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

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

#101

Post by justapassenger »

praestigiare wrote: post #78
plantain wrote: post #68

> But it crushed [snip] 1000s of small businesses in the process. There's a lot of comments here suggesting this is a narrative from FB/Snap, but it really isn't. I was previously able to target adverts directly to the tiny audience of potential users of my product, and the return on those adverts was nearly 10x. Overnight it entirely evaporated as a source of new customers and I don't know how I'd build a niche busi…

The people who have obviously made their preferences clear that they prefer not to be profiled and tracked that way, because the possibility is still there for those who consent to tracking.

It’s merely a corporate story (from both sides) that people made informed choice about that. It’s full of BS everywhere.

Apple fighting for privacy is BS (look at China). Ads networks not affecting privacy is BS. Reducing effectiveness of ads not affecting small business is BS. Moving monopoly in ads market from one group of companies to others being good for people is BS. People understanding impact of all of that on their privacy, small businesses, cost of digital apps, etc is BS.

Both sides spend many millions of dollars to try to swing public and regulatory view of the problem.

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

#103

Post by justapassenger »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #73
plantain wrote: post #68

> But it crushed [snip] 1000s of small businesses in the process. There's a lot of comments here suggesting this is a narrative from FB/Snap, but it really isn't. I was previously able to target adverts directly to the tiny audience of potential users of my product, and the return on those adverts was nearly 10x. Overnight it entirely evaporated as a source of new customers and I don't know how I'd build a niche busi…

Operating a business with a single point of failure is never wise.

You never operated any business right?

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

#104

Post by no_way »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #59
jsnell wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is Apple's privacy policy on ads: https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-advertisin... > We create segments, which are groups of people who share similar characteristics, and use these groups for delivering targeted ads. > We may use information such as the following to assign you to segments: > ... The music, movies, books, TV shows, and apps you download ... > ... The topics and categories of the st…

> We may use information such as the following to assign you to segments My take is that this information is used to give you some sort of cohort identifier that is itself devoid of PII.

Ironically that's kinda similar what Google FLoC was supposed to be.

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

#105

Post by llbeansandrice »

fancl20 wrote: post #41
xbar wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Facebook ads were evil. And now that wiener-dog ramp guy can't spend pennies to buy millions of impressions on cross-app-accessed data, he has to be smarter and work harder to get his ad dollars in the right place. This remains a Facebook privacy story.

Two seperate facts: 1. Apple did use their market power crush small companies. 2. Facebook does have an awful privacy history. So the question is, do you think improving Facebook's privacy must hurt small companies? Another example, Google is working very closely with UK's Competition and Markets Authority to make sure the plan of replacing third-party cookies won't punch other companies at their faces.

These are not separate facts. FB and Google have a global surveillance network to track people which is 1) awful for privacy and 2) makes it easier to serve niche ads to people. Apple is prioritizing user-privacy which necessarily means it is more difficult for advertisers to place their niche ads.

You can frame it as "crush small companies" if you want. But that framing is just as valid as "Apple's narrative".

Third-party cookies should have never been a thing. Google shouldn't get kudos for barely rolling back this privacy nightmare they created while Apple gets punished for being more pro-privacy and pro-user.

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

#106

Post by justapassenger »

shuckles wrote: post #70
jsnell wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Apple is tracking you. They build an advertising profile using your behavior on iOS and your personal information (and at least for me, that included PII that I would never have consented to them using for ad targeting; but they just took it, and hid the opt-out in an obscure settings menu). They then allow targeting of ads based on these fine-grained profiles. Just how is this better than FB?

First of all, your definition of tracking is different from the one used by Apple. Apple’s definition of tracking is sharing information about an identifiable person between unrelated parties. Think Facebook buying all your purchases from Mastercard. Apple simply does not do that. Next, Apple’s cohorts and interest information about audiences is not nearly as detailed as Facebook or Google. And even at a far less det…

Does Facebook buy purchases data from Mastercard? Genuine question.

But meanwhile Apple doesn’t have to buy it. Apple Card and their wallet gives them access to it directly, without having to involve third party.

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

#107

Post by tqi »

monkin wrote: post #11

They put everywhere “we do not track or share data with third-parties” maybe that’s the key difference with other ad networks? It’s not like they follow you around over the web which FB or Google does. I actually don’t even see those ads, as they are only in few apps and App Store.

> It’s not like they follow you around over the web which FB or Google does.

No, they just follow you all over your phone, which you use to go all over the web.

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

#108

Post by justapassenger »

burlesona wrote: post #36
kernal wrote: post #12

I'm looking forward to the discussion on how Apple's ad business is more ethical and good for us.

If Apple is not doing surveillance capitalism, then their advertising revenue is better compared to TV/Radio than to Facebook. Nobody loves advertising, but society seems fine with TV and Radio being paid for by non-surveillance ads. The problem has been the micro-targeting / retargeting at the heart of Facebook and Google's surveillance capitalism model. That model enables a lot of direct to consumer small business,…

Apple’s main source of services profit (app store) is built around algorithmic feed and targeting ads.

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

#109

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

thomasahle wrote: post #63
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://safety.google/privacy/ads-and-data/ > We never sell your personal information

Neither does Google or Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/help/152637448140583 Both of them hold on to your data and allow advertisers to target based on it. Just like Apple does.

The parent's claim was that Apple is a lot better at privacy than Google. It looks like they are basically the same. You could just as accurately claim that they are all equally bad.

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

#110

Post by BiteCode_dev »

plantain wrote: post #68

> But it crushed [snip] 1000s of small businesses in the process. There's a lot of comments here suggesting this is a narrative from FB/Snap, but it really isn't. I was previously able to target adverts directly to the tiny audience of potential users of my product, and the return on those adverts was nearly 10x. Overnight it entirely evaporated as a source of new customers and I don't know how I'd build a niche busi…

Most of the products I like, I didn't discover through ads.

I'm ok with your business failing if it can't work without ads.

The problem here is that ads are not banned, but that they are now the exclusivity of Apple.

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