Facebook's attempt to vilify Apple looks like sour grapes
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
If your business model involves fraudulently spying on the users and making money out of it, then too bad, that's your problem.
And about the arguments on "Facebook is free". I agree that Facebook is a free service, and they need to be compensated somewhat, but, if a user disables ad tracking, Facebook can simply block them from accessing their free service, which is fair, right? It's only a problem if Facebook continues to allow their free service to such users.
Well, even then I would think charging iOS users who block Facebook tracking is a fair deal, especially if there is a premium version of Facebook with no spyware in it, I totally see myself and many others paying for it.
But Facebook won't do that, because their core philosophy is just criminal - spy the users as much as you can without their consent. So, fuck them. I support Apple here. I hope Android follows suit as well and we can slowly kill Facebook together.
This entire debacle is making me lean towards switching to an iPhone just for this feature alone.
Having said that, I currently use system-wide adblockers on my android so even if facebook was to try, they couldn't get this info (granted, I don't have fb installed).
Edit: as far as I understand it:
- you must ask for permission before gathering/serving personalized data/ads
- you must NOT disable any features of the app if the uses says no (similar to the tracking cookie stuff in EU)
- you can still display generalized ads that are not personalized.
(I am replying to a comment because I want to add on to it, not because I am debating against it)
Apple explains explained what they track and asks users to opt-in.
They have already been doing this.
All they are doing now is requiring other apps to be similarly opt-in.
That's the experience Facebook, Google & others will face, and it's not what Apple does in iOS 14.
There's also a different setting specifically to disable tracking in Apple Apps whereas all the others are lumped together:
https://support.apple.com/library/content/dam/edam/applecare...
For years it has been painfully clear that facebook has been a net negative for society.
Bring back the days of being able to trust your device and services you use without have to skim through TOS and hope they didn't throw a Facebook auth sdk in somewhere.
Did that time ever really exist?
Nowadays, most software out there comes with some kind of spyware (Facebook SDK, extremely granular analytics sometimes going as far as screen recording, etc) and nobody seems to care.
What the web has become since the rise of weaponized ad-tech is a tragedy.
On the one hand, yes.
On the other hand, I don't think it's a healthy situation if companies need to own the entire hardware platform to be safe from another company's whims.
Maybe we (as humans) shouldn't have tried to over-optimize everything and squeeze every bit of whatever we wanted out from something.
Edit: Have people not seen Austin Powers? Do I need to add the /s?
Then, after a random time, it gets back to 0 and gets a small or a big bump depending on support, converting my comment to a small battleground which is kinda amusing. :D
In a perfect world we'd have regulation (such as the GDPR, but with actual enforcement) that would prevent such nefarious activities.
We're not in a perfect world, so a company who owns the hardware and whose incentives happen to align with their customers' privacy steps in.
They don't really align so well, see IDFA. Yes, you can opt-out, but there's no reason Apple couldn't change that in the future if shareholders want that.
What about users? What do I need to own to be safe from the whims of a company like Facebook?
Also, you don't have to audit apps yourself if there's an entire community of volunteers doing it for you, and perhaps even writing alternative FOSS apps.
The web browser sandbox was created to solve lots of problems with security of executables, it didn't solve all of them but it did make content by third parties more secure.
Granted the web probably tracks you as much as mobile, but it will need permission to use your camera/mic/etc and you can more easily see what is being tracked, at least the scripts and states.
All Apple is doing it creating a similar security sandbox to the web and they should.
It's either privacy or not being parented. Perhaps you don't care but many people think it's pretty ridiculous.
Didn’t OpenSSL with Heartbleed show that the “many eyes” argument for FOSS doesn’t hold water?
It’s much improved since then though. Huge portions audited and rewritten.
Thats fine if you trust Apple to do that. All you'd have to do is continue to only use the Apple app store.
The issue is when you want to take away my right to install different app stores.
Librem and Purism sound interesting, but without apple and ios there would be literally no hope in getting away from the toxic business model the ad-tech giants are shoving down our throats.
That's the risk you take working on someone else's platform. If you don't like it, start your own or conform to the new, privacy-enhancing features.
Apple is making a choice, and I support it and will gladly move back to buying apple products if it means they are willing to fight facebook and google over user privacy.
Facebook has done a lot to connect people that we don’t read about in news articles.
There are indeed plenty of other ways to connect people without intrusions into privacy, and hopefully Facebook will be forced into those corners (chat apps broken up, content-based advertising instead, offering a subscription, etc.)
