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Apple IS am advertising company. $4b and growing from ads. https://www.wired.com/story/apple-is-an-ad-company-now/ https://www.wired.com/story/apple-is-an-ad-c

Apple IS am advertising company. $4b and growing from ads. https://www.wired.com/story/apple-is-an-ad-company-now/ https://www.wired.com/story/apple-is-an-ad-company-now/

Terretta 3y ago
Perhaps "ad company" is reductive, as there are different ways to make money for offering visibility. Arguably the same definition of "advertising company" as Walmart, by charging those selling products in its store for placement, display ads, inclusion in promotional materials, etc. Arguably not the same definition as ClearChannel, who will take money from anyone to make every drive in America less scenic by plastering them with billboards. (And who combine data from third parties to understand who is seeing which billboards when.) Apple is a first party supermarket that lets sellers self-promote, Google is operator of third party billboards at scale that reaches and watches all the traffic. That said, I agree with the thread above that Apple taking great pains to anonymize things like maps trips, while selling user searching priority wholesale to Google, is hypocritical. TL;DR: I don't understand why Apple doesn't acquire Kagi, put Kagi basic in iCloud and Kagi Ultimate into Apple One, and go from there.
- n40487171 3y ago
  Don't doubt that Walmart tracks users/shoppers in depth: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-04/walmart-says-ozempic-weight-loss-drugs-causing-slight-pullback-by-shoppers https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-04/walmart-s...
- Jensson 3y ago
  > Apple is a first party supermarket that lets sellers self-promote Apple works hard to change that though. Apple made 26% of their revenue from services last quarter, it was less than 10% 8 years ago, that is where most of their growth is coming from. They did use to make most of their money selling products, but now they started to exploit their platform dominance to make money from all other areas of it as well. Apple today isn't the Apple you bought into 10 years ago. Source of services being $21.21b / $81.8bn = 26%: https://musically.com/2023/08/04/apples-services-revenue-grows-despite-hardware-challenges/ https://musically.com/2023/08/04/apples-services-revenue-gro... > TL;DR: I don't understand why Apple doesn't acquire Kagi, put Kagi basic in iCloud and Kagi Ultimate into Apple One, and go from there. Because they make more by taking money from Google. Why is that hard to understand? Apples goal is to make money.
- nullwarp 3y ago
  I really don't get why people keep promoting this idea of Apple buying Kagi. People not invested in the Apple ecosystem also use Kagi and all it does is ostracize those people just like they did in the Dark Sky acquisition. It's a terribly selfish idea.
turquoisevar 3y ago
It's been a while since I last saw someone mention that article during debates on this topic. Admittedly, it has a catchy headline, but the article doesn't contain much substance. Apple, for better or worse, doesn't publicly report granular-level revenue streams. So, I can't attribute much value to some “expert” doing back-of-the-napkin calculations to get their 15 minutes of spotlight. Does Apple sell ad space? Definitely. Is their ad revenue or even their profits from ads substantial enough to be their core product, therefore making them an ad company? Definitely not. It's because of this that people aren't worried by Apple’s little venture in ads because it means that there's no incentive to turn their customers into their product. Additionally, again, for better or worse, Apple has adopted a very narrow definition of tracking. That definition is the sharing and co-mingling of collected data from different sources. Under this definition, Apple says it does not track people, which is true. Apple solely uses data they collect from its services and doesn't use other company's collected data, nor does it share its own. This means that if you like a Facebook post by a Facebook group of expectant mothers, Apple won't suddenly start advertising diapers to you. These might seem like distinctions without a difference, but for many people, it offers peace of mind.
- user_named 3y ago
  Of course they track people. Otherwise they wouldn't determine which ads to serve to whom. You have an odd definition of track.
  - turquoisevar 3y ago
    I think you might’ve overlooked the part of my comment that attributes that definition to Apple.
marricks 3y ago
Google has 280b (2022) in revenue mostly (entirely?) from ads. Apple's is 394b (2022), so you're talking about 1%... growing to, what? 1.1%? Everyone complains about overpriced Apple products and that's specifically because that is where they make their money. And services a bit now, but mostly products. It's so easy to be nihilist about this, there's plenty of things Apple sucks at. They're certainly not perfect on privacy either. But for the love of god don't act like they're "just as bad at privacy" as you are intentionally moving us to a world where literally no large company cares about privacy. *I forgot to mention my (least) favorite category of Google's ads! Banner ads.

