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Facebook's attempt to vilify Apple looks like sour grapes

323 points by ystad 6y ago

wsc981 6y ago
I wonder if we’d really see something like this on the iOS Facebook app. I’d guess that would make a lot of people way more hesitant to use Facebook: https://twitter.com/tomwarren/status/1339174301564604418?s=20 https://twitter.com/tomwarren/status/1339174301564604418?s=2...
- kerbs 6y ago
  I believe that’s the point.
echelon 6y ago
I'm no fan of Facebook or Google, but this is a mega-monopoly deciding to crush a competitor. They're saying no to a company's revenue stream, and they've gotten in the habit of doing this to everyone. Apple wields too much power.
- VyperCard 6y ago
  Competitor in what?
  - infinityplus1 6y ago
    Mobile app revenue. Ads where Apple doesn't get a cut vs IAP where Apple gets 30%.
    - mcphage 6y ago
      Ads and IAP aren’t the same thing. The money doesn’t even come from the same places.
      - Jyaif 6y ago
        If ads start bringing in less revenue, more developers will move to IAP (or other stream of revenues).
      - chongli 6y ago
        The battle is over attention. Users have a finite amount of time to spend looking at their phone per day. The more time they spend scrolling Facebook, the less time they spend on other apps. The less time spent on other apps, the less money they spend on IAPs.
- doctor_eval 6y ago
  So you agree with Facebook that their revenue stream is more important than our privacy? If you don’t agree, then how else do you propose Apple enforces said privacy? I mean these third party apps are running on Apple’s platform and using Apple’s APIs to track Apple’s customers. Who else can fix this problem?
  - echelon 6y ago
    > So you agree with Facebook that their revenue stream is more important than our privacy? No. I think our freedom is more important than both. > If you don’t agree, then how else do you propose Apple enforces said privacy? Apple is making decisions that are too big for it. The DOJ needs to break them up. Computing needs to be free. I'm fine if the platform makes these notices apparent, but Apple can't be the arbiter.
    - doctor_eval 6y ago
      I don’t understand your position. There are many types of “freedom”. Is it freedom for Facebook to invade our privacy that you care about? Or do you care about allowing people to be free from privacy invasion? Both freedoms cannot exist simultaneously. So are you saying that Apple should not be allowed to decide which freedom to prioritise? Despite the fact that every other comparable company is effectively on the side of Facebook? Or is there some other kind of freedom you care about? You seem to say that “our freedom” is more important than our privacy, but privacy is a most fundamental type of freedom - literally, the freedom to think our own thoughts. What other freedom could be more important than that?
- Renaud 6y ago
  I'm not sure I understand your point. How is Apple crushing Facebook as a competitor by allowing users to give proper consent to tracking. I could understand if there was really an overlap somewhere, but I don't really see it. They have different business models, Apple doesn't have any social media property that compete with Facebook or Instagram and if Apple really wanted iMessage to crush WhatsApp they should at least show their interest in dominance by having an Android version of it. Maybe they are competing on resources? but I don't see it either. They don't seem to be going after the same acquisitions. Maybe Apple is doing this because pleasing or pissing off ad-based companies has no effect on their bottom line and they see it as a good marketing campaign to woo the privacy conscious an earn some brownie points for practically zero expense.
  - johnnycerberus 6y ago
    Because Apple is worse, everything you do on the Apple platform has to be taxed, something like Italian mafia did in the past. Until things got heat in 2020, Apple wasn't even allowing payment competition in their iOS App Store. Think about that. Roman empire did the same with their provinces, wanna get romanised (civilised)? You got to pay the tax. More so, Apple is #3 in the world in game revenue and guess what, Apple doesn’t even make games. I can't buy an Apple device because of the ideology behind their products. Why expect Apple to put other storefronts on their platform? They have all the rights not to but this also implies that their ecosystem is less liberal, which is also fine. They made the OS and the device. If you hate the App Store, don’t use iOS. It's simple. They run 1984 ads but they are the core of 1984. There is basically no reason for not providing an OS interface for others to build their own storefronts on your platform. Android showed that it's possible, there's no excuse. Period.
    - holstvoogd 6y ago
      I'd rather pay the apple tax (money) than the google/facebook tax (my data and privacy).
      - johnnycerberus 6y ago
- st1x7 6y ago
  > They're saying no to a company's revenue stream They're saying no to certain privacy violations on their platform. This being detrimental to Facebook's revenue says a lot more about Facebook's business model than it says about Apple's policies.
- smt88 6y ago
  Apple is far from a monopoly. They lose market share to Android every year, I believe.
- diveanon 6y ago
  Apple and Facebook are not competitors. If anything apple is setting a precedent for it's actual competition that user privacy is something people are willing to pay a premium for.
Jemm 6y ago
The result of this situation is that Facebook is going to prioritize its own operating system for desktop and mobile. They already have some expertise in their Oculus line.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  just curious, do you think this would be a positive development? I have to assume a facebook OS would combine the worst parts of the iOS walled garden and android data mining. but still, I think it would be good overall to have a third major smartphone OS, if only to add a little pressure to the existing competition.
- whywhywhywhy 6y ago
  Using an Oculus Quest you'd honestly have no idea it was using Android under the hood, they've created something that feels extremely slick and crammed full of the UX niceties people would usually associate with Apple. The AR OS battleground is going to be very interesting.
  - WanderPanda 6y ago
    As interesting as the 3D TV battleground?
    - jnwatson 6y ago
      Shots fired. Interestingly, 3d TV had the same problem as VR now: lack of content. A single movie (Avatar) created the whole industry, and there was little follow up. You might say the same about VR and Beat Saber.
      - mikeg8 6y ago
        I don't think 3d TVs sole issue was lack of content. my belief is that the 3d viewing experience becomes very tiresome and many people were in fact perfectly happy with regular HD tv.
  - 6y ago
samcheng 6y ago
