"Decimated" is a bit of an overstatement for a business on track for over $!00b in revenue and $40b of profit this year. The growth rate took a huge hit, but it's not like they're on the verge of collapse.
i agree that meta is not on the verge of collapse (although i'm not bullish on their long term prospects); but i'm sure we can both see that apple bloodied their nose pretty badly with this.
Hasn’t it been demonstrated that this narrative is false?
This not to say I wouldn’t rather Apple have nothing to with advertising, as the linkage to Google and Facebook who have aggressively pushed that privacy abuse is needed. That makes it easy for people to just assume any privacy claims aren’t really “real”.
There are many computers to choose from (system76 as an example). Although with various 'security' features that is slowly being eroded. Arm systems are powerful enough as an alternative for many uses.
Dual booting and unlocked phones still exist (second hand fairphone or even pixel is an option) which at least let you own the user land. As do the linux projects stated. There were quite a few dual boot capable phones a few years back, but they received little interest.
Smart home devices don't need to connect to the cloud. Buy a zigbee one if you really need a remote control your light bulb.
TVs that don't connectto the internet still exist.
Librem is 1299 USD which is roughly 100000 INR. I cannot afford that. Even If i could it is not available in India. Pinephone is not available in India either. What other options do I have?
The article is framed as an attack on general digital advertising by small business, which makes little sense given scope of ads available in the ad economy versus from Apple.
The current likely truth (which can change) is buried 3/4 of the way down:
Since upending the online advertising ecosystem, third-party analysts have seen a surge of advertiser activity — and ad dollars — head Apple’s way.
Still framing as “online advertising ecosystem” and “advertiser activity”, but how could all that surge Apple’s way? Reading on …
Last year, for example, one of these reports found that Apple’s Search Ads — which appear at the top of your iPhone screen when you’re looking for a new app to buy in the company’s App Store — were the source of roughly 58% of all iPhone app downloads. A year prior, these same ads were only responsible for 17%. And earlier this summer, one Evercore analyst projected that Apple’s App Store ads could net the company $7.1 billion in revenue by 2025.
The lead sentence frames as if Apple Search Ads are a category of advertising for Apple. In fact, for now, that’s the totality of advertising you can buy from Apple. So this “surge” or transfer is in app discovery.
That ties with the today motivation:
“I think the revenue piece [of the ad market] is less important to Apple than just breaking up Facebook’s total ownership of distribution on mobile,” Seufert said. He pointed out that, for a long time, Facebook dominated the market in driving app installs. One report earlier this year found that about three-quarters of those marketing a mobile app rely on Meta’s ad-tech tools to do so.
Arguably, this could be about gacha gaming, driving “free” games into Facebook feeds to siphon dollars from Facebook moms and Facebook bro “whales” — the Zynga business model — and other “free” apps and games into Facebook feeds to show even more ads to idle clickers. Like this:
“Ads are a revenue opportunity, but, more importantly, they’re a discovery mechanic,” Seufert went on. “And suddenly Facebook was determining which apps got downloaded, not Apple. My sense with all this is that they care about the revenue, but I don’t think that was the primary driver. I think it was about the power.”
This is Apple, so think about “power” as “protect” the consumer aka protect the brand.
Discovery is a nice word for persuade the user to try it just once… and get them to buy in app or click ads forever.
If you frame the ad revenue being decimated as the skim from a Facebook sized slot machine, and the small businesses as folks like that Reddit post, it sounds less heroic to defend.
So what’s Apple up to? Do they want that kind of revenue? How does that work for their brand halo?
Arguably, Apple’s medium term goal — along with short term goal of regaining control of discovery — could be to build a fishing pole to catch the legitimate small business fish caught up in the anti-IAP-exploitation trawler.
Perhaps that’s what’s behind these hires.
Consider the “spikes” in ad cost the article refers to, and think about time people had for games and clickers in the pandemic. Whatever percentage of “app discovery” advertisers aren’t driving ad spend with gambling or addiction revenue, might be better served by a market that screened those out, so the ad cost was not artificially inflated.
Screen app genre and quality (which Apple has a system for already, however imperfect) to take 50% - 75% of the revenue driver out from the ad spend, the prices go down, and small business can now afford ads for quality app discovery.
Apple doesn’t need an advertising business, they need a trusted app platform. This could be a path to course correcting a problem that got literally out of their hands for too long.
In the long run, though, most of my non-tech friends say they actually like relevant ads, particularly the “if this, then that” variety.
If Apple fixes app discovery and builds that into an ethical “acceptable ad discovery” offering with consumer-friendly off switches, they could be imagining it’s a win win win for all three sides of the market: them, legit small advertisers, and these casual consumers.
