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> it creates an asymmetry where Apple has all kinds of user information, but competitors don't That is true only if Apple competes with them, which is not the

> it creates an asymmetry where Apple has all kinds of user information, but competitors don't That is true only if Apple competes with them, which is not the case at all.

Barrin92 5y ago
But they do? Apple is literally in the news business, the services business (many of which rely on ad revenue to compete with Apple's own services), increasingly in the ad business itself (revenue is expected to rise to 11 billion in 2025, growing quickly)[1], and as I just laid out in the post above, has a huge interest in just laying waste to independent revenue streams outside of their own channels, in the exact same way digital platforms overall benefited from laying waste to the small and mid-sized ad-industry. [1]https://9to5mac.com/2019/11/15/apple-ad-revenue/ https://9to5mac.com/2019/11/15/apple-ad-revenue/
- kergonath 5y ago
  > Apple is literally in the news business, the services business (many of which rely on ad revenue to compete with Apple's own services) They are a news aggregator and distributor, they are a customer of media and news agencies. Or a parasite, depending on point of view. Still not a competitor. They also still don’t compete with ad brokers and don’t do any targeted advertising. > increasingly in the ad business itself (revenue is expected to rise to 11 billion in 2025, growing quickly) These ads are in the Stores and keyword-based. Which is distasteful, but not quite the same level. Again, they don’t distribute ads, and are not in the market for targeted advertising. They don’t compete with ad networks, and if they weren’t doing that there would just be no ads on the store. Like it was not that long ago. > in the exact same way digital platforms overall benefited from laying waste to the small and mid-sized ad-industry. If the mid-sized ad industry does not rely on tracking, blocking invisible pixels in newsletter won’t affect it. If it does rely on tracking, then it can’t die soon enough.
  - jsnell 5y ago
    Apple is very explicitly in the tracking and ad targeting business. See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205223 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205223 for the information they collect in order to allow ad targeting against you. They unfortunately don't explain just what the data they "make available" to "strategic partners" is though. Note: I'm not claiming that Apple is somehow a particularly bad actor in that regard. But their ads are not just keyword based. They track you, and sell access to you based on the information they collected, just like other adtech companies. Does that change your conclusions?
- eigen 5y ago
  from your link, "Apple doesn’t detail its current ad revenue, and analyst Samik Chatterjee seems to imply that the number could only be reached by including some form of advertising within or around Apple TV+" and "Apple’s most recent earnings report revealed that it earned $12.51B from Services in calendar Q3/fiscal Q4, though there is no breakdown on how much of this comes from ad revenue." so it seems that the current revenue is a guess and the projection is a guess.
nickfromseattle 5y ago
It's believed Apple generates ~$2B per year from advertising revenue (through Appstore PPC) and that could increase to over $10B in 2025. [0] [0] https://9to5mac.com/2019/11/15/apple-ad-revenue/ https://9to5mac.com/2019/11/15/apple-ad-revenue/
- kergonath 5y ago
  This is paid keywords in the stores. They don’t do targeted advertising and are not an ad broker, which are the companies whining about being unable to track people.
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    Fine: call it Dynamic Advertisement if it helps you sleep at night, but Apple is still targeting the user with an ad that is relevant to the content they're searching for. Furthermore, Apple's policy seems to only apply to their own platform: it's estimated that they spend hundreds of millions of dollars on AdSense marketing campaigns, which are highly targeted and among the least respectful ad platforms around. Evidently their motto of "privacy is a human right" only applies if they deem you "human" enough...
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - topicseed 5y ago
      I totally agree with your Apple pays for Google Ads which they now are the most invasive. But, people don't mind targeting when it is context-based, rather than user-based. Tracking is following a user or device. Context is, well, this is a website about camping, I'll pay for ads for my sleeping bags. The user isn't really part of the process, there is no tracking, just targeting which I am sure everybody is fine with if it doesn't cross the "tracking" line.
rickdeckard 5y ago
This asymmetry is already very real, and a quite dominant pattern of Apple's strategy is now to build mechanisms to protect explicitly their ability to monetize all aspects of their _users_, not so much their devices. These small steps taken under the banner of "preserving the users' privacy" are also steps to make sure that all those clumsy users don't get offered something without giving Apple the opportunity to profit from it first. And the only disarming response to this so far is "yeah, but that's fine for me. I WANT Apple to take control, they're the good guys with the cool products!"