People seem to think that the whole thing is rotten and we need to get rid of it, and it’s a great first instinct – but frankly Facebook is here to stay. We need to figure out how we can make that more sustainable.
I think net-negative still stands. I deleted FB years ago.
I have a very hard time socializing that that half of my family any more because they bring up politics constantly and their beliefs on race, healthcare, etc. are frankly embarrassing to be associated with. And I say this as somebody who is overall very moderate and willing to engage with both left and right-leaning beliefs.
Facebook made half of my family unbearable to deal with. I don't think that's a unique situation by any means. So I'd say that they're an awful awful cancer on society that needs to die.
No users under 21. ID needed for registration. Warning labels on every page. Refusing service to people clearly under the influence. Heavy fines, jail-time, and possible destruction of service if found to be in willful noncompliance.
(Just as a start.)
This shouldn't be news to you if you frequent tech forums.
I also think, but am not sure, that if you sell alcohol to an intoxicated person you might get in troubles.
I know for sure it's unlawful in Italy.
If Facebook somehow disappeared overnight, would Fox, OANN and the like throw up their hands and stop? Or would your family just find them on YouTube or Twitter some other platform instead? Or does your family already watch those news sources on TV? Facebook's news feed is certainly a part of the problem here, but it is not the underlying cause for polarization. I haven't studied in depth where the distrust in our institutions is coming from, but as long as there are people seeking to capitalize on it, they _will_ capitalize on it.
The reason I am bringing this up and getting a bunch of downvotes is not because I like Facebook. It is because I want to make sure we focus on the right solutions to solve the actual problem at hand. So, if the problem is radicalization specifically, algorithmic news feeds (plural) are an important piece to focus on. But it's not the entire story: the rest of the news media and other platforms also have things to fix.
If the problem is a concentration of monopoly power, or blatant abuses of privacy, then those bring different problems that warrant different solutions. People like to combine all of these concerns into a single bucket and say "Facebook is bad" but when we do that we lose sight of the other trouble makers: the news networks, the other tech monopolies, and credit card companies who actually sell user data.
Despite all of this, I still think a global network of people connected with real identity has a lot of benefits for society. Maybe a better way of phrasing it: if you haven't deleted your Facebook account yet, then why not?
Perhaps the most dangerous "feature" of Facebook is how effectively it radicalizes its users.
This coupled with Facebook's strong push into the developing world is extremely dangerous.
Just look at what happened in Myanmar for a clear example of how even Facebook was stunned by the monster it created.
Just so happened that common interest was genocide.
When you build a radicalization engine, you are responsible for the radicals it creates.
Agreed. If you make money from invading my privacy I hope you go bankrupt when your ability to spy is stripped from you.
This is just hyperbolic and probably not true.
Why do we, ostensibly smart people, so susceptible to such dramatic thinking?
Zillions of people use FB every day to read about stuff, connect, organize things.
Some of it is a little heated, some of it misinformation, it's a problem.
But these bandwagon statements are just too much.
This is literally a bandwagon bias argument.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you aren't living in the US and haven't logged into facebook during the recent election year.
I use FB when required for family events, and for niche advertising.
The vast majority of my family and peers use it, for a variety of reasons, almost none of which is toxic or insidious.
Facebook is a reflection of the the internet itself: you have your ice cream blogs, videos about cats, your CNNs, Foxs and the occasional Newsmax turds, very angry social justice types, weddings, funerals, sales, new toys, new interiors, babies, graduations etc. etc. That's life.
I was wary of Facebook right form the start, with Millenials foolishly handing over every little bit of their personal lives thinking 'this was the future' ... but also wary of Facebook now, largely for the same reasons, though the evolution was always a little bit obvious if you think about it.
People were way too upbeat about it then and way to downbeat about it now. Realize what a narrative and try to get off of it.
Facebook was always gossip, prone to bits of otherwise tawdry trash, but otherwise normal for any given era.
There is nothing normal about Facebook and the impact it has had on society.
You can try to paint it as just the salt of the earth sharing baby pics and conspiracy theories if you want, but that is pretty naive, especially for this forum.
Facebook has spent billions building an engagement engine that has radicalized millions of people all over the world.
Talk to burmese refugees about what Facebook means to them and then tell me about my "bubble".
Zillions of people used to smoke and still do. And even though I assume people were coughing their lungs out for everyone to see because of it since time immemorial, till the 70s people were ridiculed for suggesting that smoking is dangerous rather than cool.
