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Facebook says Apple iOS privacy change will result in $10B revenue hit this year

• hardlianotion 5y ago
  Good.
• jtthe13 5y ago
  The difference between Facebook and Big Tobacco is that Facebook still feels entitled to lament the correction of an otherwise harmful practice.
  • t8y 5y ago
    The difference is that Big Tobacco was regulated by the government. Apple is a competitor to Facebook. Apples ads are not effected by this[0]. [0]https://mobiledevmemo.com/apple-privileges-its-own-ad-network-whats-its-privacy-end-game/ https://mobiledevmemo.com/apple-privileges-its-own-ad-networ...
    • trasz 5y ago
      The problem is with tracking, not ads.
      • swagatkonchada 5y ago
        ads don't work without tracking. that's the whole point
        • danbruc 5y ago
          So all the ads in newspapers and on television and in sports venues and public spaces and...don't work? Or did you just mean ads are less cost effective without tracking-based targeting?
          • dylan604 5y ago
            sell the ads in newspapers? is this the 1950s? j/k Seriously though, what newspaper(s) would you honestly be willing to spend ad dollars with (and for what products) thinking that this would be a good investment? Geritol? Now, if your suggestion is buying newspaper ads would then get ads in their digital versions as well, then maybe. However, seems to me that most viewers of news sites are from link aggregators more than just readers of a website. Not sure how that would affect ad placement.
            • scarface74 5y ago
              Ad supported TV broadcasts are a thing and are podcasts that don’t dynamically insert ads.
              • dylan604 5y ago
                I asked about newspapers, and you responded with TV. Huh?
                • scarface74 5y ago
                  Fair enough. But you do notice that newspapers are still the most popular way for CPG goods like P&G to advertise where they don’t have to target or track.
                  • dylan604 5y ago
                    Eventually, that demographic will age out so to speak, and then what. What are the numbers of new younger subscribers? This is why newspapers are folding/selling.
              • kornhole 5y ago
                TV and podcasts are moving towards surveillance based advertising too. Look at the rise of smart TV's, cable, and streaming services that require identification and location as well as the various ad supported podcast players. Your are correct if you are using over the air TV or Kodi and if you use FOSS podcast players such as Antennapod or Podverse.
        • ComodoHacker 5y ago
          Ads work without tracking, just less efficiently. On the other hand, misinformation and propaganda also work without tracking, just less efficiently. Wi'll have to strike a balance somewhere.
          • benreesman 5y ago
            I have always been a bit skeptical of off-site data producing serious lift in VCG auction clearing prices for in-feed units, but I’m also pretty out of date.
        • evgen 5y ago
          Some people claim, without much proof, that ads without tracking are less effective. We don't care and would prefer to see their business model fail than to maintain the status quo. That is the point here.
          • sdoering 5y ago
            Weren't there even studies showing, that context based advertising is on par with personalized (based on tracking your every move) advertising? I strongly suspect that might be the case. I also believe that social networks could - in theory - create effective advertising possibilities without the need to target user properties. Take my experience with Instagram. When I am looking at mostly typography related posts, it tends to work well if they show me paid ads for interesting fonts. But when they show these to me, when I am looking at gardening content, I tend to be irritated and ignore them. I know - I am talking anecdata here - but maybe there could be a way to not target users, but target topics and hit the users that move through these topics (so to speak). One problem, though, I see with this approach is when you want to create a longing in somebody who never before had the idea that he/she would like to have a cool new font (to stay with my example). Or the next "hot" stuff from some global brand (or what they believe that i should want to feel cool). But as said - I can't find the studies I seem to remember right now on the effectiveness of context based advertising compared to personalized advertising. So I am not sure if this was just my imagination.
