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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

#191
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll bet $5 the 'niche business' is drop shipping, and the ads are targeting customers already looking for the product who would have found it for cheaper if not for the ad.

You owe me 5$.

If you don’t mind sharing…

- What was/is your business?

- Which customers were you going after?

- What other marketing / advertising approaches did you try?

Edit: I’m guessing weather forecasting (https://skysight.io/) is the business.

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

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You owe me 5$.

If you don’t mind sharing… - What was/is your business? - Which customers were you going after? - What other marketing / advertising approaches did you try? Edit: I’m guessing weather forecasting ( https://skysight.io/ ) is the business.

Specialist subscription weather forecasting. I don't really want to make myself into a case study here - just sharing my experience that the Apple-induced small-business-advertising-pinch is very real.

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

#193

> 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.

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

That's what you're made to think. :)

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

#194
post #149

> 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…

For the past 5-6 years, 95%+ of HN comments believe Ads are completely useless. And small business making money with ads, ( Facebook or not ) are Facebook or Social Media's narratives. Had your account not been one from 2011, you would have been labeled as shill for Social Media.

To me the problem is that the only upside to targeted advertising seems to be "discover this niche product from a small business that can only exist because it's now cheap to advertise directly to the community it serves", but the targeted ads I get are all mega brands trying to convince me that their product is better than the competition by making me laugh or shocked. Where are all the niche products I was promised?

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

#195

How is that even possible? I use Apple products daily. iPhone, Mac and an AppleTV, where is Apple ad network even a thing? I see someone mention the stock app in macOS, there's typically an ad in the App Store search (which kinda suck) and then there's the in app ads. In app has ads are pretty much a give away that the app is going to suck, so I don't bother with apps that doesn't have a price. If nothing else the ad…

I think it's mostly app store. Amazon's ad service is now bring in 9 billion in revenue, there's tons of money to be made by taking over mindshare at the point of sale.

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

#196
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What he calls Apple’s “narrative” is actually their substantiated history of privacy-protecting technologies. Not just tracking, but iCloud Private Relay, Hide my Email, iMessage E2E encryption, keeping many things on-device only. All these so called "privacy" features are also designed to help Apple data mine your personal data too ... the more data you funnel through Apple servers, the more they know about you an…

What data do you think they're mining from people using iCloud Private Relay?

Internet activity including Safari browsing, all dns queries and all insecure http connections.

Yeah, I know Apple claims that they cannot "see" the data as it is funnelled through some other third-party - CloudFlare, Akamai etc. ... would Apple be willing to reveal the terms of the contract they have with these third-parties? How can anyone be sure Apple hasn't outsourced datamining or made another PRISM like deal with the US government to provide their users data, but through a third-party? We'll never know because there are no US laws and regulations preventing Apple from doing so.

(And when it comes to privacy that's the key thing - in the absence of laws and regulations, it is incredibly foolish to believe BigTech's word. They exist only to make money, which is their right. Hiding the truth, and exaggerating through marketing is an established practice in their world.)

Another thing to note is that BigTech are interested in promoting these kind of technology only to become gatekeepers of collecting and mining users data. Currently, some ISP's collect and store their users history. And make money from selling it. In effect, these ISP's are potential competitors to ad companies. Techs like these (https://blog.cloudflare.com/oblivious-dns/) are designed to disrupt these kind of data collection from the ISPs and undermine their business of selling data. With techs like these, BigTech now again get the upper hand in collecting, mining and monetising user data.

It's bad for distributed internet as a whole (where users have more control) because now BigTech are forcing themselves to be another intermediary, another step between accessing the data we users want.

Politically also, such techs are designed to tighten the grip of US / BigTech on the internet over that of a country's government. That is a big no-no for any democracy as a citizen loses the power to question its government's policy on the internet (including commercial and privacy laws related to it that a government may not be able to enforce because of such tech). It also weakens a country's security surveillance apparatus. Yeah, I know 'National Security' is a bogey that is used by all governments to try and curtail our rights. But would you really prefer that the usage of some of your rights be indirectly dictated by the whims of foreign BigTech or your democracy?

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

#197
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…

basically FLOC; that's quite different than selling your PII to third-parties or targeting you based on your individual profile (i.e., you visited xxxx store so now you all of a sudden see tons of adds from that online store) not saying it's good, but it's probably the least intrusive way to do it; and many users like it. I'd rather never see an ad, but if I do have to see any, I'd prefer to see ads for watches or cy…

> (i.e., you visited xxxx store so now you all of a sudden see tons of adds from that online store)

They do that also:

> When selecting which ad to display from multiple ads for which you are eligible, we may use some of the above-mentioned information, as well as your App Store searches and browsing activity, to determine which ad is likely to be most relevant to you.

> We may also use local, on-device processing to select which ad to display, using information stored on your device, such as the apps you frequently open.

(emphasis added). They don't track your activity across the web, since they can't, but they do track your activity on Apple properties, including your iPhone.

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

#198
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The numbers are mind boggling. Airpods alone does more revenue than Twitter, Spotify, and Square combined [1]. And that was back in 2020.. [1] https://www.acumenfinancial.co.uk/advice/airpods-revenue-vs-...

I wanted to love Airpods, but the fall out of my ears, even when I'm sitting still. The linked article doesn't mention Beats By Dre, so I'm guessing Beats sales are not included in that $23B/year number. I wonder what is the annual for Beats. I bought a pair of the Powerbeats Pro that go over the ear & I quite like them.

> but the fall out of my ears, even when I'm sitting still.

That's mind boggling to me. I basically have mine in 24/7 including my daily run and while I am sleeping. They basically never fall out of my ears, and they somehow made them so comfortable that I don't even notice them and have a mini panic attack when I see they're not in the case.

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

#199
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your reference or comment doesn’t disprove my point, but with the way you wrote it, it seems like you think it does? When they say unrelated, they mean offered by different providers, not of different purposes.

That’s a pretty loose standard for the word “related” If you play around with definitions enough, nobody is collecting unrelated data I suppose.

It’s not a pretty loose or arbitrary standard. For example, it’s a key basis on which data sharing is regulated. The claim that it’s a weak enough definition that it doesn’t matter is inconsistent with criticism that it’s a definition which has materially impacted Facebook’s revenue.

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

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Apple is prioritizing user-privacy which necessarily means it is more difficult for advertisers to place their niche ads. …while rolling out their own alternative, complete with user tracking .

But if apple's tracking is not sold to third parties, is secure, and people trust apple from a security standpoint, is it actually bad for individual privacy?
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