Organizing the family Christmas event is not.
Comparing FB to smoking is beyond pale - these bits of HN zealotry are a serious detriment to sober thinking, it's anti-intellectual and tiring frankly.
General social media use however actually is scientifically associated with quite a lot of negative effects. From increased self-harm in teenage girls (and to a lesser but significant degree boys), to anxiety disorders, bullying, and well we don't need a phd to see the negative effects of having genocides arranged on the website.
I don't really see what's anti-intellectual about just looking at the evidence of how these industries manipulate human behaviour, spread misinformation, and cause psychological harm.
I think what's deeply anti-intellectual is talking down the degree to which these digital services have changed and intruded into our lives because "it's just an app on your phone bro" which has been the prevailing attitude, that is only slowly changing.
I actually suspect that just like smoking, or drinking, we're going to look at how we interacted with online media in the early 21st century with a lot of dismay in the not so far future.
My primary account got auto-shadow banned because I got so many downvotes that my karma went a lot below zero.
With the risk of this account going the same way, I want to add that even the ad part of Facebook is a net positive to everyone involved.
Targeting allows small businesses to advertise their niche products or services... and helps the user be aware of the product or services. Before Facebook, the same thing existed but in a different form. You as a small business owner would have to buy placement in niche TV shows or radio programs or a local niche magazine... but for some small businesses, it could be a no go because they'd have to consider a much bigger than required marketing budget. Targeting solves this problem, for small businesses and for users who get suggested the things they're likely to buy and use. In fact, it's not just good for users being targeted, it's even better for those who are not being targeted because they don't have to be bombarded with products they'd never be interested in.
The reason Apple is deciding the default for the users when it comes to Facebook learning about the user is to deliberately hurt small businesses and give their users fake sense of "privacy"... and to not let other platforms flourish.
Apple needs to be legally challanged for monopolistic practices i.e. disallowing users to choose what software they get to run on devices they purchase. Users should be able to download and install Microsoft App Store, Samsung App Store, Epic Games Store... and install any software they want. Why is Apple allowed to restrict what software users can run? Apple is big and too much of a monopoly. Its hardware and software divisions need to be separated and other companies should be allowed to license and sell their hardware with whatever software they want. Users should be able to choose what software comes with their devices.
Obviously this shouldn't be read as an endorsement for FB's practices - I think they are as scummy as Apple's anti-competitive bullying of iOS developers. It's unbelievable that we're now openly longing for something that looks a lot like the Windows software market circa 2001: compared to today, it was a paradise of open competition and almost-entire privacy.
If someone is in favor of being tracked, they can allow it.
Facebook's objection is to letting people know about the tracking, and giving them an easier way to avoid it if they so choose.
So yeah, I'll take the less harassing version of ads (or no ads even if I have to pay).
Also I don't want to allow FB to pull another Cambridge Analytica.
Yeah.
So many people took away the wrong lesson from the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Facebook wants everyone to see "Cambridge Analytica did something bad and Facebook stopped it", when the real story was "Cambridge Analytica did something bad, convinced us it made money, and Facebook stopped it by platforming it and charging Cambridge Analytica for it". The Cambridge Analytica models led directly to Facebook's personalized ads system, with almost everything Cambridge Analytica asked for being added to the ads platform itself. Almost everything that was shady and questionably ethical about what Cambridge Analytica was doing didn't stop being shady and questionably ethical when Facebook simply in housed all of that tracking for "ad personalization" and started selling it as a service to any advertiser willing to pay for it.
Then, they can opt in. Why complain about someone asking for consent?
I've known them for years, we shared the best and worst moments of our lives, they are all intelligent people, at least for my standards, but when they use my phone to browse a website they think my phone is broken because I use an ad blocker and they see white squares were ads were supposed to appear.
They think ads are normal and their absence means something is wrong with the software.
They've watched them on TV and do the same with YouTube, they've listened to them on the radio and are not bothered if they hear them on Spotify.
But most of all they actually click on them and buy stuff through them.
I think getting rids of personalized ads is an uphill battle.
That is almost Orwellianly hilarious.
That's like someone from the oil industry claiming using renewables is like going back to the 19th century.
Privacy is (hopefully) the future, not the past.
It's from one of the "Aesop's Fables". A fox sees a bunch of grapes hanging a ways over his head. He spends a while jumping and trying his best to reach them, then gives up and stalks away muttering "they're obviously sour".