          • native_samples 5y ago
            Who is "we"? The vast majority of people love ad supported services. They prefer free/low cost to expensive and express this preference regularly. They don't think advertising is evil, and in fact many people voluntarily wear adverts on their own clothes. Online advertising pays for a massive amount of stuff. If it dies, then the outcome is not "everything stays the same but somehow better". The outcome is that a lot of services we take for granted go away and either don't come back at all, or come back far worse because their market is now much smaller and only rich people pay for it. To put this in perspective, when I worked at Google they had a prototype internal service that let you "buy" your way out of seeing ads by bidding against yourself in the auction. The idea was to allow people to pay for an ad-free internet, but without making users freeloaders on the services they used (that's ad blocking and exists already). I thought, what a great idea. I'll sign up. Result: to get rid of a just a fraction of all the ads I was seeing online (my guess, ~20% of ads I saw were served by Google) would have costed $200-$300 per month. After seeing the scale at which advertisers were subsidizing my online experience, I lost interest, as did everyone else. Paying 4x as much as my entire normal internet bill just to see fewer ads, not even get ridding of all of them, just wasn't worth it. The reality is that the public aren't demanding restrictions on online advertising. They don't care. They like free stuff and they've got nothing against advertisers. This is a war being waged for political and commercial reasons, dressed up as consumer protection, and if/when it actually starts to bite in visible ways, a whole lot of people are going to be mighty shocked at how upset the public will get.
        • benreesman 5y ago
          It’s been my experience that historical user CTR and historical ad CTR can already produce a really high performing P(click|impression) classifier.
        • scarface74 5y ago
          I’ve found some very relevant services based on host read advertising on podcasts.
      • onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
        Actually - I would argue the other way around. Selling user data (for ads) IS the problem. No one would collect and store massive amounts of data if not to make a profit selling it. They would only collect things that are useful in improving the product. That kind of tracking IS valuable.
        • benreesman 5y ago
          The last thing I want to do is to start a flame war, but I know a lot about this field and it’s been my observation that it’s both important and kind of opaque. I would be happy to answer questions (within some fairly broad guidelines of proprietary information) in as much detail as anyone would like. Everything from the technology to the organizational imperatives to the competitive landscape is actually quite complex and nuanced. I have no ambition of informing folks’ moral judgements (I have my own), but on average it’s probably better if moral judgements are informed by detailed understanding.
        • nightgarden 5y ago
          > They would only collect things that are useful in improving the product. But if your product is serving ads then collecting data for ads is improving your product
        • scarface74 5y ago
          Neither Facebook nor Google “sells user data”. Why would they? There is value in having sole access to the data. They sell access to you based on the data they collect. In this case, I would say FB is more in the side of the angels than Google. People knowingly give FB information about them
    • mrweasel 5y ago
      Apple might actually be helping Facebook. It the industry doesn't regulate itself then the governments will at some point and that's going to be much worse. The GDPR is governments (the EU) regulating an industry that has failed to regulate itself the last 20 years and most would argue that the GDPR is much stricter than it needs to be.
      • pwdisswordfish9 5y ago
        > much worse For the ‘industry’, that is.
    • echelon 5y ago
      I'm no fan of Facebook, but Apple is literally showing the world that their platform can sink trillion dollar businesses with simple policy changes. When you're "America's Computer" with a 51+% entrenchment, you shouldn't be able to govern commerce. You're a common carrier at that point. The DOJ better be watching. This behavior makes 90's Microsoft look absolutely tame by comparison. Apple is the new Standard Oil.
      • scarface74 5y ago
        Apple is giving the user the choice to be tracked. How will the argument work in court for FB to say that users shouldn’t be given the choice?
      • scarface74 5y ago
        So exactly what is the complaint? That Apple have users the choice whether or not to be tracked?
      • benreesman 5y ago
        In fairness all the FAANGs are crazy big and powerful by historical anti-trust standards.
        • cute_boi 5y ago
          Obviously, when people in power like pelosi holds stock of Apple and Alphabet in the name of free market, is there any incentives to regulate them? I would say FAANG got popular and powerful because regulating them is direct conflict of interest for many politicians.
          • scarface74 5y ago
            It couldn’t possibly be because they create products that people wanted?
