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What a surprise. If I tell people going to the store that they choose to pay for the products, or not, a lot of people will choose not to. Who would guess that

What a surprise. If I tell people going to the store that they choose to pay for the products, or not, a lot of people will choose not to. Who would guess that people like free stuff? Apple is disrupting whole economy for apps. It’s a very broken economy, with lots of questionable practices, that’s for sure. But we’ll see if it’ll be net benefit for customers. For sure for Apple, as more apps will have to move to be paid, and give Apple their 30% cut.

guerrilla 5y ago
Except that's not what happens when paying is optional. People still pay, albeit not as much. 96% leaving this disabled is something else entirely.
- justapassenger 5y ago
  Not if you put big “for free sign” in front of it. That’s what Apple is doing. “Hey do you want to give them more data? No? That’s totally cool, it’s purely optional and it doesn’t change anything for anyone else”. It’s not presented to an user as a way to pay for the app. It’s presented as something that’s third party, not really related to an app.
  - Spivak 5y ago
    I mean I have said yes to some apps that ask if they can collect usage information mostly because I know they're not using them for ads.
libertine 5y ago
>Apple is disrupting whole economy for apps. I've been wondering why people aren't asking what kind of data is Apple itself collecting? Not only from users, but from the marketplace. Shouldn't users also give consent to what they share with Apple? Shouldn't businesses also choose to share info with Apple? This is gave us a sense of "justice as been done", but now we should look deeply into what the gatekeeper is doing, to what benefit, and how balanced it made the playing field. Truth be told, I'm biased because I'm always suspicious of Apple because I always believed that unlike what they preach, they put Apple first above everything else... but I only see them getting an exclusive view of user behavior on their devices.
- phoe18 5y ago
  > This is gave us a sense of "justice as been done", but now we should look deeply into what the gatekeeper is doing, to what benefit, and how balanced it made the playing field. Interestingly, Apple's Ad tracking doesn't show up under 'Settings > Privacy > Tracking' but instead tucked away at the bottom of the 'Settings > Privacy' menu. Apple's tracking also defaults to opt-out instead of the opt-in route taken for other apps. I am all for providing privacy settings but whats with the double standard?
  - vbezhenar 5y ago
    Because Apple collects data in an anonymous manner and will make sure for user to benefit the most from that data, compared to other evil ad companies. /s
  - bun_at_work 5y ago
    When you set up an iPhone or other Apple device, you're prompted and asked if you want to share you data with Apple, which makes sense because they make the device and OS.
- sumedh 5y ago
  > Shouldn't users also give consent to what they share with Apple? You do that when you accept their terms.
  - libertine 5y ago
    Do you have an option to not accept those terms and use the software? Similar to what is shown now for the App Tracking?
    - simondotau 5y ago
      Apple's apps have never done what the new App Tracking policy requires your permission to do. Apple doesn't need to ask for your permission in this instance because they're not doing it.
- 5y ago
ahmedalsudani 5y ago
A lot of people would be happy to pay upfront and keep their data.
- phoe18 5y ago
  Its not accurate though, Apple can and does still track users. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202074 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202074
  - zepto 5y ago
    That link doesn’t support your claim.
  - ahmedalsudani 5y ago
    Apple and ad companies are worlds apart.
    - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
      Until they launch an ads service (which they are almost certainly going to do).
      - ahmedalsudani 5y ago
        They already have one
- dlhavema 5y ago
  I think the market has said otherwise. Among aware engineers, sure. Among Suzie home maker and Tommy Q the support rep? Doesn't seem so. Facebook is free and has how many people now? ( Just one example I know )
  - ahmedalsudani 5y ago
    The situation likely arose as a tragedy of the commons. It’s why Apple taking the hammer to the business model is worth watching. A dominant platform like Apple has the ability to change the economics so we don’t end up with everything being “free” and trying to learn everything about you. There’s some concern about how Apple is changing the economics of free apps. I personally have always had a problem with free apps destroying the opportunity for those that charge the user cash instead of data.
JKCalhoun 5y ago
> Apple is disrupting whole economy for apps. Not at all. Facebook can simply require you to enable tracking in order to use Facebook.
- KoftaBob 5y ago
