Apple Looks to Expand Advertising Business with New Network for Apps
wsj.com
wsj.com
That can’t continue growing selling more iPhones, at least beyond single digit growth.
As much as I like getting a new iPhone every year, I think most of the world isn’t nearly as excited. That’s going to hurt revenues, and the stock at some point.
Now their PE is 18, so the market is expecting Apple to grow a lot faster in the next 5 years than it did in the last 5 years.
https://ycharts.com/companies/AAPL/pe_ratio
We'll see if the market gets it right this time or at least not as horribly wrong as in the past.
You could say that everyone has higher growth expectations, or perhaps capital is just cheaper?
But I don't think it's growth expectations that are driving stock prices either. It feels more like investors shudder at the thought of owning any of the alternatives to US blue chips.
>Advertisers Not Thrilled With Apple’s Practice Of Protecting Its Users’ Data... rather than offering a cookie-based ad-tracking and targeting mechanism, it essentially requires partners to tell it what kind of audience it needs to reach, and then trust that Apple will handle the rest.
>what it doesn’t do is hand over the keys to all that data and let advertisers plug into it directly with their own data-mining and targeting software. That’s not standard for the ad industry and that’s likely the reason a few Madison Avenue feathers are ruffled over their approach.
https://techcrunch.com/2014/02/18/advertisers-not-thrilled-w...
However, given recent revelations, advertising models that respect user privacy need to make a comeback.
https://robmaceachern.com/2018/03/31/apples-new-ad-conversio...
If Apple mandates this API for its own Search Ads as well as third party ad networks, I think it will be a massive improvement on the status quo.
How will they? The companies that sell ad space have every incentive to attract advertisers, which means selling data. The advertisers have every incentive to collect data. Users can't easily selectively avoid nosy ads, even if they use an adblocker. Most users don't know how advertising works and don't even realize there's a problem. All the people with power are on one side.
However the companies that are placing ads through ad networks care about their individual reputations.
Spending your ad dollars through a network that respects user privacy can be considered an additional form of virtue signaling.
On one hand, if there’s a chance that a small-time app maker’s product gets promoted in bigger apps without the developer having to pay, that would help App Store as the platform facilitating sustainable businesses—something it’s currently not entirely successful at.
On the other hand, though they seem to be treading carefully, depending on how it gets implemented it could damage end user’s experience. With ads on my phone I feel a little bit as if I bought a drink at a coffeeshop and yet have to listen to commercials while there.
What I envision could ideally happen is (1) Apple working out a way to place ads unobtrusively, possibly with an option to turn them off, and (2) them reinvesting a bit of their huge reserves into promotion for wider variety of apps whose developers wouldn’t otherwise advertise.
This could reduce App Store’s popularity gap, improving discoverability of original, lesser known but quality apps. By helping developers create an OK business on the platform without necessarily making it into the category’s Top 10, in longer term Apple is investing into user experience: more stability makes the platform more attractive to quality developers.
Eventually the company, even one like Apple that has more money than it could ever need for the next 2 decades (unless it decides to build an orbital ring for or some enormously expensive project for launching rockets orders of magnitude cheaper into space), starts chasing new paths that make it lose its ethic and its fanbase's trust.
Guess when looked at through that lease it makes some sense, overall agree with your sentiment. That said, with a giant pile of cash and top notch talent, it probably makes sense for Apple to find new avenues of growth.
It’s especially hard for tech companies because we are a long ways from software automating everything it can.
It's not just Silicon Valley, it's the whole world. To quote the german chancellor Merkel, everyone needs "Wachstum, Wachstum, Wachstum" (growth, growth, growth). So far it worked somehow but I'm not sure that is the best strategy.
Then comes the part where you try to hold your customers captive or ditch any “good company” barriers preventing larger revenue. Interesting with Apple because of thier cash position,this could occur over a long timeline (assuming this is whats happening).
So much wrong in these three words.
They also used to make stuff that was fun to use and had a great UI.
If they are entering the advertising market that means that some very self-aware people think this will make people they care about happy.
That's my worthless stupid opinion, that I consider to be fact :)