Ex-Apple engineer reveals there was a strong pushback against having ads | Hacker News Reader

Ex-Apple engineer reveals there was a strong pushback against having ads

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35 pointsnixcraft27 comments

"It was an insult to our customers".

This sums it pretty well. It is dissapointing to see Apple see this otherwise. There is enough ad-supported big-tech out there already. Think different.

He doesn't seem to mention what I find worst of all: ads in iOS itself, such as in Settings!

IIRC those ads were for subscriptions to Apple-owned services, but I still hate them.

Pushing ads through system notifications from Apple apps was simply abusive, and I hope the practice has ended.

How much money does Apple need?

I suspect the advertising business is partly an effort aimed at hamstringing Google and Facebook, as they are essentially ad businesses with various consumer front ends. Or, a more Machiavellian explanation is that to Apple it's essentially free money, and the latest leadership - simply looking for bonuses and promotions - are pursuing it simply for their own benefit. It's clearly not being done in the interest of Apple's users.

Microsoft is playing this same game - I got a new Windows laptop for testing, and finding all the settings to turn off "promotions" and other "suggestions" was like a reverse treasure hunt.

> How much money does Apple need?

all of it. Or at least 30%, if all is not an option.

Original Twitter Thread: https://twitter.com/stuntpants/status/1585150636781637632

thank you. I was wondering why this felt like several distinct tweets, strung together.

I need to write a browser plugin that redirects from threadreader to Twitter, because threadreader annoys me. "oh here's a website you can scroll so you don't have to scroll on twitter." annoying.

While I believe they can do it fairly, privately, etc - I think it’s a bad idea to go much further than they have. Ads in store sections, ok. Maybe ads in maps as long is the user is still put first, maybe. Ads elsewhere things will start to go downhill fast. No interrupting ads.

Relatedly most subscription apps that remove ads, it should really be $5-10/year at most. Imho.

I don’t like ads.

The question now is whether or not apple scrap them. There seems to be many additional caveats that weren't forethought.

I understand that developers are looking for ways of being seen with ads being in high demand, but surely these developers could place ads outside the app store, rather than demanding apple fix their marketing problem.

To me, advertising is what will eventually cause the downfall of Apple. It causes distraction and a disjointed strategy that should be focus on making good consumer electronics products.

HN, do you think ads in iOS is a good business move? On the one hand, there is so much money to be made. On the other, this is a short term gain that cheapens the brand.

Realistically there isn’t much more they can do to squeeze out revenue from being the “premium” brand, so they have to find new ways to expand to keep growing. They have an advantage in that their main/only competitor is always going to be more dependent on ads than they are.

Apple is clearly run for making profits first and foremost. The second they lose the ability to further monetize hardware or services, they will turn to ads.

There was never a strong principle against advertising, despite the naivety from many devotees. Apple just wants to be the one to make the advertising dollars, rather than the app developers.

Privacy from thee but not from me!

Of course Apple is for profit. Its duty to its shareholders are to maximize profit.

Apple pivoted to selling "privacy as a service". Nobody is thinking Apple does it for some altruistic motive.

Apple consumers are willing to pay more for this "privacy" feature. But now they will question this if Apple starts selling ads.

Time horizon also matters. If ads juice your financials for the next 5 years but one compromises the internal product-focused culture and relationship with customers longer term this may lead to lower overall profits in 10 years (for example). No one has a crystal ball and from a pure profit maximization perspective perhaps Tim Cook is making the right bet. But it seems risky.

And this also shows a different kind of “greenwashing” where one can launder abandonment of principles bc of fiduciary responsibility to shareholders. Eg, one could maximize profits by trading with S. Africa during apartheid, and shareholder theory would even require it. Not ideal imo!

Steve Jobs would explode at this. It destroys the brand and image Apple has spent so long cultivating.

Wasn't he still around for iAD?

Yes. But there's a bit of a difference. Ads weren't barred from iOS apps. iAd was a way for Apple to jump in on the ad revenue that was already happening inside those apps. Now they're putting ads in their own products, which is a different kind of behavior.

It's also pretty dumb for long term strategy because once Apple gets used to selling ads they're likely to never go back.