            • echelon 5y ago
              Nobody wants to build for iPhone or pay 30% to Apple. We build for it because that's where Americans choose to be, and if you want your software business to reach audiences, that's where you have to follow. It frankly sucks. I don't like the fact that my code is up for review. I don't have the nanny state overseeing my web deploys. I don't like the fact that the feedback is uneven and arbitrary. I don't like being forced to give up my own choices for login and contact, essentially ceding my customers to Apple. I don't like paying thirty percent for being forced to build for a platform I don't even want to be on but have to. There should have been an open standard for native apps distributed over web. It should have been cross platform, like HTML, so we don't have to build twice or use stupid hacks to share code. Apple builds hardware people like, but they're monsters.
    • isodev 5y ago
      "regulate" doesn't sound like the correct word in this instance. It's making the process more transparent - all Apple did was ensure users could choose what Facebook does with their data. Apple's ad system is subject to the same rules. The link you are posting is outdated - since last year's iOS 14.5 the SKAdNetwork has been extended to provide the full API.
      • disgruntledphd2 5y ago
        > Apple's ad system is subject to the same rules. This does not appear to be true, given that they were asked this question by the FT and refused to answer. See: https://www.ft.com/content/074b881f-a931-4986-888e-2ac53e286b9d https://www.ft.com/content/074b881f-a931-4986-888e-2ac53e286... Money quote (which to be fair, was not too an FT journalist): “Apple was unable to validate for us that Apple’s solutions are compliant with Apple’s policy,” he said. “Despite multiple requests and trying to get them to confirm that their products are compliant with their own solutions, we were unable to get there.”
    • Tagbert 5y ago
      Those Apple ads are just search placement ads inside their App Store. A much smaller scale and limited scope than Facebook or Google ads.
      • SergeAx 5y ago
        Oh, you just wait! I am sure that Apple will eventually build its own ad empire. It is too sweet peece of pie to be left on the table. Also, Apple badly needs to justify it's market cap with some revenue.
        • tobylane 5y ago
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAd They had this mobile advertising platform then closed it, or reduced it to the ads GP mentioned.
    • ARandomerDude 5y ago
      I was very confused until I realized you meant "affected."
  • Moru 5y ago
    To be fair Big Tobacco has had a lot more time to adjust to the health problems. They too spent a lot of time hiding their own reports of the dangers of smoking.
  • tempodox 5y ago
    Also, the louder they whine the better off they are. A company that's really in trouble wouldn't whine so loudly for fear of losing trust of shareholders and customers.
  • benreesman 5y ago
    There are plenty of legitimate concerns about the effect of social media on individuals and societies, but as both a smoker and a former FB employee equating them is a stretch. And IMHO the group most vulnerable to any negative effects of social media are mostly on TikTok these days. Why is no one ever like “ByteDance is a drug cartel”?
    • kristiandupont 5y ago
      I haven't used TikTok, but I wonder if it is flooded with filter-bubble fueled politics? That my primary concern with Facebook, Twitter and Youtube (and others), and I honestly think the world would be a better place if that could be turned off.
      • benreesman 5y ago
        So during my time at FB I spent most of it on ML infra for ads and IG. But I did spend 2016 in a content moderation group. And 2016 was both the inflection point of everyday people saying “FB is fucking with elections” and believe me or not, a totally clean election at least as concerns the outcome (I voted for Clinton FWIW). Most people’s objections to the effect of social media on politics, and I used to do this for a living, seem to boil down to: “It’s the platform’s responsibility to put downward pressure on stuff I disagree with”. I don’t mean to be flip, but one person’s “misinformation” is another person’s “free speech”.
        • jwally 5y ago
          That's fascinating. Matt Taibbi recently did an article - a takeaway from which was that Facebook is currently doing exactly that - burying content that is true but lends credence to crazy. https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-british-medical-journal-story https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-british-medical-journal-st...