I'm definitely no Facebook fan, but I think they're right to be upset with Apple. If you look at the documentation in the app store around the Apple privacy policy (which is required for any new app version right now) you'll see a bunch of language that, to me, seems squarely aimed at Facebook and the Facebook SDK. For example, it specifically calls out third-party auth SDKs, sharing hashed email addresses with third parties, and sharing identities so third parties can optimize their advertising for you. These are all functionalities where Facebook is the clear industry leader. Especially the language around "hashed email addresses" seemed quite clearly targeting Facebook to me. I'm surprised Apple's weaponization of the App Store (for example, forcing Sign in with Apple on any developers who use Facebook or Google SSO) hasn't drawn more anti-trust attention. I definitely applaud Apple's push to be more transparent about the privacy you give up when installing these apps! I just wonder if the rollout could have been done in a more app-publisher-friendly manner.
- elliekelly 6y ago
  Why do you consider this “targeting facebook” and not “targeting Apple users’ preferences”?
- zepto 6y ago
  What “app-publisher-friendly” manner would you suggest?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- annadane 6y ago
  People need to stop downvoting every single comment on here. This is a good faith argument, regardless of your feelings of fb/apple
diveanon 6y ago
Facebook is scared, and they should be. For years it has been painfully clear that facebook has been a net negative for society. Bring back the days of being able to trust your device and services you use without have to skim through TOS and hope they didn't throw a Facebook auth sdk in somewhere.
- Threeve303 6y ago
  > Bring back the days of being able to trust your device and services you use Did that time ever really exist?
  - Bancakes 6y ago
    I think loading alternate DOS-compatible OS's was about the last mark of that era.
    - bayindirh 6y ago
      PalmOS was pretty secure in that regard IIRC.
  - Nextgrid 6y ago
    Before the whole "attention economy" bullshit happened you could reasonably trust software from a known, popular company not to be malicious (back then the creepy tracking behavior was considered "spyware" and would immediately get flagged by any anti-malware software, ruin the publisher's reputation and potentially put them in legal trouble). Nowadays, most software out there comes with some kind of spyware (Facebook SDK, extremely granular analytics sometimes going as far as screen recording, etc) and nobody seems to care.
    - JKCalhoun 6y ago
      So before the internet — before "snitching".
      - 6y ago
spyke112 6y ago
Ideally Facebook should just allow users to buy a subscription. I think a lot of people, at least in the western world, wouldn't mind paying say $1-2 dollars a month maybe even more, if Facebook were honest about how they use your data, and how much money they make of of your data. I mean, we're all happily paying $8.99 for Netflix and friends, is it really so outrageous that consumers would pay for a social network?
- maxwellito 6y ago
  It sounds great, sadly I think Facebook can generate much more by showing you advertising.
  - was_boring 6y ago
    A very small percentage would actually buy one and it would be very good PR. It would almost be a marketing expense at that point.
  - bun_at_work 6y ago
    It's definitely more than 1-2 dollars, but not so high that subscriptions would be too expensive for users. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/03/facebooks-average-revenue-per-user-leads-social-media-companies.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/03/facebooks-average-revenue-pe...
    - anchpop 6y ago
      Although the average revenue per user who would be willing to spend $7/quarter is probably much higher (these users are disproportionately likely to have disposable income which probably makes them more attractive to advertisers)
      - virgilp 6y ago
        I think nobody would mind advertisers being able to target to "subscribers". What people don't want is the ability of advertisers to target "white male who works at ACME, lives in north Fairview and bought a car last week" (which might narrow it down to just you). That said, I definitely believe that collecting subscription money would not stop them from trying to collect data about you, for advertising purposes. They'd view subscription as just a new revenue stream (yay!).
known 6y ago
aka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_pot_calling_the_kettle_black https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_pot_calling_the_kettle_bla...
- young_unixer 6y ago
  aka "El burro hablando de orejas" (The donkey talking about ears)
  - cambalache 6y ago
    aka "Cachicamo diciendole a morrocoy conchudo" (The armadillo calling out the tortoise for having a shell)
    - cassianoleal 6y ago
      aka "O roto falando do esfarrapado" (The worn-out telling off the ragged)
croes 6y ago
Epic is much better in vilifying Apple. That says a lot about Facebook.
- WorldMaker 6y ago
  Well, Epic also has an easier case to make: People need Fortnite (and the Unreal Engine). They don't need personalized ads, no matter how much Facebook wants to claim Mom & Pop shops only exist because of personalized advertising. (Last I checked, history books show small businesses existing for centuries before that.)
oxymoran 6y ago
I hope Facebook dies a quick but agonizing death.
- ankit219 6y ago
  Wont really solve anything. Social connection and interaction is a fundamental human need and if FB goes away some other company would be fulfilling that and we probably would be going through a similar cycle again. Edit: Assuming there are no laws or regulations in place from the learnings we have got from FB. If there are effective laws in place, then FB stays or go does not matter much.
  - myspy 6y ago
    But could be a better company. Something like the Path app did years ago.
    - ankit219 6y ago
      I sure hope we get a better company. Though I dont know if good people want to start such companies and if the VCs want to fund them (dont see a way for a big social network without VC money. I may be wrong)
      - wussboy 6y ago
        I think the money is the problem. Before Facebook was profitable, it was fun to use and I enjoyed using it. But any competitor to Facebook must be more profitable than Facebook, and if you can’t do that while remaining ethical, then you will lose out. This is why I’m such a fan of regulation because it can level this particular playing field.
  - snarf21 6y ago
    True, that is why we need legislation like GDPR to not repeat our mistakes.
    - 6y ago
KoftaBob 6y ago
On this topic, do we know when this privacy opt-in feature will be officially added to iOS? I can't seem to find any specific date.
- richrichardsson 6y ago
  Nothing concrete as far as I can tell, just a woolly "until 2021" from a non-primary source [1]. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/apple-delays-controversial-new-privacy-feature-in-ios-14-to-2021/ar-BB18GKdE https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/apple-delays-contr...
  - KoftaBob 6y ago
    I figured, thank you!
maxwellito 6y ago
In a way there's something very interesting in this situation. Facebook is known for cutting the API access to competitors, like it happen in the past with Vine. Today it's the other way around.
- camillomiller 6y ago
  Except this has even nothing to do with getting API cut for them or actually losing a functionality. They can do exactly everything they did as before, but they have to ask the users' permission. All they have to bake into their service is a fallback for when a user doesn't give them permission, which should be technically trivial (if it's not, it would be another sign of their unacceptable hubris). They are implicitly admitting that no user would ever accept what Facebook does as acceptable, if you properly inform them about how Facebook works. What a morally bankrupt company.
