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Comment by matheusmoreira | Hacker News Reader

Apple is a monopolistic freedom-denying exploitative corporation which has essentially created a digital fiefdom for itself where it's allowed to tax companies for the privilege of reaching "their" consumer base.

I worry about the people living under such digital serf conditions. It was only a matter of time before they started promulgating changes like lords, like the client side scanning "feature" they tried to push. That is absolutely a problem that needs to be addressed and the answer is always computing freedom.

With that said... I shed zero tears when Apple screws over even worse exploitative corporations like Facebook. I simply have no sympathy for advertising giants complaining about being unable to continue their surveillance and exploitation of the most profitable market segment. The only problem is it took an Apple to put a stop to them when simply saying no should have been sufficient.

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The irony is too much. Apple is extremely stifling to the ecosystem, but the fact they shut down facebook is perhaps the only argument one could make in favor of this power. I don’t need your tears, facebook, just get in the coffin already.

One of the things I like about Facebook are the ads. Remember TV? Where all the ads are just targeted at extremely broad demographics and most of them have nothing to do with you? Apple says we should go back to that. I actually like finding out about niche products that have to do with my hobby from some small company with a limited advertising budget that was able to hypertarget me. The golden era of the 2010s for Consumer Packaged Goods was glorious. You had literally thousands of little brands chipping market share away from Proctor and Gamble and the big conglomerates. Apple's privacy changes made it much harder for those little guys to compete.

It’s a valid counterpoint. I myself started a small company (competing against giants) and the only way I was able to do it was with the foreknowledge that I could use Facebook advertising to target my audience. Any other mechanism to reach them would have been far too expensive.

In the end it was a win-win for myself and the customers, and I don’t feel like anyones privacy was exploited.

If nobody feels like their privacy is being exploited, then surely they'll opt in to being tracked, right?

I’m not sure I understand your question. With Facebook (and my example) users have already opted in to sharing that data with FB and it’s advertisers. No tracking involved.

As an aside, I think the only real problem with targeted advertising right now is that everyone is trying to do it in a covert way. Why?

Just straight up ask people what kind of ads they want to see. Relevant ads are much better than random ads, and in a lot of cases are genuinely very useful. Personally I’d happily fill out a Google “ad preference” form in great detail.

> With Facebook (and my example) users have already opted in to sharing that data with FB and it’s advertisers.

Disagreed. Most people have no idea how pervasive the stalking is (FB stalks you outside of FB too, thanks to their spyware being embedded in a lot of other apps & websites) and don't really have a choice if they are forced to use FB for work/social reasons.

Indeed, if ad targeting was absolutely opt-in and would only use information you explicitly provide I would agree with you but I don't see that ever being the case without enforced regulation that bans nonconsensual data collection & processing.

LMAO. Ah yes micro-targeting, used by firms like Cambridge Analytica. Who really wants any ads in their reading or surfing experience? I don't and most people don't either, which is why adblocking is huge.

You can’t target ads like that anymore, that was removed a while ago. And yes I prefer tasteful ads over 100s of subscription services that drain my bank account.

> I worry about the people living under such digital serf conditions. It was only a matter of time before they started promulgating changes like lords, like the client side scanning "feature" they tried to push. That is absolutely a problem that needs to be addressed and the answer is always computing freedom.

Social classes already exist in the US. The digital divide in internet access, software availability, and technology literacy between states is stark and almost comical. Software engineers consistently earn more comparatively than almost any other industry or profession. You lot and these monopolistic companies already 'promulgate changes like lord's.' The future is now; awareness just isn't evenly distributed.

> Apple is a monopolistic freedom-denying exploitative corporation which has essentially created a digital fiefdom for itself where it's allowed to tax companies for the privilege of reaching "their" consumer base

Is anyone surprised that the iOS App Store, which makes the bulk of its money from games, operates similarly to other walled garden game stores?

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