  Apple explicitly says that apps can't require app tracking in order to use their app, they're removed from the app store if they do. Keep in mind "app tracking" here means reading your device ID, called the 'Identity For Advertisers' (IDFA for short). They do this so that they can cross reference that IDFA with data that other apps have collected on that same IDFA, allowing them to connect the dots that it's the same user. This app tracking transparency feature makes it so that they can't access your IDFA, and can only show you ads based on info you provide within their own app, not from the other apps you use. It keeps your data silo-ed to each app.
  - JKCalhoun 5y ago
    That's interesting, I did not know that. Seems Facebook could nonetheless offer two tiers of service for those with and those without tracking. Although a bit orthogonal, Instagram will not let me post from a Desktop browser but will from a Mobile browser. (So I switch my User Agent to a phone on the Desktop when I navigate to Instagram and wish to post.)
mrtksn 5y ago
At the end of the day, nothing is free. It's just a different payment scheme and Apple is killing that scheme. We don't even pay through our privacy or attention span. These are simply wasted in the process of offloading the payment to a different payment processor. The game is not free, it just collects the payments through the candy shop. The offsetting of the payment includes you stop playing and looking at candy images and initiating the process itself requires us writing off our privacy so that the candy image guys can try to guess which candy we might like more. What if everything is paid directly? Yes, there's Apple's %30 cut but there's also Google's cut and Facebook's cut in advertisement(which is not transparent and I hear that it's about %50). Besides, huge resources are spent in running the system that tries to guess who would prefer to buy what. It comes at the cost of computational and human resources too, not just the privacy. That cost must be incorporated to the product price. Is finding the product you look for through WOM, lists and publications that inefficient? Is it really impossible to find your customers organically? Do we really need the customer/product matching in exchange of money? Do we really need an incredibly inefficient centralised communist system(the big agencies like FB) where the party members(the technicians in these companies) need to track everyone(the spying required to make the system possible) so that we can have free games and apps(which are not free but paid from the communal money that the central organisation collects from you)?
- disgruntledphd2 5y ago
  > also Google's cut and Facebook's cut in advertisement(which is not transparent and I hear that it's about %50). In general, neither Google nor FB take a "cut" in the traditional sense from their advertising. What (normally) happens is that advertiser bids their "true value" (i.e expected LTV), and a second price auction is run. In this kind of auction, the winner pays the price that the runner-up was willing to spend. This differs massively from the pre-internet ad business (radio, tv, print etc), in that they would normally quote $X, but up to $X/10 was the minimum price, but the rest was built in as margin for people further up the chain (sales, agency etc). One of the big problems that the ad agencies are having now is that their business model relied on arbitraging the price of the client vs the cost of the service, and this doesn't work for Google or Facebook. That being said, both Goog and FB make insane amounts of money, but that's because the ads are essentially free to deliver (in fact, the users pay to render the ads themselves), and they have huge amounts of users to serve ads to.
yborg 5y ago
>disrupting whole economy for apps Citation needed. Somehow there was an app economy before the rise of massive data aggregation. It's going to slightly impact the people profiting from the mass surveillance economy until they figure out how to get around it. This does nothing to impact the vast input feeds of location and traffic data from mobile carriers and ISPs, transaction data from purchases, etc. It basically forces those wanting to market to customers using Apple devices to remove the cameras from their customers' bathrooms and figure out another way to discover they are out of toilet paper. The pissing and moaning is because the industry basically was able to use the laziest possible implementation to get this information, now they will have to do a little more work.
- disgruntledphd2 5y ago
  It's probably gonna put a bunch of mobile game studios out of business. It was a tough business anyway, but the major advantage that they had was the ability to track at a device level and use that to be more efficient with their marketing spend. More generally, it's gonna make FB and GOOG less useful for small, niche businesses. The big players will be fine, but lots of smaller businesses are likely to do less well. Maybe the big players will do something to make cohorted ads work, but it will be less efficient and will lead to lots of small businesses having much more difficulty getting their products in front of the right people.

