I'm no fan of Facebook or Google, but this is a mega-monopoly deciding to crush a competitor. They're saying no to a company's revenue stream, and they've gotten in the habit of doing this to everyone.
Apple wields too much power.
Apple wields too much power.
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 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?
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.