  - neodymiumphish 6y ago
    I don't think this properly describes the situation. If this goes through, Facebook doesn't have to "bake into their service is a fallback for when a user doesn't give them permission", they can just make sites require this permission. If the user declines, the site won't load. Alternatively, the do what you're suggesting, but the site gets no revenue for that user, this will pressure the sites to continually ask for the user to re-enable the permission or change the way the notice shows up so that they eventually accidentally allow it. Either way, nothing will change.
franzwong 6y ago
> “This is about a long-term view that is about anti-personalised advertising, and we think is trying to take the world back 10 or 20 years.” But this is what user wants.
- bryan_w 6y ago
  Nobody wants the punch the monkey ads to come back.
m3kw9 6y ago
Looks like they are taking the playbook from Epic thinking it was successful.
permo-w 6y ago
Dan Levy, Facebook’s head of advertising, on Apple: “This is about a long-term view that is about anti-personalised advertising, and we think is trying to take the world back 10 or 20 years.” Who does he think he’s winning over here? That’s not a rhetorical question. To me, that sounds brilliant
- toyg 6y ago
  Believe it or not, some people love personalised ads. I know several (they all happen to be women, but I'm sure many men also like them). It's a bit of a tautology - they wouldn't be so profitable and dominant if people weren't clicking on them, so somebody is doing it, and in massive numbers. They wouldn't like going back - my mom is already angry that using my home wifi messes up the ads she gets. Obviously this shouldn't be read as an endorsement for FB's practices - I think they are as scummy as Apple's anti-competitive bullying of iOS developers. It's unbelievable that we're now openly longing for something that looks a lot like the Windows software market circa 2001: compared to today, it was a paradise of open competition and almost-entire privacy.
  - slipheen 6y ago
    I can see your point, but all Apple is doing here is telling users that Facebook wants to track them, and letting them opt-in or opt-out. If someone is in favor of being tracked, they can allow it. Facebook's objection is to letting people know about the tracking, and giving them an easier way to avoid it if they so choose.
  - throwaway2048 6y ago
    If they love them so much, they can easily enable them for facebook on iOS, just because these people exist doesn't mean it should be the default setting.
  - r00fus 6y ago
    Personalized ads used to be "hey this specific item is great for you". Now the targeting is leading to the equivalent of harassment as ad-targeting retargets again and again. So yeah, I'll take the less harassing version of ads (or no ads even if I have to pay). Also I don't want to allow FB to pull another Cambridge Analytica.
neya 6y ago
Even as a vocal Apple critic, I'm not sure I understand the support for Facebook here. Apple isn't blocking anything w.r.t Facebook. All they're simply doing is exposing to the user what Facebook are trying to collect about the user. And then, the user gets full power to approve or disapprove what information goes to Facebook. I think this is a great win for the users. I don't understand how Apple is blocking small businesses here. Apple isn't blocking tracking here at all, the user is, if at all they choose to. If your business model involves fraudulently spying on the users and making money out of it, then too bad, that's your problem. And about the arguments on "Facebook is free". I agree that Facebook is a free service, and they need to be compensated somewhat, but, if a user disables ad tracking, Facebook can simply block them from accessing their free service, which is fair, right? It's only a problem if Facebook continues to allow their free service to such users. Well, even then I would think charging iOS users who block Facebook tracking is a fair deal, especially if there is a premium version of Facebook with no spyware in it, I totally see myself and many others paying for it. But Facebook won't do that, because their core philosophy is just criminal - spy the users as much as you can without their consent. So, fuck them. I support Apple here. I hope Android follows suit as well and we can slowly kill Facebook together.
- j2bax 6y ago
  I think Facebook prefers the business model where users (their product) think their service is free. This is partially how they've taken the entire digital social world over with their services. With this change, Apple is now forcing them to expose their business model to users (their product). This transparency will inevitably cost them dearly.
  - time0ut 6y ago
    Facebook is a vampire cultivating and feeding off of our most extreme emotions. If Apple is selling garlic, I am buying.
- Justsignedup 6y ago
  As a heavy apple critic, who refuses to buy an iPhone. Facebook is 100% in the wrong here. Apple is not blocking jack shit. Apple is just forcing Facebook to ask permission before exploiting their users. This will be harder on android because google is gonna want to make an exception for themselves. But that won't exactly stand up in court. This entire debacle is making me lean towards switching to an iPhone just for this feature alone. Having said that, I currently use system-wide adblockers on my android so even if facebook was to try, they couldn't get this info (granted, I don't have fb installed). Edit: as far as I understand it: - you must ask for permission before gathering/serving personalized data/ads - you must NOT disable any features of the app if the uses says no (similar to the tracking cookie stuff in EU) - you can still display generalized ads that are not personalized. (I am replying to a comment because I want to add on to it, not because I am debating against it)
random5634 6y ago
Once again anti-trust arguements are used because another business is impacted, ignoring user preferences or impact. Heads up - some users WANT to have more transparency into how their data is exploited, and to be able to turn it off easily. I know folks are saying this is apple abusing its position to hurt facebook or "small businesses". Who cares? I as a user like this approach apple is taking. The same issue comes up with google and some of their behavior around spammers / scammers and others. I wish more of the anti-trust / abusing their position things kept a focus on user benefit and impact. Letting match.com and ancestry.com do their own billing and subscription renewals on iOS sounds like a nightmare from hell (having dealt with ancestry billing before!) I just had to submit for a refund for an annual subscription that was misleading on the app store (10 minutes after I purchased). The process could not be simpler and MUCH preferable to sitting on hold for hours (as I have with others).
- stale2002 6y ago
  > I as a user like this approach apple is taking. Sure, thats fine! And you should continue to be able to follow Apple's direction. The issue is not that. Instead, the problem is when you are trying to force me to accept all of Apple's decisions. Instead, I should be allowed to install apps on different app stores as well, that ignore Apple's opinion on the matter.
fortran77 6y ago