At their best, they seem to describe timeless patterns in human behavior. http://read.gov/aesop/001.html
(note, the library of congress version has the 'moral' spelled out at the end, in a way that sucks the life out of what you just read)
"Driven by hunger, a fox tried to reach some grapes hanging high on the vine but was unable to, although he leaped with all his strength. As he went away, the fox remarked 'Oh, you aren't even ripe yet! I don't need any sour grapes.' People who speak disparagingly of things that they cannot attain would do well to apply this story to themselves."
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Grapes
As a consumer, if I don't like the privacy-invading practices a "small business" is supporting (directly or via Facebook), I have the right to know about it and deny such practices (atleast on a device I own, which Apple plans to enable in this case). Businesses do not live in a vacuum and if they don't fit in the ecosystem by ignoring their consumers' privacy needs, it should be ok for them to go extinct so that those who follow a more "well adjusted" approach can evolve and thrive.
Heads up - some users WANT to have more transparency into how their data is exploited, and to be able to turn it off easily.
I know folks are saying this is apple abusing its position to hurt facebook or "small businesses". Who cares? I as a user like this approach apple is taking.
The same issue comes up with google and some of their behavior around spammers / scammers and others. I wish more of the anti-trust / abusing their position things kept a focus on user benefit and impact. Letting match.com and ancestry.com do their own billing and subscription renewals on iOS sounds like a nightmare from hell (having dealt with ancestry billing before!)
I just had to submit for a refund for an annual subscription that was misleading on the app store (10 minutes after I purchased). The process could not be simpler and MUCH preferable to sitting on hold for hours (as I have with others).
Sure, thats fine! And you should continue to be able to follow Apple's direction.
The issue is not that. Instead, the problem is when you are trying to force me to accept all of Apple's decisions.
Instead, I should be allowed to install apps on different app stores as well, that ignore Apple's opinion on the matter.
Edit: Assuming there are no laws or regulations in place from the learnings we have got from FB. If there are effective laws in place, then FB stays or go does not matter much.
* Google has so far been fined peanuts compared to the revenue they make breaching the GDPR
* Facebook has been fined pennies based on a technicality rather than their actual privacy violations
* Facebook does not respect the GDPR with regards to providing data subjects a full copy of their data, and does so in total impunity by the looks of it: https://ruben.verborgh.org/facebook/
* Currently neither Facebook nor Google have been fined regarding the omnipresence of their analytics/advertising SDKs on the web and in mobile apps despite them not only collecting more data than necessary but not asking for user consent
Facebook and Google just shrug off relatively large fines and are rewarded for it by the stock market.
Small app companies and independent devs probably could not. Drive a few dozen out of business and you might just make the SDK toxic enough nobody will use it.
Or, I’m practicing wishful thinking.
It's like being on AOL, blissfully aware of the wider Internet, and thinking the need for email must be met by a single monolithic corporation.
The cycle you're referring to isn't inevitable, we can do better and we must.
I happen to think Mastodon can be improved on architecturally, but if Twitter were to close up shop tomorrow, I reckon more people would move there than, say, Parler.
If your coffee shop can't stay afloat without quietly selling my data, it doesn't deserve to survive.
The more they go this route, regular people who don't care about privacy will begin to understand the nuances and that is never a good thing for FB.
The only "small businesses" that are threatened by this change are dropshippers who have built a business around whitelabeling cheap Chinese goods with some fancy marketing and selling it at 5x the price.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/03/facebooks-average-revenue-pe...
That said, I definitely believe that collecting subscription money would not stop them from trying to collect data about you, for advertising purposes. They'd view subscription as just a new revenue stream (yay!).
Facebook will never stop collecting data on its users as long as it exists.
1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/251328/facebooks-average...
Eg build new products that work with Facebook and sell them.
An ethical Facebook may find it could enter new markets.
https://whotargets.me/en/much-facebook-makes-per-user-per-mi...
The trackers they build into sites would still exist to track non-paying customers, and they'd have to track the paying customers enough to differentiate from non-paying.
And if you're saying that all of Facebook becomes a subscription, you still end up with the problem that Facebook has pointed out: small sites that earn income from Facebook by implementing their tracking widget would lose that source of income.
I think we should be more vocal about the extensions and products that help block FB (and other) web trackers, to force their model to change, but I think we're a long way away from anything truly effective.
