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Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

economist.com

251–260 of 579 posts

Re: Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

#251
I think their Metaverse push was actually a great way for rats to escape a sinking ship ... by finding a new ship!

Facebook just could never really capture the whole "facilitating real world interactions" thing, and for most people it became simply a way to maintain an online avatar / identity, argue about politics, comment on cat memes, and otherwise waste time in cyberspace. That's what they're good at, and maybe with the metaverse they can at least make people more productive with that.

Now there are BENEFITS to MetaVerse. Less usage of fossil fuels. Facebook also facilitated conversations between people around the world, that would otherwise not meet. But its centralized nature and limited flexibility held back the whole space.

But when it comes to making plans in real life, forming relationships, deal flow etc. you need open source software like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ1O_gmPneI

Re: Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

#252
post #32

All Apple did was give users the choice. Users choosing to deny Facebook the permission to share their data? That's entirely on Facebook.

I see this in the thread but I have to say that I disagree a bit. I'm certainly glad Apple gave users a choice, but you have to consider "the tyranny of the default" which is a great phrase I think. Most people will simply use the default option, so Apple's choice of default says something.

The default is to ask you with buttons that are the same size. You can specifically go into settings and disable tracking for all apps. But it isn’t the default.

Re: Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

#253
post #10

> But last year, citing privacy concerns, Apple turned off IDFA by default and forced apps to ask people if they want to be tracked. It seems most do not: a study in December by AppsFlyer, an ad-tech company, suggested that 54% of Apple users who saw the prompt opted out. Hard to believe that nearly half of all people is ok with being tracked...

Also this is 54% of people who saw the prompt. The standard practice for this sort of prompt in products that are trying to _optimise_ acceptance is to pre-ask the user first, almost "If we asked you if we can track you, would you be likely to accept". So that's 54% of users who are probably ok with the idea of personalised ads or however the app pitched it, then go on to say "actually no". Essentially this number is…

Facebook does pre ask.

Re: Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with you that Facebook (the app) is in decline and Facebook/Meta are rushing to diversify as the market changes, the premise of the article that Apples change has significantly effected Facebooks revenues is not a lie. Apples change has fundamentally damaged ad conversion attribution from the Facebook/Instagram apps on iOS, we have seen it it ourselves. It may be that the exact figure of $10B is inflate…

Please correct me if I'm wrong. This privacy change only affects apps on iOS? I only use the facebook.com website. Ad tracking in that context hasn't changed?

https://www.statista.com/statistics/377808/distribution-of-f...

80% of Facebook users exclusively use mobile, and iOS has the largest market share in Facebook's largest market by revenue.

Re: Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Users of iPhones are many many times more valuable to advertisers than Android users.

iPhone users spend much more money on Apps per user - but the vast majority of advertising is not for apps. It's to buy real things. Android Users spend similar amounts as iOS users on everything besides apps. Even in-app purchases for games isn't "many many times more" - it's close to 2x.

How is this possibly true when the average household income of iOS users is higher in every country that has any significant iPhone presents

Re: Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

#256
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cant upvote you enough. This single comment contains many of the contrarian view against HN. It is nice we have these real world stories on HN to balance the ideological fight against ads, where All Ads are evil.

Well no one's arguing that targeted ads are not effective. This is just an example of how well it works, so upvoting it may not be the best way to bolster your side of the fight.

>Well no one's arguing that targeted ads are not effective.

Oh they sure were. All ads are useless. Targeted ads are evil. And Ads should not be targeted were the HN's view, which later became there shouldn't even be any ads, it should all be subscription. That is 2018/19. By 20/21 HN were even targeting those who were working inside the online Ad industry. And this is seen across the tens of thousands of comments. ( Say 50 Thread of 200 comments )

It became such a problem that people working inside Ad industry were even afraid to post their views on HN. And they have to be upvoted to make sure there are still sanity inside the HN community.

Re: Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

#257
post #115
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see a lot TikTok type video on any of the channels I watch on YouTube.

Just fire up YT shorts. Nothing but content from TikTok.

I think I have seen that... I don't mind it in a way as I'd rather watch it on youtube than install the tiktok app.

Granted I'm also not going out of my way to watch it so not a big win for YT.

Re: Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

#258
post #74

Nice how Zuck said $10bn in the analysts call with nothing to back it up, but the whole press jumps on it. Apple is not Facebook's problem, all they did was giving users a choice, which should have happened ages ago. So Facebook just says Apple kills our business without ever thinking that maybe users don't like the way they do business. If they did, they wouldn't opt out…

> Nice how Zuck said $10bn in the analysts call with nothing to back it up, but the whole press jumps on it. If Zuck knowingly gave investors bad guidance, I don't think that would go over well with the SEC: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEC_Rule_10b-5#Forward-looking... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward-looking_statement

Yeah, the CEO of a company saying numbers on official communication to investors is pretty compelling evidence on its own, especially if it's bad news. Executives don't generally lie about specifics to their investors, unless they're doing something completely fraudulent. And if you think that's the case for Facebook, you're going to need more evidence then just a gut feeling.

Re: Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

#259

Lies. Don’t you all see it? Facebook has been declining over the past year and this is a convenient way to blame someone - anyone. Let’s face it, what are your friends all using now? That’s right - video - YouTube and TikTok. Facebook had no answer for video and thus lost a lot of eyeballs. Instagram is a poor clone of TikTok and most people just repost their popular TikTok videos on Instagram reels anyway - hardly a…

> I knew that he saw this day coming perhaps years ago

The only way the Metaverse would be a viable replacement for Facebook would be if Occulus (or similar VR headset) adoption was to rise to the level of iPhone adoption, and subsequent integration into nearly every aspect of daily life. This seems to be incredibly unlikely to me.

I have an Occulus quest. The first week I had it I thought it was the most amazing device I ever owned. A month later I used it less, and now, a few years later, it's gathering dust on a shelf. VR is great, but it takes a fair amount of energy, space and time to use. Even from solely the perspective of gaming, the low-power, light weight Switch has had a much bigger impact on my life than the Quest. I can play BotW for 4 hours without fatigue if I have time, with VR more than an hour and I start to feel very tired of the experience.

Now compare the Quest with the iphone, I'm looking at my iphone as I type this on my laptop. I use my iphone to order food, find directions around town, communicate with my family, check up on work. 8 or so years back I tried going back to a "dumb" phone and ultimately went back. I switched to android for a few years and still went back to the iphone since it has so many services nicely integrated.

I simply can't imagine any world where the "metaverse" comes anywhere near the adoption of facebook, even if Meta mailed an occulus to everyone on the planet for free.

Re: Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

#260
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought you could not short stocks in an Ira, only sell covered calls? Is there some way around this rule? https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/10311...

options, maybe?

Yea sounds like put options, an outright short wouldn’t have gained that much %
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