Strong privacy stance on privacy for others (and in media)...but very quiet on 1st party inhouse ability to connect the dots.
I have a hard time seeing how this doesn't end in anti-trust tears for both of them
In Apple’s case, I hope antitrust action comes before they stray too far and whilst their interests are still aligned with mine. I don’t want them to make any money from advertising, because then they have a conflict of interest and their pro-privacy arguments fall flat.
(Google is too far down that path for me to trust them in the future. Anti-privacy is also their core business, whereas Apple primarily makes money from selling devices).
I wonder if Apple is predicting that this wont be the case for much longer (lack of real innovation (excluding the M1) and market saturation), so they're being proactive to dominate another vertical. They will likely capitalize on their current image of being privacy kings.
Absolutely. Advertising and professional services (read: consulting) are both inherently user-hostile channels of revenue, and dangerous enough they should be capped for a company's own strategic good.
Some paths are too seductive and dangerous to naively wander.
Microsoft primarily makes money selling software, too. Despite that they're really tracking happy. You'd think selling stuff incentivized less malicious conduct, but...
Another angle is that captive audiences will be steered to other Google or Apple products. But debatably this only becomes anti-trust worthy when Google and Apple will start to buy more businesses in non-core areas eg. To compete with Amazon as the everything store.
Microsoft is definitely doing this with gaming, buying up many huge game properties.
Using your dominance in one market (computers/phones) to muscle into another (ads) is about as anti-competitive as you can get.
i'd vote for anyone who promises (and has a realistic plan) to fund the anti-trust division with 100× their current funding (the IRS too) to crack down on all these distortions in our markets. i have little hope of seeing such a political candidate however.
0: https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/world...
We’ve all heard the anti trust whining about the App Store for over a decade now. It’s not happening. Nintendo gets to decide what you put on a Nintendo Switch, Apple gets to decide what you put on an iPhone. That’s not monopoly abuse, if you don’t like it buy different console or an Android phone.
Phones have become an important generic computing platform, which is why in different jurisdictions there’s political action to force Apple to loosen control. That wouldn’t be happening if it was so obviously illegal monopoly abuse because then it wouldn’t be necessary. Yet it apparently is.
DDG does track how you interact with their search results and search ads, same as Google.
Interesting example. I found that their service is definitely going downhill.
I’ve been using them almost since they came on the scene. in the past two months I have had to double check search results against Google, where as I expected the results are far superior.
In the previous years I’ve almost never had to double check a result.
So, I don’t know about the future of Apple at all, but I hope the quality stays higher than your example.
- Apple has kneecapped ads from competitors, this is acknowledged fact
- Apple services revenue has grown significantly since, which includes ad revenue, this is acknowledge fact (to the SEC no less)
- Apple does not disclose ad revenue as proportion of services revenue, but it's reasonable to think it would grow as well
Digital marketers have personally told me app install ads and the like on Facebook are no longer effective, so we'd expect those dollars to move to other areas.
This is the source the Axios page links to, which is just a Bloomberg writer postulating what Apple might do.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-08-14/apple-...
The narrative doesn’t match the numbers.
Yet, just look at Amazon's if you want to see how fast it can grow. Or how the app tracking prompt popup compares for their own (pretty CTA for "Yes personalized ads please!") vs third parties ("Oh no I don't want spyware!").
Apple canned their mobile ad platform and compared with Alphabet and Meta who's ads are peppered all over the web/search/facebook/instagram - the amount of impressions would be miniscule.
Are you expecting to have an official Apple press release be quoted?
Do we just not report on Apple's ads because they choose not to provide us with first hand information?
And we’ll use that for ads. But it’s fine. It’s locally so it’s fine and you are not a product. All because we convinced people using our deep pockets that they should only care if data is on servers?
I smile remembering "if you don't pay you're the product" which apple lovers lobbied looking at G users, hinting they payment for extra margins will save them from being ad targeted.
But now:
- Paying won't save you from ads.
