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Comment by GoofballJones | Hacker News Reader

You've asked this around different places, and it's been answered. Those ads are not digital purchases made by users. They're ads. Please edit your posts and point out that this has been answered now and you understand that ads are not the same thing. But of course, if you want to keep bashing Apple and muddy the waters, continue on.

Also, Facebook is going to find their ads are less effective in the next release of iOS, as they won't be able to track people as easily.

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> Please edit your posts and point out that this has been answered now and you understand that ads are not the same thing.

This sentence might very well be based on good intentions and a passion for discourse clarity.

It also feels extremely paternalistic and condescending to tell someone to edit in ones own viewpoint as their own and even demand a faux acknowledgement of personal progression. Almost like in a play that depicts a medieval trial.

I know it probably wasn't meant that way and we're certainly all frustrated by the repetitive parts of the conversation, but the on-topic sentences would've been great on their own.

Owners of the Big Soviet Encyclopedia received replacement pages and were instructed to update their copies with scissors and glue to remove the article about Beria after he fell from power. Gives me the same vibes.

I can digitally purchase an ad. I am a user. I don't have to own a business to buy an ad. So... ads and digital purchases made by users are one and the same, as far as I'm concerned

(Also, I haven't "asked this around several times", and I won't edit my posts, you goofball!)

How? I was never offered to purchase an ad as user.

Create a Facebook page and download the Ads Manager app

Like creating a Netflix account on Netflix.com and adding my payment credentials there (or Spotify), and then consuming it on the iPhone w/o apple getting any cut?

Using that analogy, it would be like if Netflix let you sign up in its app (purchase the subscription without leaving the app). (The FB ads manager app let's you "place" ad orders on iOS.) Instead, Netflix doesn't let you make that sign up transaction in-app. In fact, it doesn't even link out to a web site where you can, because Apple limits Netflix's speech in that regard.

Ok, got it. So it’s like purchasing physical items in the amazon app? Which makes sense to me since ads don’t improve the in-app experience for me as a user. They don’t make standard app ==> better app. Ads are “consumed” by many other people, on many devices, aren’t they?

Same for Wordpress, right? If I'm purchasing a hosting platform for my website, that doesn't make the Wordpress app any better, and it doesn't change the content I have inside the app -- it's purely a downstream change that affects my business, the same as if I bought an ad on Facebook.

So shouldn't Wordpress be able to offer hosting transactions in-app without paying 30%?

I don’t know the app, but from your description I’d follow the same reasoning, yes.

Of course selling ads in the app improves the in-app experience, otherwise Facebook wouldn't sell them in the app! Surely some folks prefer to place their add orders on their phone instead of sitting down at their desktop.

The experience is not different than before. You can buy ads or not. They don’t sell the “AI ad manager pro” in the app which manages everything for you. The software remains the same after the purchase.

How are ads "not the same thing"?!? The idea is that Apple takes 30% of whatever you sell via an app available in the App Store. Some sell games, Facebook sells ads. It is actually their core business.

Likely, the real reason why Facebook won't have to pay the 30%, is that it is too big a customer to lose. Facebook is too important for Apple as a customer to have in the App Store. So Apple and Facebook made a deal, which is what you can do if you are big enough...

The fact that a new iOS will reduce the tracking of users by Facebook is not even remotely touching the topic we're discussing here. If Apple has a rule that it can take 30% of every sale made via an app from the App Store, this should be applied to every sale. Everything else smells like Trumpism, where you pay less taxes the richer you are...

‘If Apple has a rule that it can take 30% of every sale made via an app from the App Store, this should be applied to every sale.’

So should Amazon pay 30% to Apple on every sale made via their iOS app? I assume you mean every digital sale.

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