I'm curious about the 4% of users who enabled it. Did they get tricked into doing so? Was it an accident? Or do some people out there really genuinely want to be tracked?
Joke aside, I believe most people don't understand what this iOS popup wants from them: for most average users, it's another annoying popup that their device shows them and they don't really know what it means or what option they should choose (like the location ones, networking ones, bluetooth, ...). It happens a lot with the older generation, but even as a tech person I sometimes just don't know what is the right choice.
So it's so easy for someone to choose the "wrong" option, when it's presented with too few information or at a wrong time, like refusing the location service and then Waze doesn't work, because they just don't know they have to allow it.
I believe these choices should be handled by Apple through the store and not by the users: if the app is doing something shady with ads or location, the app should be disabled before it reaches the user's device; the user shouldn't have to "know" those things, the user has no way to check or validate that the usage is legitimate.
We will end up with devices where the user has to know nothing, cannot do anything and is lazy and easily led.
Just as moving yourself around on a bike is healthier than planting your ass in your car, so is thinking for yourself and _once_ in your life taking the time to figure out what that whole location sharing thing actually means.
Maybe there should be something like a "root" or "developer" setting that can be enabled for advanced users, but for the average person the default for all this must be the best possible option already and they don't need to worry about it.
I've thought one member of my family to setup their own wireless access point. And they can reliably solve most 'the internet does not work' problems on their own now. This member used to confuse the explorer.exe window with a picture of an explorer.exe window in internet explorer, with predictable results (at the time)...
I'd rather live in the latter world than the former, time will tell if more people agree with me.
Sounds like a good summary for iPhone.
It's a side effect of eliminating friction when interacting with the product. Having to stop and read manuals or reflect or such is a big no-no and interferes with "engagement".
And it's wildly successful and common to cater to and foster intellectual laziness instead of, say, furthering education or individual mündigkeit.
Also, what rock do you live under? I want to join you.
But sure, you guys have fun living under your rock and being super educated on the nuances of mobile ad targeting technology. The rest of us idiots will waste our time doing intellectually lazy things like spending time with our kids and living in the real world.
The iPhone is probably relatively free compared to the streamlined hassle-free applications and devices of the future. And all the while polarization in all our societies grows, until my government too has no option but to lock it down and forge social cohesion through state-sponsored psy-ops and information-ops. We'll be well on our way to a 1984 dystopia then. ---
And please, it's not like there's not time for a normal life. See my comment about my family member below. Maybe if tech people would just refuse to fix the internet, more people would understand how it works.
Too many conflicting interests have built up..
They do screen out nefarious tracking to the extent that they can detect it.
This choice is about consensual tracking.
I think users ultimately do have to know something about these things.
Incredibly mild inconvenience for the benefit of having the default option be not tracking me unless I specifically allow it.
> I’ve chosen be the 4% of population. I prefer to say to every app “ask not to track” and see what apps are currently trying to track users.
Smart, but a bit misguided. In iOS Settings>Privacy>Tracking the text below the toggle for “Allow Apps to Request to Track” says:
> Allow apps to ask to track your activity across other companies’ apps and websites. Apps that don’t ask may still try to track your activity.
> "Allow apps to ask to track your activity across other companies' apps and websites"
So far it's been Instagram and Sony's Headphones App. I do not have facebook.