- You're paying but you're still the product
- And ultimately Apple also gets huge sums from Google, for selling their users.
Reminds me of a throwaway line on West World season 3, “… before the privacy laws...” like what is it going to take to stop this? Ad industry has been an absolute disaster for the human experience IMO.
It's ads all the way down.
TVs are the same. Pay a pretty penny for a high end TV, hello, we'll still stuff this thing full of ads and tracking cookies.
I really, really wish companies would stop asking themselves "Why not both?"
Apple device owners are generally rich, young, impressionable and loose with their money. They are the holy grail for advertisers.
If it wear MS not Apple they would already be fined for anti competitive behavior.
Where is the difference between MS bundling IE with Windows and Apple forcing Webkit in all iOS browsers?
The average person is just checking email, taking pictures of their food, reading garbage news sites, and watching mindless fad videos.
I get what you're saying, but Apple didn't put a health monitoring device on you, or shove a credit card in your wallet. That was your choice, totally voluntary, and as a knowledgeable person you were to some degree aware that your data would be stored and processed as a result. You made a choice to trade privacy for whatever convenience you expected those products to provide you.
The issue is that on the sell page or the produc box there is not a list like
1 this device does not support Google Pay or for Apple
WARNING , before you biu you MUST acknowledge
1 you can only use Safari with skins
2 you can't use apps we think are too mature, or too siple, or might use compete with us, or apps we just don't like
3 if you are in China we will send your data straight tot eh goverment
4 you will not be able to developer or install any app for your device unless we review and anyone your account.
5 apps that are on our store today might be removed tomorrow , or blocked to send you updates
6 ad blockers are more crippled then on other devices,
7 messaging with your Andoid friends will be crippled
8 we will scan your photos for bad images and report you to the police ------
100 ....
So it is FALSE that ALL users know ALL the downsides and ALL future downsides when buying a device.
If I am wrong and you can see this on the online electronic shops or real world shops I would like to see this , I never seen this warnings so far.
Arrogance would be if they rested on their laurels and stopped innovating.
Empathy is a human quality, and not something organizations can have.
Hypocrisy may or may not apply, but at least they aren’t selling my data to the highest bidder. I trust them with my data and they keep it to themselves. I’m OK with that.
What's the mechanism here? Is it something like this? Before the change:
1. I use say a free (with ads) guitar tuner app.
2. That app usage gets shared with Facebook's app.
3. Facebook now knows I'm probably a guitar player, or at least probably play some instrument that is commonly tuned by the player.
4. Companies who want to reach guitar players buy ads on Facebook. A Facebook ad has a good chance of reaching me.
After the change:
1. I use a free (with ads) guitar tuner app, but opt out of cross app tracking.
2. Facebook is less likely to find out I'm a guitar player. This reduces the value of Facebook ads to the companies that want to reach guitar players.
3. They shift some of their ad budget from Facebook ads to ads in guitar tuner apps.
That's not really the primary mechanism, as far as I know. My understanding of the flow is this:
Before:
1. You browse Facebook. 2. Companies who want to sell a guitar tuner app buy ads targeted to guitar tuner apps. 3. You click on the ad, and you download the app. Both the app and Facebook get an unique ID identifying you (this is called the "ID for Advertisers" or IDFA). 4. You use the app, maybe pay them money. The app is able to directly attribute you giving them money to the ad it ran on Facebook, and Facebook is able to know that you converted on the ad, which is very good signal. 5. The company is able to accurately track its conversions, and Facebook is able to accurately price ads.
After: 1. You browse Facebook (and opt out of cross-app tracking). 2. Companies buy the ad, you click on it, download the app. 3. You no longer get an ID, instead both Facebook and the company get a scrambled ID that they can no longer link. 4. As a result, Facebook can no longer attribute the results of its ads as effectively, leading to less accurate signal and less confidence from advertisers.
