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Apple refunding all purchases of Peace

marco.org

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Re: Apple refunding all purchases of Peace

#61

Post by otabdeveloper1 »

blazespin wrote: post #6

Surreal. What's wrong with ad blocking? Maybe it would have created a market for micropayments which maybe it's far superior to ads? I know on my MIFI which charges insane amounts for wifi, anything that blocks popup videos or images while maintaining text and formatting is definitely loved by me.

> What's wrong with ad blocking?

It gives Google a monopoly in selling users' private data. Nobody can ad-block Google. (And Google Analytics.)

> Maybe it would have created a market for micropayments which maybe it's far superior to ads?

Believe me, if micropayments were a viable thing, then ad networks would be the first to jump ship. The current intrusive advertising model doesn't make anyone happy, ad networks included. (Ad networks don't profit from intrusive malware advertising. This is a 'tragedy of the commons' scenario, too much advertising hurts ultimately hurts the ad network bottom line.)

Re: Apple refunding all purchases of Peace

#62

Post by hollerith »

otabdeveloper1 wrote: post #61
blazespin wrote: post #6

Surreal. What's wrong with ad blocking? Maybe it would have created a market for micropayments which maybe it's far superior to ads? I know on my MIFI which charges insane amounts for wifi, anything that blocks popup videos or images while maintaining text and formatting is definitely loved by me.

> What's wrong with ad blocking? It gives Google a monopoly in selling users' private data. Nobody can ad-block Google. (And Google Analytics.) > Maybe it would have created a market for micropayments which maybe it's far superior to ads? Believe me, if micropayments were a viable thing, then ad networks would be the first to jump ship. The current intrusive advertising model doesn't make anyone happy, ad networks in…

>Nobody can ad-block Google. (And Google Analytics.)

What do you mean by this? (I've had google-analytics.com in my /etc/hosts file for many years.)

Re: Apple refunding all purchases of Peace

#63

Post by threatofrain »

blazespin wrote: post #6

Surreal. What's wrong with ad blocking? Maybe it would have created a market for micropayments which maybe it's far superior to ads? I know on my MIFI which charges insane amounts for wifi, anything that blocks popup videos or images while maintaining text and formatting is definitely loved by me.

I think the way Marcos Arment writes indicates that he is unwilling to have an opinion on anything which could cause above some threshold of harm. Which is a fine position to take if you don't feel up to the task of policymaking. Let someone else take up the position.

Re: Apple refunding all purchases of Peace

#64

Post by coldtea »

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.

Yeah, but just once though, and not to read the article there (obviously). You just saved it to "read it later".

So you didn't spend much time in the site, didn't see all the article pages (when they break it in multiple pages), and you sure didn't click any ads.

Re: Apple refunding all purchases of Peace

#65

Post by coldtea »

vacri wrote: post #55
yarou wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So... you're saying that "rich people can't act morally, because they have fat wallets" isn't a simple case? That's what I'm arguing against. You're projecting this 'vacuum' idea onto me, because I said nothing of the sort.

>So... you're saying that "rich people can't act morally, because they have fat wallets"

No, he's saying it's easy for rich people to act morally in such cases, and in others too (e.g. not steal).

Especially in the case of giving back money / charity, that we're talking about in this thread: if both a rich and a poor person give $10.000 to a charity, for a rich person it could be 1/1000 of his income, whereas for an average person it could be 1/5 of his income.

It's not even debatable which made the bigger sacrifice, it's pure math.

In fact (and continuing with the $1m/year vs $50k/year) the rich person giving $10.000 --which can have people swoon, news coverage and a front seat to the charity's dinner party--, would be equivalent (as percentage of income) to the average person giving $50 to his local charity, which nobody would see as particularly great.

Re: Apple refunding all purchases of Peace

#66

Post by anon4 »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #50
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.)

Even better - a small "context" link you can hover and get the context right there on the front page.

Re: Apple refunding all purchases of Peace

#67

Post by itsmillertime4u »

rajacombinator wrote: post #56
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Additional context needed: is there something new in iOS 9 that makes ad blocking possible?

The device has to be a 64-bit CPU though. So if you load iOS 9 on an older iPad or iPhone, then you will not get this feature.

Re: Apple refunding all purchases of Peace

#68

Post by chillacy »

digi_owl wrote: post #54
chillacy wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The media depend on ads for their revenue, and making noise about how bad it is has made people more aware that they can block ads...

Eh, I see the relation but it's not exactly it.

> The Streisand effect is the phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely, usually facilitated by the Internet [wiki]

The streisand effect is about censorship, not about propaganda. If the current coverage is negative, it's a smear campaign at best. Censorship would be refusing to publish any articles on ad blocking entirely and somehow trying to get the apps taken down from the app store.

Re: Apple refunding all purchases of Peace

#69

Post by loumf »

benologist wrote: post #5
solutionyogi wrote: post #4

Wow. That's a real example of putting money where the mouth is. I always felt that he is an opinionated, stand up guy but this move actually proves that he means what he says and he was sincere about his feelings on ad blockers [1]. Much respect. [1] http://www.marco.org/2015/09/18/just-doesnt-feel-good

In the submitted post he says Apple made the decision without consulting him.

This makes sense. The App Store is a store and Marco is a wholesaler to the store -- the customer's relationship is with Apple. Stores refund purchases all of the time without talking to their suppliers (or asking permission).

Peace uses a block-list that was kept up-to-date on a server -- without it, the app is useless (defective). Apple would be negligent not to refund it immediately.

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