Whenever there's a market that's "zero-sum"--one company's market gain is a loss for someone else--then you see efforts to shut down the competition through regulation and mis-information campaigns.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
wool_gather 6y ago
This is not sour grapes; sour grapes is trying to get something, failing, and then pretending you didn't actually want it in the first place. It's from one of the "Aesop's Fables". A fox sees a bunch of grapes hanging a ways over his head. He spends a while jumping and trying his best to reach them, then gives up and stalks away muttering "they're obviously sour".
- matthoiland 6y ago
  Thanks for the reminder! Sometimes the meaning of these colloquialisms are diluted or lost.
  - awakeasleep 6y ago
    If anyone's interested, the fables make terrific conversation starters with your kids, and also they give me a lot to think about. At their best, they seem to describe timeless patterns in human behavior. http://read.gov/aesop/001.html http://read.gov/aesop/001.html (note, the library of congress version has the 'moral' spelled out at the end, in a way that sucks the life out of what you just read)
- wmeredith 6y ago
  The original fable is so short that it merits recounting the entire thing here: "Driven by hunger, a fox tried to reach some grapes hanging high on the vine but was unable to, although he leaped with all his strength. As he went away, the fox remarked 'Oh, you aren't even ripe yet! I don't need any sour grapes.' People who speak disparagingly of things that they cannot attain would do well to apply this story to themselves." Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Grapes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Grapes
noisy_boy 6y ago
For those towing the line of "small business will be destroyed": businesses are there to make profit but they have to serve their consumers if they want to continue making those profits which also means taking the privacy of the consumers seriously. As a consumer, if I don't like the privacy-invading practices a "small business" is supporting (directly or via Facebook), I have the right to know about it and deny such practices (atleast on a device I own, which Apple plans to enable in this case). Businesses do not live in a vacuum and if they don't fit in the ecosystem by ignoring their consumers' privacy needs, it should be ok for them to go extinct so that those who follow a more "well adjusted" approach can evolve and thrive.
- ajhurliman 6y ago
  Small nit: The term is "toeing the line" as in you keep your toes on the party line and no further. Also, I concur with your point.
yalogin 6y ago
Facebook is just giving more attention and free marketing for Apple here. They are trying to cloud the issue and spin it as a small market thing but this is not some trump/Theil political strategy to implement. It doesn't work in the valley where the tech crowd and blogs are more influential. All of them lean towards tech and merit. They could be buying some companies out like Epic but the message will always fall flat. The more they go this route, regular people who don't care about privacy will begin to understand the nuances and that is never a good thing for FB.
jimktrains2 6y ago
Do content-based ads really perform that much more poorly than personalized ads? I mean, I guess they must given the shear amount more effort and infrastructure they require and companies fight to have them, but it boggles my mind that they're that much more effective. Maybe I'm just not thr roght demographic and my (not good) experiences on the consumer side of personalized ads don't encompass a large enough portion of the market?
- bluesign 6y ago
  Basically, if your competition is targeting, you are not, then it is very big difference.
  - jimktrains2 6y ago
    Is that backed up by any data? Targeted ads always seem to be for goods or services I've already purchased. As I said, I find targeted ads to be atrocious at introducing me to new deals or items I might find interesting.
    - bluesign 6y ago
      I think I understand your point, but the system is optimised for 4 actors. Advertiser - Ad Network - Publisher - Consumer In the end it is multiplication of happiness factor for each actor optimised. It is basically explore/exploit algorithm + trying to predict your behavior with similar segment of people like you. That's why you are mostly stuck in exploit phase, cause explore part is costly to other actors (even negative ROI)
aaroninsf 6y ago
I have not for many years encountered (personally or professionally) _any_ defense of Facebook which did not amount to an acknowledgement of brutal amorality, and its consequences, tempered by some usuall-shamedfaced appeal to a mix of [fatalistic, resigned, or blasé] self-interest, what-aboutism, and/or appeals to neatness [usually the result of acquisitions]. Not one. Not even from current employees. The most vitriolic summaries typically from former employees, or those forced to do business with them.
waylandsmithers 6y ago
I actually understand Facebook's point here, because the fact is they are just too good as what they do. The deal is, give up all your users' info, and we'll give you some very similar people we know are very likely to also become users from our (billions? trillions?) of on- and offline observations we have about them. For me, it's a deal with the devil, but I also sympathize with those who take it if it means the difference between staying afloat and going out of business.
- cwkoss 6y ago
  I don't think any real small businesses will be going out of business due to this change. The only "small businesses" that are threatened by this change are dropshippers who have built a business around whitelabeling cheap Chinese goods with some fancy marketing and selling it at 5x the price.
jimnotgym 6y ago
They are both at fault here. Facebook are trying to get your soul for free, so they cam resell it to the world. Apple are trying to wall it in so they keep it to themselves. Both are deeply cynical moves.
- biddit 6y ago
  Apple walling it off would actually be them completely disabling it. They are merely providing the user with the information and option to disable it. Very different from walking off. It’s not equivalent to what Facebook wants.
- kergonath 6y ago
  Yes, both sides. Right.
crazygringo 6y ago
I seriously don't understand Facebook's PR strategy here. Anyone informed enough to come across this and read it is probably also informed enough to know its total BS. I'm completely mystified as to what Facebook is trying to accomplish here. Who is the actual audience? Facebook hires pretty smart people, so I feel like there's some tactical element I'm missing, like this could be used in a future court case somehow, but I can't think of a single thing, and neither has any analyst whose opinion I've read. So what is Facebook even thinking?
RoboTeddy 6y ago
Can someone explain in more granularity why this change would be damaging for Facebook? Naively, I would assume that after someone logs into the Facebook app, Facebook knows who they are, and thus there would be not much additional benefit to more tracking information. Is this about being able to track in third-party apps that use the Facebook SDK or run Facebook ads?
fuzxi 6y ago
>“I would say to Apple, ‘Give us a chance. If this happens, I will not have a business. It will be very hard to survive.’” If your coffee shop can't stay afloat without quietly selling my data, it doesn't deserve to survive.