      • nisegami 5y ago
        TikTok turns it up to 11 in my experience. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube all started off with a mechanism where you choose whose content to view through following/subscribing/friending. Over time, this was de-emphasized in favor of algorithmic recommendations, but it's still a strong signal. On the other hand, following on TikTok feels like an afterthought - it really aggressively recommends content based on the slightest interest. TikTok's algorithm is strikingly good at identifying what you like and keeping you there. YouTube also tries this, but it seems to be less effective at it and just degrade to showing you videos for the extremes of your political leaning rather than say, how effectively TikTok figured out what I find physically attractive.
  • throwaway4good 5y ago
    They need to be better at paying the right people off.
  • indymike 5y ago
    Hmm. Does that make the Metaverse the equivalent of THC + Nicotine vape juice?
  • kmlx 5y ago
    > harmful practice what's the harmful practice here?
    • vero2 5y ago
      > what's the harmful practice here? Are you not aware of facebook's (meta's) tracking/privacy invasion?
      • kmlx 5y ago
        oh, ok. so basically something that everyone is already doing?
• busymom0 5y ago
  I dislike both companies but I hate FB more so this is good. Does anyone know if FB provides a revenue and profit breakdown on a per app basis? Like how much does IG, WhatsApp, FB, Messenger etc individually make?
  • OJFord 5y ago
    It's not like Apple gets the cash instead, think this is good whichever you dislike more. And I don't think they report revenue broken down like that, just usage, but you could check: https://investor.fb.com https://investor.fb.com (I glanced at it, seems to be just as far as 'family of apps' and 'reality labs', which I assume is whatever 'metaverse' nonsense R&D).
    • theshrike79 5y ago
      Apple kinda gets the cash. They get my money for being the only company who goes out of their way to not know anything about me.
• bschne 5y ago
  If there's any merit to these figures, this is pretty crazy. I'm tempted to side with apple b/c I generally think they're at least less bad than FB and I value any platform taking steps to further privacy. But the fact that a company can do this to another company at the flick of a switch by changing the rules of the game on a whim is still kind of scary, even if I think it's for the better in this instance.
  • franczesko 5y ago
    In the meantime Apple is growing it's own advertising business. Apple's privacy claim cannot be trusted (e.g. China).
    • cloutchaser 5y ago
      This is the crucial point I think. Apple claims its on the side of privacy when it suits them. When it doesn't they don't care. In fact as the only big tech company allowed in China, you could argue they have a much worse effect on privacy overall for humanity than any other tech company. It's all bullshit, and marketing. Apple is doing this to grow apple ads. That's it.
      • lucian1900 5y ago
        China has very strong privacy laws, though. In fact, Grindr recently stopped operating there because their business model was made very difficult by the new PIPL law.
        • treeman79 5y ago
          Seems like a sick joke as people have zero privacy from the government in China.
          • endisneigh 5y ago
            source?
• mojuba 5y ago
  Can someone explain why the ad business isn't happy with SKAdNetwork, an anonymized replacement for IDFA tracking? I'm just trying to understand, when marketing people come to me (as a mobile dev) and say "we need to enable ATT popup, we need the IDFA badly" what to tell them in response. The ATT popup is spooky to many users, I just can't quite understand whether e.g. my app really needs it or is it the advertisers trying to trick publishers to enable IDFA even though the latter don't benefit from it?
  • znpy 5y ago
    Because it's anonymized. The whole advertising industry rely much more and make so much more money off personal data than they admit.
    • mojuba 5y ago
      So my hypothesis that my app doesn't need the IDFA is correct, and when e.g. Facebook SDK docs push hard for enabling the IDFA, I should just ignore it? Or would it backfire on me somehow?
• amelius 5y ago
  Facebook has to wake up. You're not a serious company anymore if you don't build your own phone, running on your own silicon. If you want to control eyeballs, you have to control the device.
  • bamboozled 5y ago
    Who in their right mind would buy a device from Facebook, it would be surrendering your own, and the right to privacy of anyone around you. I'd almost say any device by Facebook should be made illegal unless you notify people close to you that you're "monitoring".
