep trucking.
jariel 6y ago
"... And nothing of value was lost." This is definitely not true. There is considerable value in advertising, it's just not apparent to you. In fact - advertising that is 'well targeted' is considerably less annoying than ads that are poorly targetted. The economic value of a well targeted ad is probably 10x otherwise. Ergo - unless you are willing to pay for apps - you might now see 10x more ads appearing on pages than otherwise. The moment you build something, and have to get the word out - your perspective will turn right upside down. As a creator you don't want to bother people who are not interested, but you definitely want to put up ads for those who may be. A lot of ads are just a waste of time, but there is a lot of efficiency in the communication there and that has value. The better we are able to connect people with the things they want, the better we all are. Of course, privacy matters as well, and this presents with a great paradox, in that, losing privacy may not be worth it for some people, but it's surprisingly hard to be objective when we've only been on one side of the fence.
- snazz 6y ago
  I agree that relevant ads are better than completely random ones for everyone involved. But there is a significant middle ground between “show this user a random ad” and “show this user an ad based on data collected through tracking”. There’s also “show this user an ad similar to what they’re currently looking at”, like the search ads on DuckDuckGo. I find that these kinds of ads are just as relevant as targeted ads. The big disadvantage compared to using tracking is the inability for advertisers to select demographics directly (instead, they would have to choose pages or search terms to appear near).
  - wolco 6y ago
    A random ad would be strange. An ad based on the content of the page or type of site would actually fit in better.
- johnday 6y ago
  > The economic value of a well targeted ad is probably 10x otherwise. > Ergo - unless you are willing to pay for apps - you might now see 10x more ads appearing on pages than otherwise. I'm afraid that this is nonsense. If the economic value of selling bread went down by 10x, do you think people would start offering you 10x as much bread?
ie7eyrdueu 6y ago
I'm a fanboy for most of the 'evil' companies but I still see all the appstore drama as silly. If people are already willing to pay 30% then they're either making a significant return anyway or the production>distribution overhead is just that much simpler. Either way, they are clearly already getting something worth the price, they would just prefer to be making even more. Nothing stops people from only publishing Android apps, people chase Apple because of the convenience of the platform and the spending habits of its users. Both of these things are results of Apple's aggressive micromanagement of its platform not things that happened despite of it.

wintorez 6y ago

Good!

cblconfederate 6y ago

> Now Apple is going to slowly shut off the oxygen in order to take the value for themselves. what happened was that developers left the facebook platform and all those viral games consolidated into zynga . Also , with targeted channels closed, ad money will have to flow to non-targeted ads, which actually benefits small publishers who can sell a lot of impressions. It's not like ad spending will stop

jariel 6y ago
Gaming devs leaving facebook is not part of the equation and switching to non-targeted ads absolutely does not benefit publishers - their ads are now worth 10x less than they were before. Any 'small publisher' using FB display ads will be hurt by this. For better or worse.
celestialcheese 6y ago
Untargeted ads are worse for small publishers, not better. Avg cpms right now for targeted ads are around $3-3.50. Untargeted, ~$.50 (Safari/Firefox CPMs). What I think we'll see is ad spend will flow more to the walled gardens since targeted ads still will be available, and perform significantly better than untargeted. Source: I own websites that make money with ads.
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  if there are no targeted ads, cpms have no way to go but up There is only so much inventory to sell in walled gardens, people don't spend all their time on FB properties. And if apple makes it more difficult for FB to target users, the line between targeted/untargeted gets blurry

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

pcurve 6y ago

I wonder how long it will be before Apple gets into serious ad business themselves.

Grakel 6y ago
Negative a decade, at least. :)
rahoulb 6y ago
Well, one side effect of this is developers will rely on App Store adverts to promote their apps, whereas before Facebook ads were an effective way to promote them. So indirectly, Apple will be gaining revenue from this move.
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  It's probably their plan, though tbh the App Store discovery process is atrocious. You re much more likely to find an app through google, and then you have to type the exact full name of the app in the store to have a chance of finding it

mr__y 6y ago

Maybe this will encourage switching to context-based ads. If I'm reading blog post about Rust, I might be interested in buying books or online training in Rust. Or, if I'm watching a video on how to take care of kitten, food or vaccination for kitten might be of interest for me. Nobody needs to track all my activity to guess that.