323 points by ystad 6y ago

I wonder if we’d really see something like this on the iOS Facebook app. I’d guess that would make a lot of people way more hesitant to use Facebook: https://twitter.com/tomwarren/status/1339174301564604418?s=20 https://twitter.com/tomwarren/status/1339174301564604418?s=2...

kerbs 6y ago
I believe that’s the point.

echelon 6y ago

I'm no fan of Facebook or Google, but this is a mega-monopoly deciding to crush a competitor. They're saying no to a company's revenue stream, and they've gotten in the habit of doing this to everyone. Apple wields too much power.

VyperCard 6y ago
Competitor in what?
- infinityplus1 6y ago
  Mobile app revenue. Ads where Apple doesn't get a cut vs IAP where Apple gets 30%.
  - mcphage 6y ago
    Ads and IAP aren’t the same thing. The money doesn’t even come from the same places.
    - Jyaif 6y ago
      If ads start bringing in less revenue, more developers will move to IAP (or other stream of revenues).
    - chongli 6y ago
      The battle is over attention. Users have a finite amount of time to spend looking at their phone per day. The more time they spend scrolling Facebook, the less time they spend on other apps. The less time spent on other apps, the less money they spend on IAPs.
doctor_eval 6y ago
So you agree with Facebook that their revenue stream is more important than our privacy? If you don’t agree, then how else do you propose Apple enforces said privacy? I mean these third party apps are running on Apple’s platform and using Apple’s APIs to track Apple’s customers. Who else can fix this problem?
- echelon 6y ago
  > So you agree with Facebook that their revenue stream is more important than our privacy? No. I think our freedom is more important than both. > If you don’t agree, then how else do you propose Apple enforces said privacy? Apple is making decisions that are too big for it. The DOJ needs to break them up. Computing needs to be free. I'm fine if the platform makes these notices apparent, but Apple can't be the arbiter.
  - doctor_eval 6y ago
    I don’t understand your position. There are many types of “freedom”. Is it freedom for Facebook to invade our privacy that you care about? Or do you care about allowing people to be free from privacy invasion? Both freedoms cannot exist simultaneously. So are you saying that Apple should not be allowed to decide which freedom to prioritise? Despite the fact that every other comparable company is effectively on the side of Facebook? Or is there some other kind of freedom you care about? You seem to say that “our freedom” is more important than our privacy, but privacy is a most fundamental type of freedom - literally, the freedom to think our own thoughts. What other freedom could be more important than that?
Renaud 6y ago
I'm not sure I understand your point. How is Apple crushing Facebook as a competitor by allowing users to give proper consent to tracking. I could understand if there was really an overlap somewhere, but I don't really see it. They have different business models, Apple doesn't have any social media property that compete with Facebook or Instagram and if Apple really wanted iMessage to crush WhatsApp they should at least show their interest in dominance by having an Android version of it. Maybe they are competing on resources? but I don't see it either. They don't seem to be going after the same acquisitions. Maybe Apple is doing this because pleasing or pissing off ad-based companies has no effect on their bottom line and they see it as a good marketing campaign to woo the privacy conscious an earn some brownie points for practically zero expense.
- johnnycerberus 6y ago
  Because Apple is worse, everything you do on the Apple platform has to be taxed, something like Italian mafia did in the past. Until things got heat in 2020, Apple wasn't even allowing payment competition in their iOS App Store. Think about that. Roman empire did the same with their provinces, wanna get romanised (civilised)? You got to pay the tax. More so, Apple is #3 in the world in game revenue and guess what, Apple doesn’t even make games. I can't buy an Apple device because of the ideology behind their products. Why expect Apple to put other storefronts on their platform? They have all the rights not to but this also implies that their ecosystem is less liberal, which is also fine. They made the OS and the device. If you hate the App Store, don’t use iOS. It's simple. They run 1984 ads but they are the core of 1984. There is basically no reason for not providing an OS interface for others to build their own storefronts on your platform. Android showed that it's possible, there's no excuse. Period.
  - holstvoogd 6y ago
    I'd rather pay the apple tax (money) than the google/facebook tax (my data and privacy).
    - johnnycerberus 6y ago
st1x7 6y ago
> They're saying no to a company's revenue stream They're saying no to certain privacy violations on their platform. This being detrimental to Facebook's revenue says a lot more about Facebook's business model than it says about Apple's policies.
smt88 6y ago
Apple is far from a monopoly. They lose market share to Android every year, I believe.
diveanon 6y ago
Apple and Facebook are not competitors. If anything apple is setting a precedent for it's actual competition that user privacy is something people are willing to pay a premium for.

Jemm 6y ago

The result of this situation is that Facebook is going to prioritize its own operating system for desktop and mobile. They already have some expertise in their Oculus line.

leetcrew 6y ago
just curious, do you think this would be a positive development? I have to assume a facebook OS would combine the worst parts of the iOS walled garden and android data mining. but still, I think it would be good overall to have a third major smartphone OS, if only to add a little pressure to the existing competition.
whywhywhywhy 6y ago
Using an Oculus Quest you'd honestly have no idea it was using Android under the hood, they've created something that feels extremely slick and crammed full of the UX niceties people would usually associate with Apple. The AR OS battleground is going to be very interesting.
- WanderPanda 6y ago
  As interesting as the 3D TV battleground?
  - jnwatson 6y ago
    Shots fired. Interestingly, 3d TV had the same problem as VR now: lack of content. A single movie (Avatar) created the whole industry, and there was little follow up. You might say the same about VR and Beat Saber.
    - mikeg8 6y ago
      I don't think 3d TVs sole issue was lack of content. my belief is that the 3d viewing experience becomes very tiresome and many people were in fact perfectly happy with regular HD tv.
- 6y ago

samcheng 6y ago

I'm definitely no Facebook fan, but I think they're right to be upset with Apple. If you look at the documentation in the app store around the Apple privacy policy (which is required for any new app version right now) you'll see a bunch of language that, to me, seems squarely aimed at Facebook and the Facebook SDK. For example, it specifically calls out third-party auth SDKs, sharing hashed email addresses with third parties, and sharing identities so third parties can optimize their advertising for you. These are all functionalities where Facebook is the clear industry leader. Especially the language around "hashed email addresses" seemed quite clearly targeting Facebook to me. I'm surprised Apple's weaponization of the App Store (for example, forcing Sign in with Apple on any developers who use Facebook or Google SSO) hasn't drawn more anti-trust attention. I definitely applaud Apple's push to be more transparent about the privacy you give up when installing these apps! I just wonder if the rollout could have been done in a more app-publisher-friendly manner.

