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Apple refunding all purchases of Peace

marco.org

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Re: Apple refunding all purchases of Peace

#41

Post by georgemcbay »

bsder wrote: post #37

Translation: "Ad blocking is turning out to be way more popular than we expected, and it's making some rich friends of mine very scared." Even I'm surprised at how popular ad blocking is becoming. I would not have expected the general public to be willing to actually pay money to block ads. Of course, when you have ads that try to take over my browser (Android), won't go away when you hit the "go away" button (iOS),…

I don't branch out onto websites that aren't already known quantity destinations for me (especially on mobile, but increasingly on desktop/laptop as well) because the race to the bottom of the web advertising model has basically ruined everything.

It isn't even the ads themselves (easily blocked, of course) that cause the problem, but the horrible user-hostile layouts that are clearly designed to maximize page views (and thus ad impressions).

What should be a one page essay is like 20 fucking goddamn pages of bullshit (rage getting to me just thinking about it). Ain't nobody got time for that.

This is, I think, basically the web version of how desktop shareware authors destroyed their own market with the downward spiral of including increasingly annoying "installer add-ons".

PS. I will note here prior to claims of blocking being the problem that I never ran an ad blocker personally (other than for testing) until 2014, and only started then because "the web" as a whole basically forced my hand by making the idea of using the web without one completely unbearable.

Re: Apple refunding all purchases of Peace

#42

Post by tcbawo »

adiabatty wrote: post #35
coldtea wrote: post #28

About this guilt for ad-blocking thing: wasn't Marco's entire fortune (pre Tumblr buyout) made by selling a service used to bypass content owners entirely and read their articles without ads, in one page, and in his own templates?

Not really. Instapaper's design was such that you had to look at the site — with all the ads — at least once to save the page to it. This was by design. Instapaper users wouldn't see ads on subsequent pages or on subsequent viewings, though.

Skipping the cruft of formatting and advertisements was a prime benefit, as I recall. How many users wouldn't immediately jump to the reformatted version?

Re: Apple refunding all purchases of Peace

#43

Post by chillacy »

digi_owl wrote: post #39
bsder wrote: post #37

Translation: "Ad blocking is turning out to be way more popular than we expected, and it's making some rich friends of mine very scared." Even I'm surprised at how popular ad blocking is becoming. I would not have expected the general public to be willing to actually pay money to block ads. Of course, when you have ads that try to take over my browser (Android), won't go away when you hit the "go away" button (iOS),…

Welcome to the Streisand effect. While it was extensions for browsers etc, it was one thing. But now Apple (take note) has built it into their most talked about product. And given how the media production and apple products are intertwined, suddenly the media people sit up, take notes, and start talking/writing about it.

That doesn't sound like the Streisand effect. The Streisand effect would apply if ad networks actively suppressed information about ad blocking technology, sending DMCA takedown requests and threatening providers who host this type of software, which creates such a media buzz that people start picking it up, more because of the suppression than if the ad networks had just ignored it in the first place.

Re: Apple refunding all purchases of Peace

#44

Post by hraedon »

prawn wrote: post #40

Other things he could've considered: - changing Peace into a more responsible content-blocker, if that was his concern - giving the proceeds to charity - putting the proceeds towards a new type of ad company, or a new type of new/media business - funding scholarships for journalists

1 is explained in his previous article: he doesn't want to be the arbiter of what is blocked and what is permissible

2 he addresses in the linked piece: which charity?

3: he tried this already with The Magazine and learned that he does not like those challenges

4: this is a bad solution and I'm assuming you offered it as a joke

Re: Apple refunding all purchases of Peace

#45

Post by lips »

ryanSrich wrote: post #19
johnpowell wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was a founder in Tumblr. He probably isn't worried about cash.

Yep. Pretty easy to put your money where your mouth is when you have gobs of it.

And yet so many people with aforementioned gobs don't. Stand-up guy is stand-up.

The Apple side of this is intriguing. I guess this is pocket change to them, but did they do this after reading about his thoughts and decision? Or was it simply cost-effective to batch return the money vs. reviewing and processing an unknown number of individual requests?

Re: Apple refunding all purchases of Peace

#48

Post by iofj »

lips wrote: post #45
ryanSrich wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Pretty easy to put your money where your mouth is when you have gobs of it.

And yet so many people with aforementioned gobs don't. Stand-up guy is stand-up. The Apple side of this is intriguing. I guess this is pocket change to them, but did they do this after reading about his thoughts and decision? Or was it simply cost-effective to batch return the money vs. reviewing and processing an unknown number of individual requests?

Alternate explanation : he's still employed by yahoo, has millions in unvested shared (it's still less than 4 years), and got threatened with termination.

Just an alternative theory. He may have simply chosen the more money option.

Re: Apple refunding all purchases of Peace

#49

Post by yarou »

vacri wrote: post #38
coldtea wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't make it any less true to the point that's a trivial observation: people with more money can more easily afford to give some of it where "their mouth is".

Nevertheless, just because it's "easier" doesn't mean that it's actually done - there are plenty of arsehole rich folks who could spread their money around more. A rich person being nice is still a person being nice.

Sure, but a rich person is also a person that is rich. Their calculus in determining a potentially "ethical" decision is much different than, say, a developer struggling in the former eastern bloc.

People rarely ever operate in a vacuum, and a person is subconsciously influenced by a variety of factors, of which financial status is one. In this particular instance, it would be a bit disingenuous to assume that Marco made this decision on his own, operating in a vacuum. The real world is a lot more complex than the simple case you are making it to be.

Re: Apple refunding all purchases of Peace

#50

Post by PhasmaFelis »

tempestn wrote: post #3

Apparently Marco Arment made an ad-blocking app for iOS called Peace, then after 2 days decided that he didn't want to be in the ad blocking business for ethical reasons and so pulled the app. He explains his reasoning here: http://www.marco.org/2015/09/18/just-doesnt-feel-good In this update, Apple has made the (apparently unprecedented) decision to proactively refund all purchases of the app, rather than requiring…

There really needs to be some way to pin these "necessary context for understanding the post" comments to the top of the thread. (Other than just upvoting, which as of right now hasn't yet achieved that.)
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