Apple IS am advertising company. $4b and growing from ads. https://www.wired.com/story/apple-is-an-ad-company-now/ https://www.wired.com/story/apple-is-an-ad-company-now/

Terretta 3y ago

Perhaps "ad company" is reductive, as there are different ways to make money for offering visibility. Arguably the same definition of "advertising company" as Walmart, by charging those selling products in its store for placement, display ads, inclusion in promotional materials, etc. Arguably not the same definition as ClearChannel, who will take money from anyone to make every drive in America less scenic by plastering them with billboards. (And who combine data from third parties to understand who is seeing which billboards when.) Apple is a first party supermarket that lets sellers self-promote, Google is operator of third party billboards at scale that reaches and watches all the traffic. That said, I agree with the thread above that Apple taking great pains to anonymize things like maps trips, while selling user searching priority wholesale to Google, is hypocritical. TL;DR: I don't understand why Apple doesn't acquire Kagi, put Kagi basic in iCloud and Kagi Ultimate into Apple One, and go from there.

n40487171 3y ago
Don't doubt that Walmart tracks users/shoppers in depth: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-04/walmart-says-ozempic-weight-loss-drugs-causing-slight-pullback-by-shoppers https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-04/walmart-s...
Jensson 3y ago
> Apple is a first party supermarket that lets sellers self-promote Apple works hard to change that though. Apple made 26% of their revenue from services last quarter, it was less than 10% 8 years ago, that is where most of their growth is coming from. They did use to make most of their money selling products, but now they started to exploit their platform dominance to make money from all other areas of it as well. Apple today isn't the Apple you bought into 10 years ago. Source of services being $21.21b / $81.8bn = 26%: https://musically.com/2023/08/04/apples-services-revenue-grows-despite-hardware-challenges/ https://musically.com/2023/08/04/apples-services-revenue-gro... > TL;DR: I don't understand why Apple doesn't acquire Kagi, put Kagi basic in iCloud and Kagi Ultimate into Apple One, and go from there. Because they make more by taking money from Google. Why is that hard to understand? Apples goal is to make money.
nullwarp 3y ago
I really don't get why people keep promoting this idea of Apple buying Kagi. People not invested in the Apple ecosystem also use Kagi and all it does is ostracize those people just like they did in the Dark Sky acquisition. It's a terribly selfish idea.

turquoisevar 3y ago

It's been a while since I last saw someone mention that article during debates on this topic. Admittedly, it has a catchy headline, but the article doesn't contain much substance. Apple, for better or worse, doesn't publicly report granular-level revenue streams. So, I can't attribute much value to some “expert” doing back-of-the-napkin calculations to get their 15 minutes of spotlight. Does Apple sell ad space? Definitely. Is their ad revenue or even their profits from ads substantial enough to be their core product, therefore making them an ad company? Definitely not. It's because of this that people aren't worried by Apple’s little venture in ads because it means that there's no incentive to turn their customers into their product. Additionally, again, for better or worse, Apple has adopted a very narrow definition of tracking. That definition is the sharing and co-mingling of collected data from different sources. Under this definition, Apple says it does not track people, which is true. Apple solely uses data they collect from its services and doesn't use other company's collected data, nor does it share its own. This means that if you like a Facebook post by a Facebook group of expectant mothers, Apple won't suddenly start advertising diapers to you. These might seem like distinctions without a difference, but for many people, it offers peace of mind.

user_named 3y ago
Of course they track people. Otherwise they wouldn't determine which ads to serve to whom. You have an odd definition of track.
- turquoisevar 3y ago
  I think you might’ve overlooked the part of my comment that attributes that definition to Apple.

marricks 3y ago

Google has 280b (2022) in revenue mostly (entirely?) from ads. Apple's is 394b (2022), so you're talking about 1%... growing to, what? 1.1%? Everyone complains about overpriced Apple products and that's specifically because that is where they make their money. And services a bit now, but mostly products. It's so easy to be nihilist about this, there's plenty of things Apple sucks at. They're certainly not perfect on privacy either. But for the love of god don't act like they're "just as bad at privacy" as you are intentionally moving us to a world where literally no large company cares about privacy. *I forgot to mention my (least) favorite category of Google's ads! Banner ads.