reaperducer 6y ago
If I'm reading blog post about Rust, I might be interested in buying books or online training in Rust I have been repeatedly assured by ad tech experts on HN that Facebook (and Google's) advertisements which are custom-tailored to my tabulated interests are far superior to the ads I would get through traditional context advertising. You can tell by all the ads I see on Facebook for feminine hygiene products for the lady parts I don't have, the concert ads for bands I don't like, and the restaurant ads for cities where I don't live in places I've never been. Life is so much better with the ad tech algorithms in charge.
- mr__y 6y ago
  >advertisements which are custom-tailored to my tabulated interests are far superior to the ads I would get through traditional context advertising. actually my post is not arguing with that, however facing the reality where interest tracking/profiling will become harder or impossible good old context-based ads might at some point become better alternative. Not because they're inherently more efficient but because, with changes like that, interest tracking might become infisible or too resource consuming
- nottorp 6y ago
  Don't forget the ads following you across websites for the expensive product (that you only need one of) you just bought.
aaaxyz 6y ago
I'm not sure if it's intentional or not but this is what some online stores appear to do (poorly). E.g. suggesting me office chairs after I just ordered one, suggesting motherboards incompatible with a CPU I'm looking at...

duk 6y ago

a bit off topic, how much time does your spouse spend on Facebook? I just peeked at her iPhone time tracking thingy and it's 26 hours a week. That sounds crazy to me. The scarier thing is that she doesn't see anything wrong with it. But I can't say anything to her; I chose being happy than being right. But then again not very happy either. Oh well.

lukevp 6y ago
Don’t know you so take this with a grain of salt, but personally if I could not discuss how we spend that much of our time with my spouse, I would feel that we had a fundamental problem with the way we communicate. You should also be talking about how you are not that happy. Maybe it is related to other things left unsaid. That is quite a deal of time that you all are choosing as a couple to spend on FB instead of in person. For my spouse and I, we quit FB a few years ago (for similar reasons - mindlessly scrolling, fomo and jealous feelings about others, watching everyone’s highlight reel instead of real life.) We did the same with IG and Reddit. Now I read HN and she IGs/YouTubes some for her business, and we spend the rest of our time away from social media, playing games, making art, reading, working, etc.
- duk 6y ago
  Thanks for the input. It makes sense.

Razengan 6y ago

Not a rhetoric question, I'm honestly curious: Has there been any case where an entity who complained about Apple's restrictions, turned out to genuinely be in the favor of users, instead of just trying to make more money?

dudus 6y ago
These are not exclusives. You can be in favor of users and also happen to make more money.
- Razengan 6y ago
  “Instead of just about money” and asking for specific examples where the complainant actually did something that benefited end users.
asd282892892 6y ago
This is genuinely in favor of users and small business: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/14/facebook-says-apple-refused-to-waive-30percent-fee-on-new-feature.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/14/facebook-says-apple-refused-... For example, some of my friends run a dog care training business and they had to switch to using facebook streaming to make money. This 30% fee is something they are quite unhappy about because it runs in the thousands of dollars for their scenario.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  I think the OP's definition of "user" is the end user, meaning the person who sees the ad, not the company placing the ad. they had to switch to using facebook streaming to make money This I find hard to believe. The could easily have streamed on another service like YouTube, Zoom, or any of a dozen other solutions. Nobody "has" to switch to Facebook streaming.
- Razengan 6y ago
  > some of my friends I have my doubts about a new user account being specifically created to post an unverifiable anecdote. And ironically, that link is unreadable when using an ad blocker.

mike_n 6y ago

I'm sure they have plenty of other data points to help them get a pretty good idea of who the phone belongs to

reaperducer 6y ago

I think we have to get away from calling these things "ad tracking." They're not tracking ads, they're tracking people, and their response to the ads. If Facebook was a guy with a notepad and a trench coat doing what it does in meatspace, you could get a restraining order against him.

switch11 6y ago
yeah, and almost everyone would You take a normal parent and tell them - This guy from Facebook is going to follow your teenage daughter around high school, the mall, her room, everywhere she goes, and keep a record of every single thing she does on the computer and they would be running for their guns or their lawyers Online, Facebook does all that and most people don't even have a clue
- the_snooze 6y ago
  What Facebook (and adtech writ large) does is sniff your farts trying to figure out what you had for breakfast. If you shoo them away, they sniff your friends' farts to indirectly infer that. I'm sure the folks who work on this are proud of their accomplishments.
- thoughtstheseus 6y ago
  Curious if there is case law here?

Traster 6y ago

I think it’s really kind of funny that you’ve got all these companies decrying Apple completely destroying their business with onerous conditions. Then you have facebook chiming in. No Facebook. Not you.

cblconfederate 6y ago
If facebook pulls its app though, and goes web-only it will be a big blow to apples products. Users spend most of their time on those apps.

clement_b 6y ago

This is a tsunami for ad tech. Facebook just being the tip of the iceberg here. Tracking or not tracking is not really the topic here. Rather, this is yet another proof of how abusive Apple is. They claim killing IDFA is for the sake of users' privacy, while they do track users and their behavior and feed them sponsored search results on the App Store (via Apple Search Ads). This ability is just too good to share! Apple is giving 3 months notice to an entire industry, this is just not nice. They do it for tracking this time, 'social' login next, and you name it. This idea of doing business unilaterally will backfire at some point... Regardless, the next 12 months are going to be as interesting as the rise of Facebook Ads on mobile, the rise of re-targeting or SEM. Because the entire ad tech stack is looking for alternatives and doing anything it can to remain effective on iOS. Get ready for some good and some ugly! Looking forward to seeing what Google will do with their own advertising ID on Android.