elliekelly 6y ago
Why do you consider this “targeting facebook” and not “targeting Apple users’ preferences”?
zepto 6y ago
What “app-publisher-friendly” manner would you suggest?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
annadane 6y ago
People need to stop downvoting every single comment on here. This is a good faith argument, regardless of your feelings of fb/apple

diveanon 6y ago

Facebook is scared, and they should be. For years it has been painfully clear that facebook has been a net negative for society. Bring back the days of being able to trust your device and services you use without have to skim through TOS and hope they didn't throw a Facebook auth sdk in somewhere.

Threeve303 6y ago
> Bring back the days of being able to trust your device and services you use Did that time ever really exist?
- Bancakes 6y ago
  I think loading alternate DOS-compatible OS's was about the last mark of that era.
  - bayindirh 6y ago
    PalmOS was pretty secure in that regard IIRC.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  Before the whole "attention economy" bullshit happened you could reasonably trust software from a known, popular company not to be malicious (back then the creepy tracking behavior was considered "spyware" and would immediately get flagged by any anti-malware software, ruin the publisher's reputation and potentially put them in legal trouble). Nowadays, most software out there comes with some kind of spyware (Facebook SDK, extremely granular analytics sometimes going as far as screen recording, etc) and nobody seems to care.
  - JKCalhoun 6y ago
    So before the internet — before "snitching".
    - 6y ago

spyke112 6y ago

Ideally Facebook should just allow users to buy a subscription. I think a lot of people, at least in the western world, wouldn't mind paying say $1-2 dollars a month maybe even more, if Facebook were honest about how they use your data, and how much money they make of of your data. I mean, we're all happily paying $8.99 for Netflix and friends, is it really so outrageous that consumers would pay for a social network?

maxwellito 6y ago
It sounds great, sadly I think Facebook can generate much more by showing you advertising.
- was_boring 6y ago
  A very small percentage would actually buy one and it would be very good PR. It would almost be a marketing expense at that point.
- bun_at_work 6y ago
  It's definitely more than 1-2 dollars, but not so high that subscriptions would be too expensive for users. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/03/facebooks-average-revenue-per-user-leads-social-media-companies.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/03/facebooks-average-revenue-pe...
  - anchpop 6y ago
    Although the average revenue per user who would be willing to spend $7/quarter is probably much higher (these users are disproportionately likely to have disposable income which probably makes them more attractive to advertisers)
    - virgilp 6y ago
      I think nobody would mind advertisers being able to target to "subscribers". What people don't want is the ability of advertisers to target "white male who works at ACME, lives in north Fairview and bought a car last week" (which might narrow it down to just you). That said, I definitely believe that collecting subscription money would not stop them from trying to collect data about you, for advertising purposes. They'd view subscription as just a new revenue stream (yay!).

known 6y ago

aka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_pot_calling_the_kettle_black https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_pot_calling_the_kettle_bla...

young_unixer 6y ago
aka "El burro hablando de orejas" (The donkey talking about ears)
- cambalache 6y ago
  aka "Cachicamo diciendole a morrocoy conchudo" (The armadillo calling out the tortoise for having a shell)
  - cassianoleal 6y ago
    aka "O roto falando do esfarrapado" (The worn-out telling off the ragged)

croes 6y ago

Epic is much better in vilifying Apple. That says a lot about Facebook.

WorldMaker 6y ago
Well, Epic also has an easier case to make: People need Fortnite (and the Unreal Engine). They don't need personalized ads, no matter how much Facebook wants to claim Mom & Pop shops only exist because of personalized advertising. (Last I checked, history books show small businesses existing for centuries before that.)

oxymoran 6y ago

I hope Facebook dies a quick but agonizing death.

ankit219 6y ago
Wont really solve anything. Social connection and interaction is a fundamental human need and if FB goes away some other company would be fulfilling that and we probably would be going through a similar cycle again. Edit: Assuming there are no laws or regulations in place from the learnings we have got from FB. If there are effective laws in place, then FB stays or go does not matter much.
- myspy 6y ago
  But could be a better company. Something like the Path app did years ago.
  - ankit219 6y ago
    I sure hope we get a better company. Though I dont know if good people want to start such companies and if the VCs want to fund them (dont see a way for a big social network without VC money. I may be wrong)
    - wussboy 6y ago
      I think the money is the problem. Before Facebook was profitable, it was fun to use and I enjoyed using it. But any competitor to Facebook must be more profitable than Facebook, and if you can’t do that while remaining ethical, then you will lose out. This is why I’m such a fan of regulation because it can level this particular playing field.
- snarf21 6y ago
  True, that is why we need legislation like GDPR to not repeat our mistakes.
  - 6y ago

KoftaBob 6y ago

On this topic, do we know when this privacy opt-in feature will be officially added to iOS? I can't seem to find any specific date.

richrichardsson 6y ago
Nothing concrete as far as I can tell, just a woolly "until 2021" from a non-primary source [1]. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/apple-delays-controversial-new-privacy-feature-in-ios-14-to-2021/ar-BB18GKdE https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/apple-delays-contr...
- KoftaBob 6y ago
  I figured, thank you!

maxwellito 6y ago

In a way there's something very interesting in this situation. Facebook is known for cutting the API access to competitors, like it happen in the past with Vine. Today it's the other way around.