Which gives competitors like Huawei an obvious, and valuable, differentiator. They can just sell ad-free phones to gain market share.

I'm not so sure. Here's Steve Jobs' 10 minute keynote address when introducing iAd, so we know exactly what he said about why advertising should be directly built-in to iOS:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7WVt63S49s

"We have 185,000 apps on the App Store, created by tremendous developers. A lot of those apps are free, and a lo... the rest of them are really reasonably priced. We've got apps for free, for 99c, for $1.99, and we like that! Users like that! But these developers have to find a way to make some money. And we'd like to help them. Now, what some of the developers are starting to do is to put advertising into their apps. And, for lack of a more elegant way to say it, we think most of this mobile advertising really sucks. We thought we might be able to make some contributions. So that's what this is all about, it's all about helping our developers make some money through advertising so they can keep their free apps free."

... "The average iPhone user spends a little over 30 minutes every day using apps. Over 30 minutes every day, using apps on their phone. Now, if we said we want to put an ad up every 3 minutes, that would be 10 ads per device per day. 10 ads within 30 minutes, it's about the same as a television show. We're going to soon have 100,000,000 devices. That's 1 Billion ad opportunities per day in the iPhone community!"

Terrible idea that will create a lot of animosity and be seen as a self-own.

I'm fed up with advertising personally, I know there is 'so much money to be made' but I'm tired of having stuff rammed down my throat no matter what I do, I don't do well with sensory distraction, I want to live my life and do what I want to do, without being bombarded to buy something every time I try to do something

I have the uncanny feeling of being quoted verbatim when reading your reply.

Adding a PiHole and opting out of tracking and cookies wherever possible improved my online experience considerably. Also, paying for services like Kagi (kagi.com, I am not affiliated), that work on a subscription basis to provide their functionality, was a relief.

I’m also a Kagi subscriber, will never go back to google.

Ads done well -- relevant, not intrusive to what I'm trying to accomplish -- are welcome IMO. It's usually the piece of crap that they shove in your face with pop-ups or obstruct my task in the moment that drive me up the wall.

UX matters there too and so hopefully it's done well.

Ads done well may be tolerable but I've never thought of advertising as welcome. Maybe that's just me. At best it's like background noise, at worst it's mind pollution.

The other problem is that "good" ads almost inevitably devolve towards "bad" ads as there is always incremental profit to be made from making your ads more intrusive while the cost to the brand/product is hard to quantify until one day a competitor comes along and eats your lunch.

Edit: One thing that became clear to me recently is that relevant ads do not maximize profitability. A market where ads are less relevant has more ad placement inventory because high-margin "irrelevant" advertising can be placed in front of more people.

For example, I've never expressed an interest in gambling, poker, or casinos. But those businesses have more money to advertise so I see their ads anyways. An ad platform is not going to leave money on the table from these advertisers just because they're "not relevant" to me.

> there is so much money to be made

so what? why are we as a society slaves to the advertisers, or to the money they offer? what else will we do for money? first we sell our user's attention when they look at an ad. then we sell their information so you can craft ads to grab more of their attention. then, once they've bought a product, we use that product to serve more ads to them so that we get more of their attention so our ads are more effective... when does it end?

advertisements are exhausting and degrade the quality of life of everyone who views them. if you work for a company that derives its income from ads then you are part of the problem, and you can quit anytime, but you won't, will you? because of money. beautiful advertising money. oh there is so much of it. and there are homes with blank walls which do not serve advertisements and I'm going to found a company to address this gap; it's insane that people can simply choose to avoid advertising when they want to. those people are an untapped market of opportunities...

please everyone just stop with the advertising. holy shit just stop.

and if you work for an advertising company, climb out of the sewer and join a company that makes lives better in literally any way that is not advertising, because ads do not improve quality of life for anyone that is not an advertiser.

The biggest problem for Apple is once they established advertising, they've given themselves perverse incentives to constantly degrade their product. There will be strong financial reasons to make the user experience worse, every quarter, and every revision. Same thing that happened to, for instance, Google and Facebook.

It may be profitable for years, but it'll also kill the product over the long term.

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