Completely agree! There's cannot be any grey area here. It must be all ad-based or all-subscription. But the move seems impossible
If you don't browse sites that do this tracking, then you shouldn't care either way about this whole FB/Apple controversy/dispute.
If you do browse these sites, get ready for the potential of a major shift in those sites' business model.
Also, they can't sell privacy, just that they won't track using their network. If your information is being taken by multiple parties and they are all pouring it into the same data soup, the value of paying any particular spy off seems pretty limited. Apple can try to sell privacy, because they are in the position to fight all the spies simultaneously (we'll see how effective it is, seems like a really hard task but it is a good sign that they've got Facebook worried).
AlsoAlso it is possible that the value of tracking is non-linearly related to the number of people you are tracking (if three people are somehow similar I might be able to apply some insight gleaned from one to the other two). So, they might fundamentally want quite a bit more than any reasonable person would be willing to pay for their service, to stop tracking.
Not my problem. Price it in and be transparent about how they are using data.
Smart shareholders/CEO's think about brand as well, think long term as well.
That’s social media except only founders and ceos post because disagreement doesn't affect their ability to exchange time for food and shelter, unlike all the employees and candidates
Some people would pay for Facebook
But Facebook’s cash cow is every small business or even idea will pay to target ads. Any corporate-led disruption to how many people that would target will be a massive deterrent to use Facebook’s platforms.
I need inmail, I’m not a recruiter or candidate
Simply paying alone often isn't enough -- this sort of sleezy behavior is endemic.
* Nobody seems to implement these
* The risk of smart devices actively working against us is too high
* I have 0% faith in Samsung's ability to keep a fridge OS updated over the, whatever, 20 year lifespan of a fridge.
Unfortunately so many things are "smart" nowadays that it can be hard to avoid, but at least I can keep the wifi password away from the devices. For now. Until the manufacturers start including cell modems in the things.
"Connect to WiFi?"
[Skip]
"Please connect to Wi-Fi."
Also read this
If they were forced to find an alternative income source, they'd be better off going with freemium.
this is a very hand-wavy slippery-slope argument. You think the entire social network crumbles because of 20% of users? The lack of right not to be part of a network (shadow profiles) is one of the problems with FB, so if SNs can't exist without payment, maybe they just shouldn't exist. I personally think society values SNs to the extent that this *won't8 happen, but let it be an exercise in seeing how much SNs are truly valued.
I don't think people are as indifferent to "being the product", or are becoming less so.
Now I wonder if this goes against an App Store policy somewhere or if this is one way Apple will combat such an attempt.
That's exactly what it already is and we're past the point where ignorance is an acceptable excuse.
As despicable as Facebook’s behaviour is as far as its users are concerned, at least one could claim that there is an implicit contract (I am sure everything is explained clearly in 2pt white font on a white background on a page that’s not linked to and not indexed by Google). There is no such excuse for non-users who are tracked all the same.
The problem is that Facebook only represents good value (paid in ad views, personal data, or money as you suggest) if lots of your friends stay on it. It needs the "network" aspect of social networking to operate. Consequently, even if you're willing to pay $1/month if your friends aren't to pay then that $1 represents terrible value and you'll leave because there's no value in paying.
This is the inherent problem in charging for any 'network' product - it has to represent good value for everyone not just a few people.
1. They haven't thought of it.
2. They underestimate how profitable it would be.
3. It would be less profitable than what they're doing now.
Option 1 seems ridiculous. Option 2 is possible if Facebook is blinded by corporate inertia, or if enough people working directly on the ads feel threatened. But there are a lot of smart people working there, who stand to make a lot of money by increasing profits.
So I'm going with option 3. They don't do it because spying on everyone is more profitable.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/apple-delays-contr...
Anyone informed enough to come across this and read it is probably also informed enough to know its total BS.
I'm completely mystified as to what Facebook is trying to accomplish here. Who is the actual audience?
Facebook hires pretty smart people, so I feel like there's some tactical element I'm missing, like this could be used in a future court case somehow, but I can't think of a single thing, and neither has any analyst whose opinion I've read.
So what is Facebook even thinking?
tempered by some usuall-shamedfaced appeal to a mix of [fatalistic, resigned, or blasé] self-interest, what-aboutism, and/or appeals to neatness [usually the result of acquisitions].
Not one. Not even from current employees.
The most vitriolic summaries typically from former employees, or those forced to do business with them.