> it creates an asymmetry where Apple has all kinds of user information, but competitors don't That is true only if Apple competes with them, which is not the case at all.

Barrin92 5y ago

But they do? Apple is literally in the news business, the services business (many of which rely on ad revenue to compete with Apple's own services), increasingly in the ad business itself (revenue is expected to rise to 11 billion in 2025, growing quickly)[1], and as I just laid out in the post above, has a huge interest in just laying waste to independent revenue streams outside of their own channels, in the exact same way digital platforms overall benefited from laying waste to the small and mid-sized ad-industry. [1]https://9to5mac.com/2019/11/15/apple-ad-revenue/ https://9to5mac.com/2019/11/15/apple-ad-revenue/

kergonath 5y ago
> Apple is literally in the news business, the services business (many of which rely on ad revenue to compete with Apple's own services) They are a news aggregator and distributor, they are a customer of media and news agencies. Or a parasite, depending on point of view. Still not a competitor. They also still don’t compete with ad brokers and don’t do any targeted advertising. > increasingly in the ad business itself (revenue is expected to rise to 11 billion in 2025, growing quickly) These ads are in the Stores and keyword-based. Which is distasteful, but not quite the same level. Again, they don’t distribute ads, and are not in the market for targeted advertising. They don’t compete with ad networks, and if they weren’t doing that there would just be no ads on the store. Like it was not that long ago. > in the exact same way digital platforms overall benefited from laying waste to the small and mid-sized ad-industry. If the mid-sized ad industry does not rely on tracking, blocking invisible pixels in newsletter won’t affect it. If it does rely on tracking, then it can’t die soon enough.
- jsnell 5y ago
  Apple is very explicitly in the tracking and ad targeting business. See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205223 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205223 for the information they collect in order to allow ad targeting against you. They unfortunately don't explain just what the data they "make available" to "strategic partners" is though. Note: I'm not claiming that Apple is somehow a particularly bad actor in that regard. But their ads are not just keyword based. They track you, and sell access to you based on the information they collected, just like other adtech companies. Does that change your conclusions?
eigen 5y ago
from your link, "Apple doesn’t detail its current ad revenue, and analyst Samik Chatterjee seems to imply that the number could only be reached by including some form of advertising within or around Apple TV+" and "Apple’s most recent earnings report revealed that it earned $12.51B from Services in calendar Q3/fiscal Q4, though there is no breakdown on how much of this comes from ad revenue." so it seems that the current revenue is a guess and the projection is a guess.

nickfromseattle 5y ago

It's believed Apple generates ~$2B per year from advertising revenue (through Appstore PPC) and that could increase to over $10B in 2025. [0] [0] https://9to5mac.com/2019/11/15/apple-ad-revenue/ https://9to5mac.com/2019/11/15/apple-ad-revenue/

kergonath 5y ago
This is paid keywords in the stores. They don’t do targeted advertising and are not an ad broker, which are the companies whining about being unable to track people.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  Fine: call it Dynamic Advertisement if it helps you sleep at night, but Apple is still targeting the user with an ad that is relevant to the content they're searching for. Furthermore, Apple's policy seems to only apply to their own platform: it's estimated that they spend hundreds of millions of dollars on AdSense marketing campaigns, which are highly targeted and among the least respectful ad platforms around. Evidently their motto of "privacy is a human right" only applies if they deem you "human" enough...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - topicseed 5y ago
    I totally agree with your Apple pays for Google Ads which they now are the most invasive. But, people don't mind targeting when it is context-based, rather than user-based. Tracking is following a user or device. Context is, well, this is a website about camping, I'll pay for ads for my sleeping bags. The user isn't really part of the process, there is no tracking, just targeting which I am sure everybody is fine with if it doesn't cross the "tracking" line.

rickdeckard 5y ago

This asymmetry is already very real, and a quite dominant pattern of Apple's strategy is now to build mechanisms to protect explicitly their ability to monetize all aspects of their _users_, not so much their devices. These small steps taken under the banner of "preserving the users' privacy" are also steps to make sure that all those clumsy users don't get offered something without giving Apple the opportunity to profit from it first. And the only disarming response to this so far is "yeah, but that's fine for me. I WANT Apple to take control, they're the good guys with the cool products!"