guerrilla 5y ago

Except that's not what happens when paying is optional. People still pay, albeit not as much. 96% leaving this disabled is something else entirely.

justapassenger 5y ago
Not if you put big “for free sign” in front of it. That’s what Apple is doing. “Hey do you want to give them more data? No? That’s totally cool, it’s purely optional and it doesn’t change anything for anyone else”. It’s not presented to an user as a way to pay for the app. It’s presented as something that’s third party, not really related to an app.
- Spivak 5y ago
  I mean I have said yes to some apps that ask if they can collect usage information mostly because I know they're not using them for ads.

libertine 5y ago

>Apple is disrupting whole economy for apps. I've been wondering why people aren't asking what kind of data is Apple itself collecting? Not only from users, but from the marketplace. Shouldn't users also give consent to what they share with Apple? Shouldn't businesses also choose to share info with Apple? This is gave us a sense of "justice as been done", but now we should look deeply into what the gatekeeper is doing, to what benefit, and how balanced it made the playing field. Truth be told, I'm biased because I'm always suspicious of Apple because I always believed that unlike what they preach, they put Apple first above everything else... but I only see them getting an exclusive view of user behavior on their devices.

phoe18 5y ago
> This is gave us a sense of "justice as been done", but now we should look deeply into what the gatekeeper is doing, to what benefit, and how balanced it made the playing field. Interestingly, Apple's Ad tracking doesn't show up under 'Settings > Privacy > Tracking' but instead tucked away at the bottom of the 'Settings > Privacy' menu. Apple's tracking also defaults to opt-out instead of the opt-in route taken for other apps. I am all for providing privacy settings but whats with the double standard?
- vbezhenar 5y ago
  Because Apple collects data in an anonymous manner and will make sure for user to benefit the most from that data, compared to other evil ad companies. /s
- bun_at_work 5y ago
  When you set up an iPhone or other Apple device, you're prompted and asked if you want to share you data with Apple, which makes sense because they make the device and OS.
sumedh 5y ago
> Shouldn't users also give consent to what they share with Apple? You do that when you accept their terms.
- libertine 5y ago
  Do you have an option to not accept those terms and use the software? Similar to what is shown now for the App Tracking?
  - simondotau 5y ago
    Apple's apps have never done what the new App Tracking policy requires your permission to do. Apple doesn't need to ask for your permission in this instance because they're not doing it.
5y ago

ahmedalsudani 5y ago

A lot of people would be happy to pay upfront and keep their data.

phoe18 5y ago
Its not accurate though, Apple can and does still track users. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202074 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202074
- zepto 5y ago
  That link doesn’t support your claim.
- ahmedalsudani 5y ago
  Apple and ad companies are worlds apart.
  - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
    Until they launch an ads service (which they are almost certainly going to do).
    - ahmedalsudani 5y ago
      They already have one
dlhavema 5y ago
I think the market has said otherwise. Among aware engineers, sure. Among Suzie home maker and Tommy Q the support rep? Doesn't seem so. Facebook is free and has how many people now? ( Just one example I know )
- ahmedalsudani 5y ago
  The situation likely arose as a tragedy of the commons. It’s why Apple taking the hammer to the business model is worth watching. A dominant platform like Apple has the ability to change the economics so we don’t end up with everything being “free” and trying to learn everything about you. There’s some concern about how Apple is changing the economics of free apps. I personally have always had a problem with free apps destroying the opportunity for those that charge the user cash instead of data.

JKCalhoun 5y ago

> Apple is disrupting whole economy for apps. Not at all. Facebook can simply require you to enable tracking in order to use Facebook.