camillomiller 6y ago
Except this has even nothing to do with getting API cut for them or actually losing a functionality. They can do exactly everything they did as before, but they have to ask the users' permission. All they have to bake into their service is a fallback for when a user doesn't give them permission, which should be technically trivial (if it's not, it would be another sign of their unacceptable hubris). They are implicitly admitting that no user would ever accept what Facebook does as acceptable, if you properly inform them about how Facebook works. What a morally bankrupt company.
- neodymiumphish 6y ago
  I don't think this properly describes the situation. If this goes through, Facebook doesn't have to "bake into their service is a fallback for when a user doesn't give them permission", they can just make sites require this permission. If the user declines, the site won't load. Alternatively, the do what you're suggesting, but the site gets no revenue for that user, this will pressure the sites to continually ask for the user to re-enable the permission or change the way the notice shows up so that they eventually accidentally allow it. Either way, nothing will change.

franzwong 6y ago

> “This is about a long-term view that is about anti-personalised advertising, and we think is trying to take the world back 10 or 20 years.” But this is what user wants.

bryan_w 6y ago
Nobody wants the punch the monkey ads to come back.

m3kw9 6y ago

Looks like they are taking the playbook from Epic thinking it was successful.

permo-w 6y ago

Dan Levy, Facebook’s head of advertising, on Apple: “This is about a long-term view that is about anti-personalised advertising, and we think is trying to take the world back 10 or 20 years.” Who does he think he’s winning over here? That’s not a rhetorical question. To me, that sounds brilliant

toyg 6y ago
Believe it or not, some people love personalised ads. I know several (they all happen to be women, but I'm sure many men also like them). It's a bit of a tautology - they wouldn't be so profitable and dominant if people weren't clicking on them, so somebody is doing it, and in massive numbers. They wouldn't like going back - my mom is already angry that using my home wifi messes up the ads she gets. Obviously this shouldn't be read as an endorsement for FB's practices - I think they are as scummy as Apple's anti-competitive bullying of iOS developers. It's unbelievable that we're now openly longing for something that looks a lot like the Windows software market circa 2001: compared to today, it was a paradise of open competition and almost-entire privacy.
- slipheen 6y ago
  I can see your point, but all Apple is doing here is telling users that Facebook wants to track them, and letting them opt-in or opt-out. If someone is in favor of being tracked, they can allow it. Facebook's objection is to letting people know about the tracking, and giving them an easier way to avoid it if they so choose.
- throwaway2048 6y ago
  If they love them so much, they can easily enable them for facebook on iOS, just because these people exist doesn't mean it should be the default setting.
- r00fus 6y ago
  Personalized ads used to be "hey this specific item is great for you". Now the targeting is leading to the equivalent of harassment as ad-targeting retargets again and again. So yeah, I'll take the less harassing version of ads (or no ads even if I have to pay). Also I don't want to allow FB to pull another Cambridge Analytica.

neya 6y ago

Even as a vocal Apple critic, I'm not sure I understand the support for Facebook here. Apple isn't blocking anything w.r.t Facebook. All they're simply doing is exposing to the user what Facebook are trying to collect about the user. And then, the user gets full power to approve or disapprove what information goes to Facebook. I think this is a great win for the users. I don't understand how Apple is blocking small businesses here. Apple isn't blocking tracking here at all, the user is, if at all they choose to. If your business model involves fraudulently spying on the users and making money out of it, then too bad, that's your problem. And about the arguments on "Facebook is free". I agree that Facebook is a free service, and they need to be compensated somewhat, but, if a user disables ad tracking, Facebook can simply block them from accessing their free service, which is fair, right? It's only a problem if Facebook continues to allow their free service to such users. Well, even then I would think charging iOS users who block Facebook tracking is a fair deal, especially if there is a premium version of Facebook with no spyware in it, I totally see myself and many others paying for it. But Facebook won't do that, because their core philosophy is just criminal - spy the users as much as you can without their consent. So, fuck them. I support Apple here. I hope Android follows suit as well and we can slowly kill Facebook together.

j2bax 6y ago
I think Facebook prefers the business model where users (their product) think their service is free. This is partially how they've taken the entire digital social world over with their services. With this change, Apple is now forcing them to expose their business model to users (their product). This transparency will inevitably cost them dearly.
- time0ut 6y ago
  Facebook is a vampire cultivating and feeding off of our most extreme emotions. If Apple is selling garlic, I am buying.
Justsignedup 6y ago
As a heavy apple critic, who refuses to buy an iPhone. Facebook is 100% in the wrong here. Apple is not blocking jack shit. Apple is just forcing Facebook to ask permission before exploiting their users. This will be harder on android because google is gonna want to make an exception for themselves. But that won't exactly stand up in court. This entire debacle is making me lean towards switching to an iPhone just for this feature alone. Having said that, I currently use system-wide adblockers on my android so even if facebook was to try, they couldn't get this info (granted, I don't have fb installed). Edit: as far as I understand it: - you must ask for permission before gathering/serving personalized data/ads - you must NOT disable any features of the app if the uses says no (similar to the tracking cookie stuff in EU) - you can still display generalized ads that are not personalized. (I am replying to a comment because I want to add on to it, not because I am debating against it)

random5634 6y ago

Once again anti-trust arguements are used because another business is impacted, ignoring user preferences or impact. Heads up - some users WANT to have more transparency into how their data is exploited, and to be able to turn it off easily. I know folks are saying this is apple abusing its position to hurt facebook or "small businesses". Who cares? I as a user like this approach apple is taking. The same issue comes up with google and some of their behavior around spammers / scammers and others. I wish more of the anti-trust / abusing their position things kept a focus on user benefit and impact. Letting match.com and ancestry.com do their own billing and subscription renewals on iOS sounds like a nightmare from hell (having dealt with ancestry billing before!) I just had to submit for a refund for an annual subscription that was misleading on the app store (10 minutes after I purchased). The process could not be simpler and MUCH preferable to sitting on hold for hours (as I have with others).

stale2002 6y ago
> I as a user like this approach apple is taking. Sure, thats fine! And you should continue to be able to follow Apple's direction. The issue is not that. Instead, the problem is when you are trying to force me to accept all of Apple's decisions. Instead, I should be allowed to install apps on different app stores as well, that ignore Apple's opinion on the matter.