    • jamil7 5y ago
      > Who in their right mind would buy a device from Facebook Probably a lot of people if it was cheap enough and marketed right.
    • fattegourmet 5y ago
      >Who in their right mind would buy a device from Facebook I completely agree with you on this, yet a lot of people are buying Oculus sets
      • lostmsu 5y ago
        You can't really do a lot of tracking with Oculus.
    • christophilus 5y ago
      I’m curious how many portals and oculus devices have sold. Especially portals: having one of those in my house seems unimaginable to me.
    • amelius 5y ago
      Perhaps under a different name. Lots of people bought Oculus.
    • theshrike79 5y ago
• alwaysanon 5y ago
  I'd love to now see Google follow suit for Android. They have air-cover now that Apple has done it. And, if they don't, I hope Apple beats them up on how this is a unique feature of iPhone re: protecting your privacy - the value of which was just quantifiably proven by how much it impacted Facebook to block it.
  • pjmlp 5y ago
    Except Google isn't like Apple, their business model depends on harvesting Android users, see yesterday's thread about force activation of movement tracking.
    • echelon 5y ago
      We shouldn't be proud of that. The fact that the market is a duopoly, with the 50+% option being an expensive, locked down, "luxury brand" that gets taxed and controlled like a dictatorship is not good. Spying or straight jacket protection racket. Gross. The market should have way more devices, OSes, and shouldn't rely on advertising. The DOJ needs to break up both Apple and Google so we have fairer competition and better options for consumers and small businesses. I really hope Framework, Pinephone, Fairphone, DuckDuckGo, Mozilla, et al. can find cracks in the giants and grow. But it's really hard when they have so much unassailable power.
      • pjmlp 5y ago
        I was an happy Symbian user, then an happy WP user, so it is. As for GNU/Linux based phones, it is always the same OpenMoko like story, I don't have high hopes for them.
  • arepublicadoceu 5y ago
    > I'd love to now see Google follow suit for Android You hope that google, an advertising company, will follow apple, a hardware/service company, to block trackers and diminishes the effectiveness of ads? Even if, by any chance, google made a move against tracking, I only believe in google reducing the effectiveness of their adversaries (like removing third party cookies) not themselves.
• vmurthy 5y ago
  I've commented on this earlier as well (and so have a lot of HN users) . The problem isn't ads (at least for me). It's the pervasive surveillance and tracking that FB et al use. Good riddance if another player changes the rules.
  • kergonath 5y ago
    Ads are a problem as well, just not quite as bad as tracking. They are still useable as an attack vector, an incentive for websites to get less and less accessible, and just a general nuisance. When most news websites are more ads than content, there is a systemic problem.
• bamboozled 5y ago
  Good on Apple, I'd buy a new iPhone immediately if it wasn't for CSAM.
  • antihero 5y ago
    Both Google and Apple both already scan your cloud photos for CSAM, and Apple backtracked on their local CSAM scanning plan.
    • bamboozled 5y ago
      Disagree, they've never said it's gone for good, just postponed, if you have a link which contradicts this I'd be pleased to read it. > Apple said its decision to delay was "based on feedback from customers, advocacy groups, researchers and others... we have decided to take additional time over the coming months to collect input and make improvements before releasing these critically important child safety features."
• gchokov 5y ago
  Just an illustration at how much personal data is worth it - things that the normal user does not even think about. It's crazy.
  • jdrc 5y ago
    Is it worth that much, or sold that much? Users cannot earn $10B by using their data
• theshrike79 5y ago
  Oh no! ...anyway.
• throwaway4good 5y ago
  All Facebook needs to do is to outbid Google and become the default search engine on iOS.
  • throwaway4good 5y ago
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/johanmoreno/2021/08/27/google-estimated-to-be-paying-15-billion-to-remain-default-search-engine-on-safari https://www.forbes.com/sites/johanmoreno/2021/08/27/google-e... Google Estimated To Be Paying $15 Billion To Remain Default Search Engine On Safari The 10B estimate from the article is lower than a quick estimate from just looking at the quarterly and the drop in revenue growth. Just looking at that the cost is closer to 20B.
