Apple buying Google ads for high-value subscription apps • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple buying Google ads for high-value subscription apps

#31

Post by _hyn3 » Sun, Nov 14, 2021, 4:45 PM UTC

tauwauwau wrote: post #17

FridayoLeary wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

can you explain to me this attitude, which i see a lot? Obviously the entire reason for a companys' existence is to make money why should we expect anything else? Also this is true for every company in history. Of course we must demand companies meet minimum moral standards such as not using slaves (which would be unthinkable today in 2021 cough ) but those must be imposed on them by law. This is a genuine question p…

Money corrupts everything, it replaces the original motivation. If companies didn't have to maximize x% of the profit made on the investor's money per quarter/year, they will be able to focus on product/service, customer and employees more. It may result in less profit but it will be better for the society as a whole. We can see this happening when some company is acquired solely for sucking money out of it. Sometime…

> Money corrupts everything, it replaces the original motivation.

What do you believe the original motivation was, if it wasn't money?

Re: Apple buying Google ads for high-value subscription apps

#32

Post by pokot0 » Sun, Nov 14, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

foerbert wrote: post #20

pokot0 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This! I see so many people who seem to have forgotten that companies exist only to serve the people. When society is run to protect companies over the well being of the people, thay have lost their reason to exist in the first place. On the flip side, I see numerous posts and comments on HN that blame companies for not behaving more ethical. This is complete nonsense to me; you can't expect companies to autoregulate…

I think it's both reasonable and important to criticize companies for behaving unethically even when it's not illegal. At the end of the day the "company" itself is incapable of doing anything. Humans are the ones actually making these decisions and then actually carrying them out. Unfortunately we don't and likely won't ever know who exactly did what. The best we can do is point at the company as a whole and say tha…

I agree with you. I think it is perfectly healthy to criticize companies and even boycott their products if we don't share their values. This is what I referred to by "controlling the market". Unfortunately this has historically provided very little results imo.

What I was referring to is the expectation that this criticism can make the difference; I don't think it can, for mostly one single reason: if you happen to make progress and magically turn 99% of the people running companies ethical, you have created a huge incentive for being evil. Someone acting unethical will reap the benefit without competitor.

I tend to see these dynamics as balances and movement from balances when something changes. I think changing laws changes the balance point and after a shake, the system will settle somewhere else. Trying to persuade managers to be ethical it's just a fight against the balance that you will eventually lose.

Re: Apple buying Google ads for high-value subscription apps

#33

Post by _hyn3 » Sun, Nov 14, 2021, 4:47 PM UTC

varispeed wrote: post #12

pfortuny wrote: post #2

> Apple is trying maximize the money they’re making … And that is the problem with our modern companies. The only morals is making money. What a pitiful excuse.

I think the problem is that some big corporations are allowed to avoid paying tax, essentially getting huge competitive advantage over SMEs. The anomalous capital they were able to amass further enables them to corrupt governments to ensure regulatory capture and that any investigations in their tax affairs get dropped.

That's one (gigantic) problem, but not necessarily the problem.

Re: Apple buying Google ads for high-value subscription apps

#34

Post by pokot0 » Sun, Nov 14, 2021, 4:57 PM UTC

FridayoLeary wrote: post #18

pokot0 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This! I see so many people who seem to have forgotten that companies exist only to serve the people. When society is run to protect companies over the well being of the people, thay have lost their reason to exist in the first place. On the flip side, I see numerous posts and comments on HN that blame companies for not behaving more ethical. This is complete nonsense to me; you can't expect companies to autoregulate…

> When society is run to protect companies over the well being of the people, thay have lost their reason to exist in the first place. According to you, seeing as almost every country in history was run exclusively for the benefit of the ruling class, none of them had a reason to exist? > But the US has done a very poor job at selecting their politician leadership for a long time now. Agreed. But i think it's a probl…

> According to you, seeing as almost every country in history was run exclusively for the benefit of the ruling class, none of them had a reason to exist?

Hmm... with "reason to exist" I meant the reason why they were "created" in the first place. This is an interesting article that expands on how corporation "rights" have changed since foundation (take the historical data points more than the underlying political bias): https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_r...

> Agreed. But i think it's a problem in the system itself. The us have a binary choice between hilary/biden and trump with no middle ground.

Indeed! I believe the problem in the system is even deeper. Regardless of your values or your preferred policies, I really feel hilary/biden/trump is a very poor display for the United States. The selection process that brought them there is not working. Smart people avoid going into politics in the first place because of this selection process. People don't want to spend their days arguing with a guy with bogus claim that is only trying to bring them down.

Re: Apple buying Google ads for high-value subscription apps

#35

Post by AnthonyMouse » Sun, Nov 14, 2021, 4:59 PM UTC

FridayoLeary wrote: post #5

pfortuny wrote: post #2

> Apple is trying maximize the money they’re making … And that is the problem with our modern companies. The only morals is making money. What a pitiful excuse.

can you explain to me this attitude, which i see a lot? Obviously the entire reason for a companys' existence is to make money why should we expect anything else? Also this is true for every company in history. Of course we must demand companies meet minimum moral standards such as not using slaves (which would be unthinkable today in 2021 cough ) but those must be imposed on them by law. This is a genuine question p…

> Obviously the entire reason for a companys' existence is to make money why should we expect anything else?

The way this is supposed to work is that you make flour and I want flour so I give you money and you give me flour. Then you make more money by automating the production of flour so you can sell it to me for a lower price even though you now have higher margins. And try to take market share from competitors who are doing the same thing. The profit motive increases efficiency. This is growing the pie.

