“Apps intended for kids may not include third-party advertising or analytics” • Hacker News Board

Re: “Apps intended for kids may not include third-party advertising or analytics”

#261

Post by petre » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 4:13 AM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #183

soulofmischief wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the feeling, but you must realize that preventing your children from using YouTube is like being the parent who prevented their children from watching television. You're teaching your children about censorship. It's easier, sure, but maybe it's worth the effort to have a mature conversation with them instead of wholesale preventing access to their generation's largest media platform.

How do you have a mature conversation with children who are unable to process (due to age) certain advanced concepts like marketing, advertising, monetization, irrelevancy, deception, exploitation, etc? I don’t think they’re talking adolescents but rather toddlers and young children.

I've seen a three year old kid smart enough to skip youtube ads by hitting the back button and restarting the video immediately afterwards. We, along with his parents and their friends, were quite impressed. Some kids reject ads naturally, because like us, they just aren't interested.

Re: “Apps intended for kids may not include third-party advertising or analytics”

#262

Post by Gaelan » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 4:15 AM UTC

soulofmischief wrote: post #180

saagarjha wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No third-party ads.

So what services are exempt from this ban? Does Apple offer a first-party advertisement plugin?

Not anymore, IIRC. Presumably, app developers would be allowed to sell their own ads in some fashion.

Re: “Apps intended for kids may not include third-party advertising or analytics”

#263

Post by petre » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 4:20 AM UTC

Mirioron wrote: post #255

chii wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nearly impossible to monetize. No ads, but also basically no in-app purchases either. How about a paid app? Charge what it costs to create once. The old model worked fine before the advent of IAP and adware. If the app is good, people would pay for it. Esp. if now there's a specific category for discovery!

There's a disconnect between who plays/uses the app and who pays. How do you know that it's worth the money if you're not going to play it?

Make the first level free, charge for subsequent levels.

Re: “Apps intended for kids may not include third-party advertising or analytics”

#264

Post by petre » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 4:22 AM UTC

frereubu wrote: post #109

lotu wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously, but where do you want to go with that? Are you suggesting that because kids can use any app on a phone that all tracking and ads should be banned?

With all due respect, this is the kind of self-evident truth that I find it weird people use as "yeah, is that what you REALLY want?" Yes, that is what I want. I think society would be much better off without this kind of rubbish, and stuff the financial backers of this amoral race to the optimised bottom.

I think we should educate our kids against ads. They will reject ads anyway when they grow up.

Re: “Apps intended for kids may not include third-party advertising or analytics”

#265

Post by dllthomas » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 4:23 AM UTC

im3w1l wrote: post #260

dllthomas wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the only people who try to mount a case that the answer is yes are people whose livelihoods depend on everyone being OK with ads. Playing devil's advocate... Advertising helps the world in the case where a person has a need and they see an ad that informs them of a way they hadn't considered to address that need, and that solution proves to be better than available alternatives. ... I'm sure that happens ever. I am…

I wish I saw more ads for local entertainment options. Preferably diverse. I don't need 100 ads all telling me to do the same thing at different venues. But an ad informing me that hey, this weekend there will be a model train convention or if you'd rather there is a big chess boxing game you could go see. That'd be cool.

You may very well be aware, but local newspapers (online as well as off) often have a section for events.

Re: “Apps intended for kids may not include third-party advertising or analytics”

#266

Post by robomartin » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 4:31 AM UTC

kerng wrote: post #26

I totally agree with this! I built a game and naively added ads to it as it seemed a good way to monetize. The game started to be really liked, and had 300k+ downloads overall. Many kids started playing it also. Luckily I realized quickly that kids play on the devices of parents and so the ads they might see are at times super inappropriate! Then I removed all ads, I'd rather make less money but have people play and…

We had several children’s apps on iOS back when ads were allowed. We chose to only have a single ad in the parent accessible settings screen and nowhere else. Showing ads to kids simply did not align with our philosophy.

Re: “Apps intended for kids may not include third-party advertising or analytics”

#267

Post by robomartin » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 4:36 AM UTC

bunderbunder wrote: post #225

meowface wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not in the app market, but I run a few user-content-oriented websites which get millions of monthly hits. They're funded only by community donations. I decided to never add any ads to any of them. I'm not sure I morally disagree with advertising or tracking. (In my case, my websites are aimed at adults and there are no concerns about children seeing inappropriate content.) It's not about the morality or even the…

> I'm not sure I morally disagree with advertising or tracking. This seems to me like one of those spots where one's approach to ethics can play a big part in the conclusions you draw. From a sort of Kant-style, deontological perspective, where you have to be able to say with confidence that something is morally wrong in order to make much of a judgment at all about it, yeah, it seems hard to mount a strong case agai…

The problem I have with the anti-advertising crowd is that none of them take their philosophy to the required ethical conclusion: Stop using free ad-supported resources. Google and Facebook are easy examples of this. The position would be far more ethically aligned if they unplugged from all ad-supported products and services.

Re: “Apps intended for kids may not include third-party advertising or analytics”

#268

Post by punnerud » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 4:48 AM UTC

6502nerdface wrote: post #182

punnerud wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Norway also ban: Alcohol, smoke, gaming, all ads to children, all gun related, not allowed to count points in games before children are 13, credit card loans, all health related than can’t show scientific benefit..

> not allowed to count points in games before children are 12 So it's illegal in Norway for my 12-year-old cousin to beat my highscore in Pacman?

As organized sport, yes.

Re: “Apps intended for kids may not include third-party advertising or analytics”

#269

Post by punnerud » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 5:04 AM UTC

mrep wrote: post #163

punnerud wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Norway also ban: Alcohol, smoke, gaming, all ads to children, all gun related, not allowed to count points in games before children are 13, credit card loans, all health related than can’t show scientific benefit..

> Norway also ban: Alcohol, smoke, gaming Gaming, as in like video games and board games are banned? Seriously?

My typo - Should be gambling and all games involved money. The only one allowed is governmental and all the profit from that game go back to sports for kids, and “they” are closely monitoring that you don’t get gambling addicted to that game by forcing you to only play with a personal ID.

Re: “Apps intended for kids may not include third-party advertising or analytics”

#270

Post by Creationer » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 5:09 AM UTC

drivingmenuts wrote: post #125

Creationer wrote: post #72

Apple should just go all in: Disable free to play games targeted at children completely. Require every children's game to have an upfront price (I suppose the $0.99 minimum app charge at least). This would be great news for the market - game developers would focus on building more rewarding gaming experiences, instead of just endless skinner boxes. It would also help sell Apple devices, since developers would not nee…

I think your optimism is misplaced. App developers would soon figure out how to charge 99 cents for a Skinner box.

The 70c that they would get out of that sale would still be much greater than the current ARPU from ad and microtransaction supported games, and would go some way to encouraging gameplay shifts.

Apple could just increase the minimum charge to $4.99 (or its regional equivalents) if it really wanted to increase quality. A decrease in its exorbitant 30% commission would be suitable as well.