KoftaBob 5y ago
Apple explicitly says that apps can't require app tracking in order to use their app, they're removed from the app store if they do. Keep in mind "app tracking" here means reading your device ID, called the 'Identity For Advertisers' (IDFA for short). They do this so that they can cross reference that IDFA with data that other apps have collected on that same IDFA, allowing them to connect the dots that it's the same user. This app tracking transparency feature makes it so that they can't access your IDFA, and can only show you ads based on info you provide within their own app, not from the other apps you use. It keeps your data silo-ed to each app.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  That's interesting, I did not know that. Seems Facebook could nonetheless offer two tiers of service for those with and those without tracking. Although a bit orthogonal, Instagram will not let me post from a Desktop browser but will from a Mobile browser. (So I switch my User Agent to a phone on the Desktop when I navigate to Instagram and wish to post.)

mrtksn 5y ago

At the end of the day, nothing is free. It's just a different payment scheme and Apple is killing that scheme. We don't even pay through our privacy or attention span. These are simply wasted in the process of offloading the payment to a different payment processor. The game is not free, it just collects the payments through the candy shop. The offsetting of the payment includes you stop playing and looking at candy images and initiating the process itself requires us writing off our privacy so that the candy image guys can try to guess which candy we might like more. What if everything is paid directly? Yes, there's Apple's %30 cut but there's also Google's cut and Facebook's cut in advertisement(which is not transparent and I hear that it's about %50). Besides, huge resources are spent in running the system that tries to guess who would prefer to buy what. It comes at the cost of computational and human resources too, not just the privacy. That cost must be incorporated to the product price. Is finding the product you look for through WOM, lists and publications that inefficient? Is it really impossible to find your customers organically? Do we really need the customer/product matching in exchange of money? Do we really need an incredibly inefficient centralised communist system(the big agencies like FB) where the party members(the technicians in these companies) need to track everyone(the spying required to make the system possible) so that we can have free games and apps(which are not free but paid from the communal money that the central organisation collects from you)?

disgruntledphd2 5y ago
> also Google's cut and Facebook's cut in advertisement(which is not transparent and I hear that it's about %50). In general, neither Google nor FB take a "cut" in the traditional sense from their advertising. What (normally) happens is that advertiser bids their "true value" (i.e expected LTV), and a second price auction is run. In this kind of auction, the winner pays the price that the runner-up was willing to spend. This differs massively from the pre-internet ad business (radio, tv, print etc), in that they would normally quote $X, but up to $X/10 was the minimum price, but the rest was built in as margin for people further up the chain (sales, agency etc). One of the big problems that the ad agencies are having now is that their business model relied on arbitraging the price of the client vs the cost of the service, and this doesn't work for Google or Facebook. That being said, both Goog and FB make insane amounts of money, but that's because the ads are essentially free to deliver (in fact, the users pay to render the ads themselves), and they have huge amounts of users to serve ads to.

yborg 5y ago

>disrupting whole economy for apps Citation needed. Somehow there was an app economy before the rise of massive data aggregation. It's going to slightly impact the people profiting from the mass surveillance economy until they figure out how to get around it. This does nothing to impact the vast input feeds of location and traffic data from mobile carriers and ISPs, transaction data from purchases, etc. It basically forces those wanting to market to customers using Apple devices to remove the cameras from their customers' bathrooms and figure out another way to discover they are out of toilet paper. The pissing and moaning is because the industry basically was able to use the laziest possible implementation to get this information, now they will have to do a little more work.

disgruntledphd2 5y ago
It's probably gonna put a bunch of mobile game studios out of business. It was a tough business anyway, but the major advantage that they had was the ability to track at a device level and use that to be more efficient with their marketing spend. More generally, it's gonna make FB and GOOG less useful for small, niche businesses. The big players will be fine, but lots of smaller businesses are likely to do less well. Maybe the big players will do something to make cohorted ads work, but it will be less efficient and will lead to lots of small businesses having much more difficulty getting their products in front of the right people.