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Comment by fbelzile | Hacker News Reader

First off, I agree with you that this change is a net positive for privacy.

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.

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Your comment reads like Apple removed the ability of Facebook to monetize apps with advertising (which they didn't), and reads as if tracking users' every movement is the only way to advertise (which it isn't).

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.

Those are all fair points. I was just speaking about incentives for a new iOS developer today. They might see the option to disable IDFA in addition to Apple's lowering of it's commission as a nudge towards creating a paid app over an ad-supported app in terms of choosing a business model.

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.

Actually a good thing for developers in my opinion.

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.

If Apple wanted free apps on their platform they'd make their SDK available for Linux, where thousands of developers would die for a chance to give free stuff to such a big market like Apple's even if Apple gives them nothing in return.

I think this is common misunderstanding.

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.

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