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It's one giant fighting another. Apple wants to destroy ad revenue and shift everyone to a paid App model because Apple can get its 30%. I bet you if Apple lose

by kml 6y ago

It's one giant fighting another. Apple wants to destroy ad revenue and shift everyone to a paid App model because Apple can get its 30%. I bet you if Apple loses control of the AppStore for anti trust reasons, they would be all for ads.

dgreensp 6y ago
This is Facebook’s narrative, but if Facebook makes a bit less money, how exactly does that “shift everyone to a paid App model”? Facebook’s annual net profit is an 11-digit number. Apple’s move is bad for Facebook’s stock price and good for users, and that’s probably all the noticeable impact. Even if Apple’s motives are somehow nefarious, Facebook is being scummy in the first place, so it’s a fair move for Apple to take advantage of that, IMO.
- knodi 6y ago
  Yes, lets think about the role of Facebook in 2016 elections.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
  > how exactly does that “shift everyone to a paid App model You nailed it. Facebook wants to confuse and distract. There's absolutely no reason why Apple's push for user permission on tracking would cause the Facebook app to become subscription-based. WTF?
lstamour 6y ago
That's Facebook's claim, yes. And when it comes to Apple News and even the App Store, Apple also serves advertising on behalf of its partners. It's also true that Apple themselves runs a lot of ads, and benefit from ad networks through the services they've integrated in the past. In fact, Apple justifies their 15-30% cut by suggesting that the App Store is itself a platform that promotes apps, and has featured apps in its own advertising on billboards and television. So it's hard to come to a conclusion that Apple hates ads. It's easier to say that Apple dislikes advertiser networks, since their own attempt at a generic network (iAds) failed miserably. It's not even clear to me that blocking tracking is going to kill ads as a revenue stream, all it will do is make ads more expensive because they're slightly less targeted on iOS? Also, Apple runs their own seemingly successful ad market within the App Store app — something I'm reminded of each time I search for an app and see a competitor's app I don't want at the top of my search results, filling my screen with the new design. So it's hard to say that Apple does this for the best user experience. Showing extra popups isn't great UX. And Apple likes free apps, it makes their phone and platform more valuable, so they can charge more for the hardware knowing folks can get great apps inexpensively or free. While I'm in favour of Apple losing its complete monopoly over App Stores and apps that compete with its own, I actually am in favour of Apple enforcing these policies on apps from its own App Store and platform. And while I would say that third-party stores could have different stances on permissions, the idea that a third-party app store could prevent a popup asking to share a phone's identifier, for example, is frankly a security bypass. The same is true if apps want to communicate with other apps without the operating system knowing. Personally, I'd love it if Apple went a step farther and used the network layer and code signing to identify which apps actively use which trackers and tracking networks the same way they currently identify apps that use the microphone and camera. It'd be fascinating to see an operating system feature that says 50% of my network traffic in Application X was telemetry being sent to Facebook, for example.
- noizejoy 6y ago
  > Personally, I'd love it if Apple went a step farther and used the network layer and code signing to identify which apps actively use which trackers and tracking networks the same way they currently identify apps that use the microphone and camera. It'd be fascinating to see an operating system feature that says 50% of my network traffic in Application X was telemetry being sent to Facebook, for example. If you had broken this paragraph out into a separate post, it might get more and highly deserved attention.
katbyte 6y ago
Shift everyone to a paid what? There is no alternative to Facebook lol
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  The advertising-funded business model being unviable would pave the way for an alternative to appear.
  - zepto 6y ago
    It already is ‘unviable’ for most companies because Facebook and Google dominate it. It wouldn’t become unviable for Facebook because even with a smaller number of users consenting to tracking they would still have a gigantic ad market.

by kml 6y ago

dgreensp 6y ago

This is Facebook’s narrative, but if Facebook makes a bit less money, how exactly does that “shift everyone to a paid App model”? Facebook’s annual net profit is an 11-digit number. Apple’s move is bad for Facebook’s stock price and good for users, and that’s probably all the noticeable impact. Even if Apple’s motives are somehow nefarious, Facebook is being scummy in the first place, so it’s a fair move for Apple to take advantage of that, IMO.

knodi 6y ago
Yes, lets think about the role of Facebook in 2016 elections.
TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
> how exactly does that “shift everyone to a paid App model You nailed it. Facebook wants to confuse and distract. There's absolutely no reason why Apple's push for user permission on tracking would cause the Facebook app to become subscription-based. WTF?

lstamour 6y ago

That's Facebook's claim, yes. And when it comes to Apple News and even the App Store, Apple also serves advertising on behalf of its partners. It's also true that Apple themselves runs a lot of ads, and benefit from ad networks through the services they've integrated in the past. In fact, Apple justifies their 15-30% cut by suggesting that the App Store is itself a platform that promotes apps, and has featured apps in its own advertising on billboards and television. So it's hard to come to a conclusion that Apple hates ads. It's easier to say that Apple dislikes advertiser networks, since their own attempt at a generic network (iAds) failed miserably. It's not even clear to me that blocking tracking is going to kill ads as a revenue stream, all it will do is make ads more expensive because they're slightly less targeted on iOS? Also, Apple runs their own seemingly successful ad market within the App Store app — something I'm reminded of each time I search for an app and see a competitor's app I don't want at the top of my search results, filling my screen with the new design. So it's hard to say that Apple does this for the best user experience. Showing extra popups isn't great UX. And Apple likes free apps, it makes their phone and platform more valuable, so they can charge more for the hardware knowing folks can get great apps inexpensively or free. While I'm in favour of Apple losing its complete monopoly over App Stores and apps that compete with its own, I actually am in favour of Apple enforcing these policies on apps from its own App Store and platform. And while I would say that third-party stores could have different stances on permissions, the idea that a third-party app store could prevent a popup asking to share a phone's identifier, for example, is frankly a security bypass. The same is true if apps want to communicate with other apps without the operating system knowing. Personally, I'd love it if Apple went a step farther and used the network layer and code signing to identify which apps actively use which trackers and tracking networks the same way they currently identify apps that use the microphone and camera. It'd be fascinating to see an operating system feature that says 50% of my network traffic in Application X was telemetry being sent to Facebook, for example.

noizejoy 6y ago
> Personally, I'd love it if Apple went a step farther and used the network layer and code signing to identify which apps actively use which trackers and tracking networks the same way they currently identify apps that use the microphone and camera. It'd be fascinating to see an operating system feature that says 50% of my network traffic in Application X was telemetry being sent to Facebook, for example. If you had broken this paragraph out into a separate post, it might get more and highly deserved attention.

katbyte 6y ago

Shift everyone to a paid what? There is no alternative to Facebook lol

Nextgrid 6y ago
The advertising-funded business model being unviable would pave the way for an alternative to appear.
- zepto 6y ago
  It already is ‘unviable’ for most companies because Facebook and Google dominate it. It wouldn’t become unviable for Facebook because even with a smaller number of users consenting to tracking they would still have a gigantic ad market.