fortran77 6y ago

Whenever there's a market that's "zero-sum"--one company's market gain is a loss for someone else--then you see efforts to shut down the competition through regulation and mis-information campaigns.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

wool_gather 6y ago

This is not sour grapes; sour grapes is trying to get something, failing, and then pretending you didn't actually want it in the first place. It's from one of the "Aesop's Fables". A fox sees a bunch of grapes hanging a ways over his head. He spends a while jumping and trying his best to reach them, then gives up and stalks away muttering "they're obviously sour".

matthoiland 6y ago
Thanks for the reminder! Sometimes the meaning of these colloquialisms are diluted or lost.
- awakeasleep 6y ago
  If anyone's interested, the fables make terrific conversation starters with your kids, and also they give me a lot to think about. At their best, they seem to describe timeless patterns in human behavior. http://read.gov/aesop/001.html http://read.gov/aesop/001.html (note, the library of congress version has the 'moral' spelled out at the end, in a way that sucks the life out of what you just read)
wmeredith 6y ago
The original fable is so short that it merits recounting the entire thing here: "Driven by hunger, a fox tried to reach some grapes hanging high on the vine but was unable to, although he leaped with all his strength. As he went away, the fox remarked 'Oh, you aren't even ripe yet! I don't need any sour grapes.' People who speak disparagingly of things that they cannot attain would do well to apply this story to themselves." Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Grapes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Grapes

noisy_boy 6y ago

For those towing the line of "small business will be destroyed": businesses are there to make profit but they have to serve their consumers if they want to continue making those profits which also means taking the privacy of the consumers seriously. As a consumer, if I don't like the privacy-invading practices a "small business" is supporting (directly or via Facebook), I have the right to know about it and deny such practices (atleast on a device I own, which Apple plans to enable in this case). Businesses do not live in a vacuum and if they don't fit in the ecosystem by ignoring their consumers' privacy needs, it should be ok for them to go extinct so that those who follow a more "well adjusted" approach can evolve and thrive.

ajhurliman 6y ago
Small nit: The term is "toeing the line" as in you keep your toes on the party line and no further. Also, I concur with your point.

yalogin 6y ago

Facebook is just giving more attention and free marketing for Apple here. They are trying to cloud the issue and spin it as a small market thing but this is not some trump/Theil political strategy to implement. It doesn't work in the valley where the tech crowd and blogs are more influential. All of them lean towards tech and merit. They could be buying some companies out like Epic but the message will always fall flat. The more they go this route, regular people who don't care about privacy will begin to understand the nuances and that is never a good thing for FB.

jimktrains2 6y ago

Do content-based ads really perform that much more poorly than personalized ads? I mean, I guess they must given the shear amount more effort and infrastructure they require and companies fight to have them, but it boggles my mind that they're that much more effective. Maybe I'm just not thr roght demographic and my (not good) experiences on the consumer side of personalized ads don't encompass a large enough portion of the market?

bluesign 6y ago
Basically, if your competition is targeting, you are not, then it is very big difference.
- jimktrains2 6y ago
  Is that backed up by any data? Targeted ads always seem to be for goods or services I've already purchased. As I said, I find targeted ads to be atrocious at introducing me to new deals or items I might find interesting.
  - bluesign 6y ago
    I think I understand your point, but the system is optimised for 4 actors. Advertiser - Ad Network - Publisher - Consumer In the end it is multiplication of happiness factor for each actor optimised. It is basically explore/exploit algorithm + trying to predict your behavior with similar segment of people like you. That's why you are mostly stuck in exploit phase, cause explore part is costly to other actors (even negative ROI)

aaroninsf 6y ago

I have not for many years encountered (personally or professionally) _any_ defense of Facebook which did not amount to an acknowledgement of brutal amorality, and its consequences, tempered by some usuall-shamedfaced appeal to a mix of [fatalistic, resigned, or blasé] self-interest, what-aboutism, and/or appeals to neatness [usually the result of acquisitions]. Not one. Not even from current employees. The most vitriolic summaries typically from former employees, or those forced to do business with them.

waylandsmithers 6y ago

I actually understand Facebook's point here, because the fact is they are just too good as what they do. The deal is, give up all your users' info, and we'll give you some very similar people we know are very likely to also become users from our (billions? trillions?) of on- and offline observations we have about them. For me, it's a deal with the devil, but I also sympathize with those who take it if it means the difference between staying afloat and going out of business.

cwkoss 6y ago
I don't think any real small businesses will be going out of business due to this change. The only "small businesses" that are threatened by this change are dropshippers who have built a business around whitelabeling cheap Chinese goods with some fancy marketing and selling it at 5x the price.

jimnotgym 6y ago

They are both at fault here. Facebook are trying to get your soul for free, so they cam resell it to the world. Apple are trying to wall it in so they keep it to themselves. Both are deeply cynical moves.

biddit 6y ago
Apple walling it off would actually be them completely disabling it. They are merely providing the user with the information and option to disable it. Very different from walking off. It’s not equivalent to what Facebook wants.
kergonath 6y ago
Yes, both sides. Right.

crazygringo 6y ago

I seriously don't understand Facebook's PR strategy here. Anyone informed enough to come across this and read it is probably also informed enough to know its total BS. I'm completely mystified as to what Facebook is trying to accomplish here. Who is the actual audience? Facebook hires pretty smart people, so I feel like there's some tactical element I'm missing, like this could be used in a future court case somehow, but I can't think of a single thing, and neither has any analyst whose opinion I've read. So what is Facebook even thinking?

RoboTeddy 6y ago

Can someone explain in more granularity why this change would be damaging for Facebook? Naively, I would assume that after someone logs into the Facebook app, Facebook knows who they are, and thus there would be not much additional benefit to more tracking information. Is this about being able to track in third-party apps that use the Facebook SDK or run Facebook ads?

fuzxi 6y ago

>“I would say to Apple, ‘Give us a chance. If this happens, I will not have a business. It will be very hard to survive.’” If your coffee shop can't stay afloat without quietly selling my data, it doesn't deserve to survive.