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I think Apple will win this war and FB will lose. Nobody cares that small businesses benefit from targeted FB ads except FB and small businesses, customers cer

I think Apple will win this war and FB will lose. Nobody cares that small businesses benefit from targeted FB ads except FB and small businesses, customers certainly don’t, users don’t. The small group of users that would care about that is the same group that hates Facebook and Amazon already and won’t be persuaded by FB on this or really even listen. Apple’s argument is clearer and more directly benefits their users. FB and small businesses don’t have the political power to force a win here and their argument isn’t as persuasive as Apple’s. It doesn’t look great for them. I think they’re probably correct about the long tail ads and the benefit to small businesses, but I also don’t care. I’d rather the targeted ad model fail. Ben Thompson argues that if Apple wins this then only FB, Google and other ad monopoly mega corps will be competitive in the ad space because they’re the only ones that can collect information on users in other ways even with Apple’s move to stop tracking. That may be true in the short term. If legislation trends in the CCPA, GDPR direction and users prefer the moves Apple is making then the ad model may start to falter for them too. The sooner, the better.

ogre_codes 6y ago
> Nobody cares that small businesses benefit from targeted FB ads except FB and small businesses, customers certainly don’t, users don’t. This is about Facebook, not small businesses. There is little evidence that small businesses will be significantly impacted by this. I'm sure some ad-supported developer firms will be hit, but most small businesses won't notice this.
- fossuser 6y ago
  They get hit indirectly, not because the small businesses sell ads - but because they buy targeted ads on Facebook (and those targeted ads work). Edit: Smaller companies also rely on these IDs because they aren't able to track in other ways in the way that the large companies can. That said, I still think this ad-driven model is bad and if it became non-viable I'd hope long term privacy restrictions would also make it non-viable for the large players too.
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    These vague claims this will impact the ability of apparently all small businesses are blown way out of proportion. Small businesses did just fine before FB. If you run an Italian restaurant, how does this impact you? You can still sell advertising to Facebook users in your area because Facebook itself has your location. Facebook still knows you eat at Italian restaurants every Tuesday night because they buy your credit information. Facebook still has piles of user information to sell targeted advertising against. So tell me again, how is this impacting small businesses advertising?
    - fossuser 6y ago
      I think the issue is a little different than I suggested (though the small business ads are a part of it). I think this is a worthwhile read: https://stratechery.com/2020/privacy-labels-and-lookalike-audiences/ https://stratechery.com/2020/privacy-labels-and-lookalike-au... > "Small businesses did just fine before FB." You can't really compare the old pre-internet, pre-amazon world with our current one and assume things that were 'just fine' then still apply. A local restaurant is a bad example, better examples are small companies making a niche product or independent platforms in a niche. This affects companies buying ads on FB, but also those trying to understand their own customers to compete with Amazon and the other large companies. I don't work in ads, but I've talked to Googlers that do and the ads really do have a big impact for small businesses. I'd believe this is true. From that Stratechery article: "Amazon, meanwhile, is increasingly where shopping searches start, particularly for Prime customers, and the company’s ad business is exploding. Needless to say, Amazon doesn’t need to request special permission for IDFAs or to share emails with 3rd parties to finely target its ads: everything is self-contained, and to the extent the company advertises on platforms like Google, it can still keep information about customer interests and conversions to itself. That means that in the long run, independent merchants who wish to actually find their customers will have no choice but to be an Amazon third-party merchant instead of setting up an independent shop on a platform like Shopify. This decision, to be clear, will not be because Amazon was acting anticompetitively; the biggest driver — which, by the way, will also benefit Facebook’s on-platform commerce efforts — will be Apple, which, in the pursuit of privacy, is systematically destroying the ability of platform-driven small businesses to compete with the Internet giants."

ogre_codes 6y ago

> Nobody cares that small businesses benefit from targeted FB ads except FB and small businesses, customers certainly don’t, users don’t. This is about Facebook, not small businesses. There is little evidence that small businesses will be significantly impacted by this. I'm sure some ad-supported developer firms will be hit, but most small businesses won't notice this.

fossuser 6y ago
They get hit indirectly, not because the small businesses sell ads - but because they buy targeted ads on Facebook (and those targeted ads work). Edit: Smaller companies also rely on these IDs because they aren't able to track in other ways in the way that the large companies can. That said, I still think this ad-driven model is bad and if it became non-viable I'd hope long term privacy restrictions would also make it non-viable for the large players too.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  These vague claims this will impact the ability of apparently all small businesses are blown way out of proportion. Small businesses did just fine before FB. If you run an Italian restaurant, how does this impact you? You can still sell advertising to Facebook users in your area because Facebook itself has your location. Facebook still knows you eat at Italian restaurants every Tuesday night because they buy your credit information. Facebook still has piles of user information to sell targeted advertising against. So tell me again, how is this impacting small businesses advertising?
  - fossuser 6y ago
    I think the issue is a little different than I suggested (though the small business ads are a part of it). I think this is a worthwhile read: https://stratechery.com/2020/privacy-labels-and-lookalike-audiences/ https://stratechery.com/2020/privacy-labels-and-lookalike-au... > "Small businesses did just fine before FB." You can't really compare the old pre-internet, pre-amazon world with our current one and assume things that were 'just fine' then still apply. A local restaurant is a bad example, better examples are small companies making a niche product or independent platforms in a niche. This affects companies buying ads on FB, but also those trying to understand their own customers to compete with Amazon and the other large companies. I don't work in ads, but I've talked to Googlers that do and the ads really do have a big impact for small businesses. I'd believe this is true. From that Stratechery article: "Amazon, meanwhile, is increasingly where shopping searches start, particularly for Prime customers, and the company’s ad business is exploding. Needless to say, Amazon doesn’t need to request special permission for IDFAs or to share emails with 3rd parties to finely target its ads: everything is self-contained, and to the extent the company advertises on platforms like Google, it can still keep information about customer interests and conversions to itself. That means that in the long run, independent merchants who wish to actually find their customers will have no choice but to be an Amazon third-party merchant instead of setting up an independent shop on a platform like Shopify. This decision, to be clear, will not be because Amazon was acting anticompetitively; the biggest driver — which, by the way, will also benefit Facebook’s on-platform commerce efforts — will be Apple, which, in the pursuit of privacy, is systematically destroying the ability of platform-driven small businesses to compete with the Internet giants."