deleted 6y ago
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ethanbond 6y ago
Good luck convincing Apple users that they’re the bad guys here. “Facebook (renowned monopolist) needs the right to take your data, otherwise Apple is a monopoly!” is really, really unconvincing.
asadkn 6y ago
Seems like they have to overcompensate for the PR to appear as the good guys after all the PR damage they took lately. Nothing more, nothing less. Perfunctory privacy efforts.
- theklr 6y ago
  What damage? Outside of here and tech/gaming sites, the Apple v. Epic Games slap fight is low on the zeitgeist, at least in the US. Outside of those tribes, no one knew about the case, or cared enough to want to know when I explained it to them.
aqme28 6y ago

aowerijwaerj 6y ago

Facebook is 21st-century cigarettes. Thousands of brilliant scientists and engineers testing and optimizing their product to be as addictive as possible. No concern for the effects on their users or on society. The only concern is making money. Just like with cigarettes, at first it was cool, then it became mainstream, then the dangers became better known, then the CEO was ordered to appear before Congress and gave a lot of misleading and empty responses, now it's used primarily by laggards and poorly-educated demographics. I'll be glad to see them go. Because one day they will go.

Dahoon 6y ago
Too bad you had to ruin an otherwise good post with >now it's used primarily by laggards and poorly-educated demographics I dislike Facebook too (and don't use it) but the above statement is a clear lie. Normal people are who use Facebook, like it or not.
- marmaduke 6y ago
  I agree with this: closest family, well educated, use Facebook though I ask them not to.
marmshallow 6y ago
Welp, don't hold your breath. Facebook has 1.79B people on the side daily, 2.7B on monthly, and $18B in revenue in the last 3 months alone. It's going to be a while before that momentum slows down and/or collapses.
op03 6y ago
Cigarettes aren't free and haven't caused society to implode in every country on the planet. Dopamine on the other hand, that the Facebook cartel pushes through their Like counting, attention capturing/engagement maximizing algos is Free and Unlimited. If cigarettes were handed out for free and in unlimited quantities to everyone, for watching cat videos and accumulating Likes by insulting each other 24x7 then sure comparing Facebook to Big Tobacco would be apt. They are a type of drug cartel that has never existed in history and their execs need to be thrown in jail for being completely clueless for so long.

ffggvv 6y ago

so if epic wins their lawsuit, will facebook just make their own app store and track as much as they want?

mcintyre1994 6y ago
I don’t think Epic are asking to be able to add their own APIs to iOS so I doubt it, unless Apple’s implementation of these permission requests is tied to the App Store for some reason and disappears if the app is distributed some other way.

andrewstuart 6y ago

I bet they're talking about how the heck they can own their own platform/browser. Facebook is too big to be under the thumb of the operating system and browser vendors, who are possibly hostile towards Facebook's way of doing things. Not an easy problem to solve.

lambdasquirrel 6y ago
Apple's control over its app ecosystem is unsettling at times. The tactics against Epic seem heavy-handed. But then you have to remember how Facebook scraped the contacts list on Android phones, when users installed the Android app. Ugh. Maybe an ideal world is one where there's more than one app store for iOS, but Apple still maintains control over the developer APIs. Apple bans plenty of legit content that isn't Disney kiddie-ish enough for its tastes. Imagine if the web were like that.

mark_l_watson 6y ago

Well, Facebook can go to h*ll with their complaints. There is a little something called freedom: corporations like Apple have the right to make their own business decisions as long as they don’t break laws. People have the right to buy and use products that make it more difficult for Facebook to harvest their digital data. Facebook also has the right to run their business as they see fit, again, as long as they don’t break any laws. An entirely different conversation: as much as I like free markets and capitalism, without governments enforcing laws that put some restraints on capitalism, that take into account externalities/costs to society, then capitalism and free markets will die.

imnothere__ 6y ago

Good to see that they're not happy, it's our time to be happy.

spacemanmatt 6y ago

As this is about a terrible company suffering another terrible company, I don't know who to cheer for.

wdr1 6y ago

This change is good for Facebook. When it plays out that way they just don't want to get blamed for it. A lot of articles seem to think Facebook won't be able to monetize you anymore. Far from the case. Within their apps -- the Facebook app, Instagram -- where they make most of their profit, there won't be any change. They don't need anything like IDFA because you're signed in. What this will hurt is the ROI on non-Facebook apps. Publishers will get less money & advertisers will see less return. So where will those dollars start to shift to? Facebook.

SergeAx 6y ago

This may actually be good. For years, all the mobile app developers had motto "iOS first", because iOS users are bringing more revenue per install. If ads in iOS apps will underperform because of Apple keeping all the user's data to itself, those money could flow to Android devices.