• running101 5y ago
  Good, I am happy fb is tanking.
• tpoacher 5y ago
  Gotta love that sad pouty face they chose for the article though
• 0xTJ 5y ago
  If such simple changes have that big of an effect on you, you're in the wrong. I'd like Meta to spin off WhatsApp and Instagram, then shut down for good.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• samwillis 5y ago
  Ignoring the ethics of the adverting for now and looking at the advertisers using Facebook, particularly the many small business that use the platform. This $10B hit in revenue is directly down to a reduction in ad spend, which directly hits revenues. Assuming an estimated ROAS of about 6-10x then this equates to advertisers seeing a $60B to $100B reduction in sales via Facebook. Many of these advertises will not be moving this budget elsewhere, they will just be seeing reduced sales. So, I'm all for criticism of online advertising ethics, particularly targeted at Facebook. But please remember they are an important part of the larger online economy which supports business that employ people. Please remember the people at the bottom of the chain here who have (and will continue to) seen a material impact on their business, income or employment due to these (and the inevitable further) changes.
  • jl6 5y ago
    If $100bn of spend is being caused by advertising rather than by need, then it sounds like a net benefit to society to prevent that spend. Either people need the products and will carry on buying them, or they don’t, and they will spend their money on something else instead.
    • amerkhalid 5y ago
      It is not only better for people but also for the environment. In my past life, I bought a lot of gizmos thanks to random ads. Most of those gadgets end being used once or twice, and then go in donation pile or trash. People can invest extra cash, retire early, donate. And I think those jobs that are lost due to less consumption will pave a way towards more meaningful work eventually.
  • Nextgrid 5y ago
    Regardless of whether it puts people or jobs at risk, I don't believe society should be paying this advertising tax (in the form of time wasted being interrupted by ads, consuming garbage misleading content that's only there to generate an ad impression such as chumboxes/Taboola/Outbrain, the privacy violations, etc) just so that a relative minority can have a job. Otherwise, you could also argue that illegal things such as violence or theft also enable people to have "jobs" in countries where law enforcement doesn't or can't crack down on it.
• skc 5y ago
  That's a pretty mind-boggling number. And to rub more salt into the wound I'd bet almost every single Facebook employee is all-in on Apple hardware. So they are literally empowering the very company responsible for tanking their stock
• rubyist5eva 5y ago
  oh no.....anyway
• kornhole 5y ago
  The end of the article mentions but doesn't elaborate on how the beneficiaries are Google and Apple's surveillance advertising business which are booming. Some commenters are speaking about a false dichotomy of Apple verses Google. Android open source platform does not contain Google. I don't use Google or Apple and do not recall seeing an overt advertisement in years. Facebook makes no mention of the impact of deGoogled Android phones(GrapheneOS, LineageOS, CalyxOS,..) Linux, Ublock Origin, pfBlockerNG, Pi-hole, Adguard, or the other tools that block surveillance advertising probably because even mentioning them will create awareness that people can opt out of almost all surveillance advertising, including from Apple and Google.
  • aembleton 5y ago
    > Facebook makes no mention of the impact of deGoogled Android phones They're probably too insignificant to affect Facebooks bottom line.
  • zepto 5y ago
    Apple doesn’t have a surveillance advertising business, let alone a booming one. This seems to be a common new falsehood around here.
    • ahahahahah 5y ago
      That's nonsense. They're bringing in $5billion/year from advertising.
      • zepto 5y ago
        I notice you don’t say they are bringing in $5 billion from surveillance advertising. Presumably because to claim that would be false.
        • kornhole 5y ago
          Apple's advertising operations are not transparent, but they do collect a ton of information about every user. Google pays Apple ~$15B a year which is surveillance advertising revenue.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• taylodl 5y ago
  Why should I care about Facebook's poor monetization model? Put another way, is Facebook providing any value for which people are willing to pay?