The nefarious way to make money is to swipe somebody else's piece. This is rent seeking. It causes prices to increase with no increase in value. It is to be destroyed.

Re: Apple buying Google ads for high-value subscription apps

#36

Post by Aulig » Sun, Nov 14, 2021, 5:07 PM UTC

Brian_K_White wrote: post #24

It's actually an interesting question how nefarious or harmful this actually is. We obviously know why Apple is doing it and why the apps in question don't like it. But a couple things occurred to me: You could view this like Amazon giving away your book or android app in a promotion. As I understand it, they still pay the author as if it were a sale, so the author seemingly has nothong to complain about. Even that s…

>Any sales generated by the ads would not have existed without the ad, and so it's not taking anything from the app developer.

This argument is not very convincing in my opinion, as it looks like Apple is purchasing ads for brand keywords. If the ad wasn't there, the customer would go to the brands website, which would be ranked #1 without the ad.

Re: Apple buying Google ads for high-value subscription apps

#37

Post by spacedcowboy » Sun, Nov 14, 2021, 5:15 PM UTC

betterunix2 wrote: post #29

tauwauwau wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money corrupts everything, it replaces the original motivation. If companies didn't have to maximize x% of the profit made on the investor's money per quarter/year, they will be able to focus on product/service, customer and employees more. It may result in less profit but it will be better for the society as a whole. We can see this happening when some company is acquired solely for sucking money out of it. Sometime…

"Money corrupts everything" BS. One of the only things Ayn Rand got right was her view of money: it is one of the greatest forces for good humans have ever invented. Money allows us to settle our disputes without violence; money is what enables peaceful trade; money is how we moved beyond palace economies. Sure, money can corrupt some things, but on the whole money has likely saved many lives and in all likelihood th…

Money is nothing but a sophisticated barter system. Instead of “I will give you 3 apples from my tree for a dozen eggs from your hens”, there is an indirection through a standardized property - money. Now we can say my apples are worth 4 shekels each and your eggs are worth 1 shekel each, and we can still agree on the same transaction.

The difference (some would argue, improvement) is that shekels have a worth of their own, so can be stored against harder times, which may not have been possible with the goods they bought. Of course, that shekel value being variable over time, can equally lead to riches or ruin, and requires a more sophisticated treatment by perhaps insufficiently sophisticated participants; snakes and ladders.

In any event, societies existed well before this “money” thing came along, even free ones. High technology societies do need a money system, I think; for automated transactions to take place, there needs to be a standardized good-exchange valuation, but not all high-tech societies are free, and not all free societies are high-tech. Freedom seems orthogonal to money.

Re: Apple buying Google ads for high-value subscription apps

#38

Post by tauwauwau » Sun, Nov 14, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

_hyn3 wrote: post #31

tauwauwau wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money corrupts everything, it replaces the original motivation. If companies didn't have to maximize x% of the profit made on the investor's money per quarter/year, they will be able to focus on product/service, customer and employees more. It may result in less profit but it will be better for the society as a whole. We can see this happening when some company is acquired solely for sucking money out of it. Sometime…

> Money corrupts everything, it replaces the original motivation. What do you believe the original motivation was, if it wasn't money?

To me original motivation is solving a problem and innovation. If you come up with an idea to create a service/product, you may be invested in the innovation in the beginning. But, as soon as you start making it using other people's money, it starts being less about the product.

[Edit] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f61KMw5zVhg&ab_channel=batxg...

Richard Feynman, explaining if "it" was worth the Nobel Prize.

"...I already got the prize. Prize is the pleasure of finding the thing out, kick in the discovery, the observation other people use it. Those are the real things..."

Re: Apple buying Google ads for high-value subscription apps

#39

Post by ClumsyPilot » Sun, Nov 14, 2021, 5:22 PM UTC

betterunix2 wrote: post #29

tauwauwau wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money corrupts everything, it replaces the original motivation. If companies didn't have to maximize x% of the profit made on the investor's money per quarter/year, they will be able to focus on product/service, customer and employees more. It may result in less profit but it will be better for the society as a whole. We can see this happening when some company is acquired solely for sucking money out of it. Sometime…

"Money corrupts everything" BS. One of the only things Ayn Rand got right was her view of money: it is one of the greatest forces for good humans have ever invented. Money allows us to settle our disputes without violence; money is what enables peaceful trade; money is how we moved beyond palace economies. Sure, money can corrupt some things, but on the whole money has likely saved many lives and in all likelihood th…

"Money allows us to settle our disputes without violence"

What? Money is the cause of like70% of all violence

Re: Apple buying Google ads for high-value subscription apps

#40

Post by echelon » Sun, Nov 14, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

Brian_K_White wrote: post #24

It's actually an interesting question how nefarious or harmful this actually is. We obviously know why Apple is doing it and why the apps in question don't like it. But a couple things occurred to me: You could view this like Amazon giving away your book or android app in a promotion. As I understand it, they still pay the author as if it were a sale, so the author seemingly has nothong to complain about. Even that s…

This shows just how much a monopoly Apple has over brand customer interaction.

They say that their app store not allowing side loading is for user safety.

In actuality, it forces the brand/company/startup into a place where they're completely shackled. They pay 30% taxes, have no customer relationship, and have to step through every hoop to satisfy apple.

The handicap their browser so you can't get new runtimes or deploy software via alternate means. Good luck launching your media startup on iPhone without an app.

Now this. They're clearly trying to gobble up any interest in other apps and force them into the payment shackles.

This is a fucking monopoly! Please stop this, department of justice! Apple has undue power in computing! Every company has to go through them to reach 50% of consumers, and apple is extorting us!

Apple says you're welcome to go to consumers another way, and then they do this. Look at their actions.