Live data from Hacker News

Apple surpassed $3.5B in annual revenue from its ad network

twitter.com

81–90 of 250 posts

Re: Apple surpassed $3.5B in annual revenue from its ad network

#82

> But it crushed FB, Snap, and 1000s of small businesses in the process. Ironically, this is far more of a narrative than this guy’s idea of Apple’s “narrative.” The idea that banning user tracking hurts small businesses was FB’s narrative to try and get backlash against Apple for its tracking crackdown. That genuinely is a narrative because from Apple’s decision we have seen that consumers (1) prefer not to be track…

personalized ads - has an opt out button right there!

I saw something amusing last week.

It was an ad being played on a local TV station. It had one of those little blue swirly "Your Ad Choices" arrow icons in the corner that are displayed on advertisements on the web.¹

This was being transmitted by a television station over the air. What, exactly was I supposed to do with that?

On a related note, getting an ATSC OTA DVR is an awesome way to watch television with zero tracking, and 100% portability. Record video directly to a USB stick, and transcode to whatever device I want for free, and keep it forever, for free. No streaming. No tracking. No subscriptions. No network charges. Just $35 to Amazon for the box.

I know that not everyone has a lot of OTA choices, but in some cities, like mine, there are over 100 channels. About 40 if you filter out infomercials, religion, and non-English. I was surprised to find there's a 24-hour news,² and 24-hour weather station³ OTA these days.

1: https://youradchoices.com 2: https://www.newsy.com 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_Weather

Re: Apple surpassed $3.5B in annual revenue from its ad network

#83

I don’t understand the point of this thread. Apple never said that advertising is bad. They just said tracking users across web is bad. When I use FB app, FB can still use my activity in their app to show me relevant ads, which they do. Apple can do the same but their prompt gives users the ability to turn that personalization off as well. This is different from tracking and apple is giving a choice where FB and Goog…

But advertising is bad, it's just lucrative. I never want to see an ad when I use my phone, every single ad contributes to a worse experience. Every dollar that Apple manages to squeeze out of ads will come at the cost of making their devices worse. They could have resisted this and concentrated on making gigantic profits from building devices.

If they can't say no to money, why don't they go into porn instead? They can't be too good for it, the ad business is far slimier than that.

Re: Apple surpassed $3.5B in annual revenue from its ad network

#84
post #30

> But it crushed FB, Snap, and 1000s of small businesses in the process. Ironically, this is far more of a narrative than this guy’s idea of Apple’s “narrative.” The idea that banning user tracking hurts small businesses was FB’s narrative to try and get backlash against Apple for its tracking crackdown. That genuinely is a narrative because from Apple’s decision we have seen that consumers (1) prefer not to be track…

While this is a "narrative", there is quite a lot data back that this is a fact. You can argue that you trust and fell comfortable to give apple the power of crushing any other small businesses they don't care based on Apple's own company decision. BTW, you can here the same story from small businesses' narrative: https://www.npr.org/2022/03/17/1087425495/tech-giants-and-ti...

I mean, isn't it "people's desire not to have personalized ads driven by cross-site tracking crushed a bunch of small business"? This is a market effect, basically.

Re: Apple surpassed $3.5B in annual revenue from its ad network

#85

> But it crushed FB, Snap, and 1000s of small businesses in the process. Ironically, this is far more of a narrative than this guy’s idea of Apple’s “narrative.” The idea that banning user tracking hurts small businesses was FB’s narrative to try and get backlash against Apple for its tracking crackdown. That genuinely is a narrative because from Apple’s decision we have seen that consumers (1) prefer not to be track…

tl;dr; Apple stopped Facebook from tracking (for privacy lol), now Apple gets more cash in the ad game because they are the only ones that can track. Well played Apple.

Re: Apple surpassed $3.5B in annual revenue from its ad network

#86
post #58

It's a shame Apple are going down the ad route, this is what the Stocks app on MacOS looks like - https://i.imgur.com/xGrzfyL.png I'd be ok if it was a big 'Diet Coke' or other big brand app, but low level spam being injected into first party apps is just not on, it might have made more revenue but at what detriment to the brand value? Over time I think more ad revenue is going to equal more brand damage in 1st party…

That's not what Stocks looks like - you scrolled down about two pages to get to the ad. You make it look like the ad is first. https://imgur.com/a/t7ncKoc

Re: Apple surpassed $3.5B in annual revenue from its ad network

#88
post #58

It's a shame Apple are going down the ad route, this is what the Stocks app on MacOS looks like - https://i.imgur.com/xGrzfyL.png I'd be ok if it was a big 'Diet Coke' or other big brand app, but low level spam being injected into first party apps is just not on, it might have made more revenue but at what detriment to the brand value? Over time I think more ad revenue is going to equal more brand damage in 1st party…

That's not what Stocks looks like - you scrolled down about two pages to get to the ad. You make it look like the ad is first. https://imgur.com/a/t7ncKoc

In any event, I am upset the advertisement is there at all.

Re: Apple surpassed $3.5B in annual revenue from its ad network

#90

> But it crushed FB, Snap, and 1000s of small businesses in the process. Ironically, this is far more of a narrative than this guy’s idea of Apple’s “narrative.” The idea that banning user tracking hurts small businesses was FB’s narrative to try and get backlash against Apple for its tracking crackdown. That genuinely is a narrative because from Apple’s decision we have seen that consumers (1) prefer not to be track…

Facebook likes to demonstrate how useful they are by showing traffic/revenue of people who advertise through them vs people who don't, and then say "look! The people who do it are making way more money!" Ignoring the fact that they intentionally suppress businesses who don't pay them.

It's like if the mafia came by your business every week to collect their $1000 to not break your kneecaps and say "look at all the happy businesses who pay us walking around, and the people who don't do business with us dragging themselves across the floor with their hands. We're an important factor in keeping people walking!"

Post reply on HN