From my understanding, one of the ironic things now is that ATT has forced companies like Facebook to collect even more data (see https://twitter.com/modestproposal1/status/15272970860601139...). Because Apple no longer provides this unique ID for Facebook/advertisers to uniquely track conversions, apps/Facebook are forced to rely on much more data collection in order to probabilistically predict conversions.
Much of my knowledge of this area comes from Stratechery - I think this article, particularly the section entitled "And" explains what "cross app tracking" is: https://stratechery.com/2022/data-and-definitions/
Apple just made the first move. The downfall of third party tracking was inevitable. Google themselves are ending cookie support next year with Chrome.
Unless you’re saying Apple shouldn’t be in the Ad business at all. But then neither should Google, or Meta, and that’s their entire revenue stream.
Regarding 1) Hopefully the EU will help breaking up the monopoly
Regarding 2) Why should I buy apple and pay the premium? I will buy Samsung or Huawei.
Seeing as how Apple managed to avoid dying in 1998 when it’s revenue was $7B and was operating in the red, I am pretty sure an excursion into digital advertising on 1.6B installed devices when they have revenues nearing $400B/yr, with $160B in profit isn’t going to be the death knell.
Send a randomized bundle of ads to each iPhone (the ads must come from my servers). From that bundle, select the ads that fit user interests most closely. Don't report which specific ad the user was served.
This would presumably be quite annoying for advertisers, but it would preserve user privacy and, hey, Apple basically has a monopoly on users who actually pay for apps so what are they going to do? Perhaps the advertiser could be provided with some artificial profiles with statistically representative taste profiles to see how often their ads come up.
But seriously, the aggregated annual revenue of the Top 5 (in the first chart in the article) is $375b. Regardless of what Apple has said or done, why would anyone think Apple wouldn't want a piece of that action?
I'm not defending Apple, only being objective and realistic.
Their brand is strong and consumer perception is everything. Fb has lost all credibility and loosing ground every day which explains their hail mary move with meta and googl with their "don't be evil" backfired really hard after they removed the slogan + change directions on different things + their "graveyard" and failed ventures (google plus, stadia, etc...).
"Luckily" for them (googl/fb), the rest of the world doesn't have the purchase parity of the US and they can milk that cow. Heck, Fb basically is the "internet" in some countries and TSPs have offerings around it (Free Fb, Ig, Ws Navigation).
Just my opinion but I don't much mind some advertisements if I feel like they are not impacting my devices' security or my privacy.
I am a huge fan of Apple's new Lockdown Mode - I have it enabled 99% of the time.
Why is selling billions of thousand-dollar devices not enough? Can't they be satisfied with a successful business selling hardware at high markups to repeat customers? Why do they also need to expand into ads and destroy their hard-won reputation of being a premium brand, to milk those few extra cents per user?
New phones are no longer a growth market. Everyone has one, and buying a $1200 phone every year is something less and less people are doing.
If Apple totally trashes their reputation, who are they going to flock to... Google? That is just jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.
No, capitalism & capitalists are never satisfied. The whole system requires constant growth.
I’m just hoping Apple will keep their privacy focus. Ads and privacy do not need to be opposed ideas. Ie, my fav Dutch tech blog tweakers.net recently removed all tracking form their ads and serve them locally. I gladly turned off adblock for them and the site was still pleasant. Ads are tech relevant, well labeled, unobtrusive and not about what I bought 2 months ago, win win.
But then you don’t really want ads: you want information (facts about the local business near your position), ideally factual, impartial and unbiased. The fact that a lot of people seem to conflate both is actually a PR tour de force from advertising companies. Do you really want the prominence of local bars being a function of the tax they pay to advertisers?
How would you feel if only the logos of the highest paying corporations popped up? There might be the best Mom and Pop Restuarant that every existed on your route, but you're not going to see it for all the mcdonalds and subway logos they throw at you.
Give it some time. Ads become obtrusive because it works and it brings more revenue.
This is a story about a Corporate Mega Machine with thousands of Corporate Robots all programmed with the same code. To optimize for growth. One robot opposes it. Ten robots will line up to slit its throat and take its place.