I mean, I guess they must given the shear amount more effort and infrastructure they require and companies fight to have them, but it boggles my mind that they're that much more effective. Maybe I'm just not thr roght demographic and my (not good) experiences on the consumer side of personalized ads don't encompass a large enough portion of the market?
Advertiser - Ad Network - Publisher - Consumer
In the end it is multiplication of happiness factor for each actor optimised.
It is basically explore/exploit algorithm + trying to predict your behavior with similar segment of people like you.
That's why you are mostly stuck in exploit phase, cause explore part is costly to other actors (even negative ROI)
But this is what user wants.
Naively, I would assume that after someone logs into the Facebook app, Facebook knows who they are, and thus there would be not much additional benefit to more tracking information.
Is this about being able to track in third-party apps that use the Facebook SDK or run Facebook ads?
They already have some expertise in their Oculus line.
The AR OS battleground is going to be very interesting.
Interestingly, 3d TV had the same problem as VR now: lack of content. A single movie (Avatar) created the whole industry, and there was little follow up.
You might say the same about VR and Beat Saber.
Not really, once Apple steps in with their own AR headset then Oculus is done. Not only does Apple build their own hardware, they also have the trust needed to make it mainstream.
Trust in the parent company is a core requirement of AR, one that FB will never be able to deliver, their brand is kaputt in that regard. In FBs position I'd try to sell it, the team they have working on it is great, they don't deserve the backlash from the trust issues of the parent company.
This is the opinion of yourself and your bubble. Millions of people trust and use Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp many times a day.
Like it or not, that's the (non-augmented) reality or it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Home
I wonder if they'd take another stab at that as a workaround to tracking protection, assuming Android follows suit on this in a year or two. Get users to sign in and now you have all of their installed apps and know what they launch, all tied to a Facebook account.
https://www.cnet.com/news/heres-why-the-facebook-phone-flopp...
Unrelatedly it's not clear from that quote who did the declaring, which makes me believe it was "declared a disaster" by the author... just classic journalism tricks.
If you look at the documentation in the app store around the Apple privacy policy (which is required for any new app version right now) you'll see a bunch of language that, to me, seems squarely aimed at Facebook and the Facebook SDK.
For example, it specifically calls out third-party auth SDKs, sharing hashed email addresses with third parties, and sharing identities so third parties can optimize their advertising for you.
These are all functionalities where Facebook is the clear industry leader. Especially the language around "hashed email addresses" seemed quite clearly targeting Facebook to me.
I'm surprised Apple's weaponization of the App Store (for example, forcing Sign in with Apple on any developers who use Facebook or Google SSO) hasn't drawn more anti-trust attention.
I definitely applaud Apple's push to be more transparent about the privacy you give up when installing these apps! I just wonder if the rollout could have been done in a more app-publisher-friendly manner.
Apple wields too much power.
If you don’t agree, then how else do you propose Apple enforces said privacy?
I mean these third party apps are running on Apple’s platform and using Apple’s APIs to track Apple’s customers. Who else can fix this problem?
No. I think our freedom is more important than both.
> If you don’t agree, then how else do you propose Apple enforces said privacy?
Apple is making decisions that are too big for it. The DOJ needs to break them up. Computing needs to be free.
I'm fine if the platform makes these notices apparent, but Apple can't be the arbiter.
Both freedoms cannot exist simultaneously. So are you saying that Apple should not be allowed to decide which freedom to prioritise? Despite the fact that every other comparable company is effectively on the side of Facebook?
Or is there some other kind of freedom you care about? You seem to say that “our freedom” is more important than our privacy, but privacy is a most fundamental type of freedom - literally, the freedom to think our own thoughts.
What other freedom could be more important than that?
I could understand if there was really an overlap somewhere, but I don't really see it. They have different business models, Apple doesn't have any social media property that compete with Facebook or Instagram and if Apple really wanted iMessage to crush WhatsApp they should at least show their interest in dominance by having an Android version of it.
Maybe they are competing on resources? but I don't see it either. They don't seem to be going after the same acquisitions.
Maybe Apple is doing this because pleasing or pissing off ad-based companies has no effect on their bottom line and they see it as a good marketing campaign to woo the privacy conscious an earn some brownie points for practically zero expense.
More so, Apple is #3 in the world in game revenue and guess what, Apple doesn’t even make games.
I can't buy an Apple device because of the ideology behind their products. Why expect Apple to put other storefronts on their platform? They have all the rights not to but this also implies that their ecosystem is less liberal, which is also fine. They made the OS and the device. If you hate the App Store, don’t use iOS. It's simple. They run 1984 ads but they are the core of 1984.
There is basically no reason for not providing an OS interface for others to build their own storefronts on your platform. Android showed that it's possible, there's no excuse. Period.
Have you come across criticism of the chaebol system or Samsung as a company before? It’s pretty intense what has been going on and what Samsung has been convicted of doing. The wikis give a good overview.
https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/facebook-scraping-call-m...
https://www.xda-developers.com/android-permissions-bypass-pl...
These spyware kits are hardcoded into the first-party apps on Samsung phones that you cannot remove without replacing it with a custom ROM.
Samsung is also the point of the spear on pushing advertising into their television sets and scraping your viewing for marketing purposes.
Buying Samsung products is as bad as using Google or Facebook products in terms of your privacy.
Facebook is objecting to allowing people to know that they're being tracked everywhere by them. Lots of people don't really understand how that works. I think this is a good thing Apple is doing in this particular case.
are you sure about this? "Apple blocks Facebook update that called out 30-percent App Store ‘tax’" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24301332]
disclaimer: I work for fb
Does any of this make you want to reconsider that?
If I were marketing to youths, I'd have to deal with Apple's 90% market share among my customers!
In this particular case I don't care because FB is garbage IMO but the point stands - Apple has too much power in the US and we need to force them to allow third party app stores.
It absolutely is hidden. Apps are not allowed to be transparent with the user, for how much money is being taken by Apple, directly in the app purchase screen.
That is against the app store TOS, to show as a line item, the cost of the Apple cut.
However, let's not ignore the massive market for apps supported by ads. iOS developers had a way to be modestly compensated (without the Apple tax) in return for an app that is available to anyone for free. How much less profitable are ads going to be because people can opt-out of IDFA? I don't know. But I'm sure many developers are going to think twice about developing free apps for iOS.
Conspicuously, Apple also just reduced it's commission from 30% to 15% overnight for these developers. It seems to me like Apple really wants to nudge developers into creating paid apps. Is it because of privacy, or because it's better for Apple's bottom line? Probably both.
I'm glad Apple found a way to monetize privacy, but I didn't mind installing a free app with a few ads if I knew that I'd only use it a few times.
Furthermore, there are plenty of unjust/unethical systems in this world that - if dismantled - would cost the jobs of honest, hardworking people. That doesn't seem like a valid argument against the question of whether or not tracking people without their consent is itself unethical.
Edit: I want to bring up another point: You mention that using FB ads can allow developers to avoid the "Apple Tax." But not only does the Facebook Audience Network apply its own tax (via revenue share) to app developers, it also refuses to disclose that number! So if you monetize a free app with Facebook, you're paying an undisclosed Facebook tax. Given the Google tax for AdSense is 32%, it's likely that FB's secret tax is higher.
I'm sure ad-supported apps are still going to exist, but the pros are a bit muddier now. The perceived devaluation of ads caused by removing IDFA, compounded by the lower Apple tax, are probably going to decrease the number of free apps in the App Store.
The race-to-the-bottom with regard to price meant conditioned users to expect free - to be unwilling to pay even $0.99 for an app.
I would love to see free disappear completely from the AppStore.
Imagine I had a free app, I was showing ads, when there was IDFA, Facebook audience network was pricing individuals, you had value $1 (for sake of argument lets say 10% chance to buy what is advertised) for some advertisement, I had maybe $0.01 (0.1% chance to buy).
Imagine I had 1000 users, 10 like you, 990 like me. Total value was $19.9 ( will net approx 2 sales )
Now we are a 1000 user pool with chance to buy (0.2%), and will be priced accordingly, will be like approx $0.02.
Actually nothing will be changed. Except, the middle man, facebook, will compete with other ad networks with commission, it means more revenue for developers. More privacy for consumers.
For advertisers, on bigger ones, there will be not much effect.
For smaller advertisers, there will be more work involved, but ad networks will manage that (from opt-in IDFA users). Ad networks eventually will discover you sources (apps you can advertise on positive ROI)
Eventually some small advertisers may have small disadvantage on this.
They're saying no to certain privacy violations on their platform. This being detrimental to Facebook's revenue says a lot more about Facebook's business model than it says about Apple's policies.
If anything apple is setting a precedent for it's actual competition that user privacy is something people are willing to pay a premium for.