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Google Joins Apple to Opt-out of Mobile Advertising IDs

thebigtech.substack.com

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Re: Google Joins Apple to Opt-out of Mobile Advertising IDs

#31

Post by alexanderdmitri »

parthdesai wrote: post #17
______- wrote: post #11

> “Senator, We Run Ads” was the iconic response from Facebook’s CEO > And that’s how Facebook still manages to stay free of cost today. I enjoy articles that explain to the layman how the sausage is made. I've always wondered: if enough people know they're the product and know how Facebook makes money, would they delete their account in a fit of rage or continue to use it, knowing that they're victims of surveillance…

Anecdotal, but I think people on HN tend to care about privacy more than the general population. In my friend group, where no one else works in tech, everyone still actively uses facebook. And I haven't even started to talk about Instagram and Whatsapp. An average person doesn't care about it as much as you think or you would like to think that they do. Heck a part of me is happy that I get relevant ads rather than s…

Many people on HN are the ones making the "sausage" grandparent refers to. Maybe the more general public still eats the free food and looks the other way to give the benefit of the doubt, but it's surely a signal that a good deal of people involved with the factory process and its engineering are having a hard time stomaching it.

Re: Google Joins Apple to Opt-out of Mobile Advertising IDs

#32

Post by fireball_blaze »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #24

how long before facebook announces their own browser a la chrome browser and their own phone os a la android ?

Why would people use a Facebook browser?

And Facebook already launched a phone of sorts, with HTC in 2013. Huge flop.

https://www.cnet.com/news/heres-why-the-facebook-phone-flopp...

Re: Google Joins Apple to Opt-out of Mobile Advertising IDs

#33

Post by pavlov »

fireball_blaze wrote: post #28
pavlov wrote: post #16

The article manages to contradict itself at every turn. For example: "Only yesterday, Google announced its plans to make advertising ID an opt-in feature." A few paragraphs later: "Google’s opt-out ad-tracking popup isn’t on the forefront like in iOS. Instead, it’s buried deep in the Google Play Service settings — which could be difficult for the non-tech savvy user to find out." And this opener: "Facebook has a mark…

On 1, I don't think it's a contradiction. It's opt-in by default, and to actually find the setting to opt-in, it's buried deep in the Play Services settings. That's how I read it.

It's opt-out:

https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...

Which undermines the whole premise of the article.

Re: Google Joins Apple to Opt-out of Mobile Advertising IDs

#35

Post by staplers »

parthdesai wrote: post #17
______- wrote: post #11

> “Senator, We Run Ads” was the iconic response from Facebook’s CEO > And that’s how Facebook still manages to stay free of cost today. I enjoy articles that explain to the layman how the sausage is made. I've always wondered: if enough people know they're the product and know how Facebook makes money, would they delete their account in a fit of rage or continue to use it, knowing that they're victims of surveillance…

Anecdotal, but I think people on HN tend to care about privacy more than the general population. In my friend group, where no one else works in tech, everyone still actively uses facebook. And I haven't even started to talk about Instagram and Whatsapp. An average person doesn't care about it as much as you think or you would like to think that they do. Heck a part of me is happy that I get relevant ads rather than s…

Not working in tech means it's unlikely you know how the sausage is made.

Similar to factory farmed meat. I'm sure if you worked there, you'd be more likely to avoid eating it.

Re: Google Joins Apple to Opt-out of Mobile Advertising IDs

#36

Post by PragmaticPulp »

pavlov wrote: post #16

The article manages to contradict itself at every turn. For example: "Only yesterday, Google announced its plans to make advertising ID an opt-in feature." A few paragraphs later: "Google’s opt-out ad-tracking popup isn’t on the forefront like in iOS. Instead, it’s buried deep in the Google Play Service settings — which could be difficult for the non-tech savvy user to find out." And this opener: "Facebook has a mark…

This is common for Substack articles recently: It delivers a conclusion readers want to hear (Facebook bad! Zuckerberg going to lose a lot of money! Business model destroyed!) but the reality doesn’t quite match the pitch once you decipher the underlying facts.

It feels like Substack authors got started in an ultra-competitive world where they knew clickbait journalism was the norm, so they’ve gone all-in on saying whatever they think it takes to grow their subscriber base. I’ve tried subscribing to many smaller Substacks in the past year but the majority of them feel similar to this: A lot of exaggerated sensationalism and recycled material, but little actual analysis. The exceptions have been professional journalists who were already good at writing before joining Substack.

The sensational articles with exaggerated headlines do play well on places like HN where headlines get upvotes before many read the article, so the trend will continue.

Re: Google Joins Apple to Opt-out of Mobile Advertising IDs

#38

Post by andjd »

It's really hard to trust google on anything when it comes to ads and privacy. Will these changes stop Google from tracking and targeting you?

It seems that Facebook might have a much stronger case against Google here, since it's using its success in the smartphone OS market to hobble its biggest competitor in the digital ads market.

Re: Google Joins Apple to Opt-out of Mobile Advertising IDs

#39

Post by bredren »

insert_coin wrote: post #21
faitswulff wrote: post #4

> However, if Mark Zuckerberg goes back on the drawing board to figure what went wrong, he’ll probably realize that data breaches and privacy awareness aren’t the causes of an impending downfall. > Instead, a lack of effort in developing their own operating system a decade ago might be Facebook’s biggest regret. And this has come back to bite them today. Crazy that it came to this.

Is it that crazy? It's the reason Google not only developed Android, but Chrome, ChromeOS, Fuchsia, the Google speaker thing and all that, and Samsung has Tizen, which is sort of their plan B, of plan F or whatever, and Amazon developed the Fire line, Alexa, AWS, the speaker thing, etc. They know they can't trust each other. Even Apple had to develop their own maps! It's really a surprise Facebook was so blindsided b…

When the initial FB OS attempt failed, I think Zuck realized the investment to make something work was beyond the capital he was willing to invest.

When FB released its first “phone” it was still unwilling to take mobile seriously. They left the head of mobile position open for a very long time. Zuck himself has said he missed mobile.

With the IPO around that time, making some major strategic investment in tech was not an option when the company was likely under a lot of pressure to make the stock price only go one way.

You give Apple Maps as an example, but that product was a major fumble at release. To the point Apple fired the exec in charge over it.

It’s taken major investment over many years to get that app sorted out and it still needs a lot of work.

I think FB did know better they just had a competing problem of revenue growth that was at odds with laying claim to the future.

If anything, I think FB is making an ongoing strategic mistake in lack of any obvious work to establish an Alphabet structure.

FB can recover by building a social network that monetizes via payments and subscriptions. This could be hooked up to a new fortnite-seeded metaverse and run exclusively through oculus.

The opportunity for a FB-parent Corp that distinguishes a new, private network away from the damaged brand of FB is still there.

Leadership just has to be way more daring now in what it’s willing to do.

It really has to or the ruling metaverse social network will be built by someone else for Apple hardware.

Re: Google Joins Apple to Opt-out of Mobile Advertising IDs

#40

Post by nottorp »

dougmwne wrote: post #27
faitswulff wrote: post #4

> However, if Mark Zuckerberg goes back on the drawing board to figure what went wrong, he’ll probably realize that data breaches and privacy awareness aren’t the causes of an impending downfall. > Instead, a lack of effort in developing their own operating system a decade ago might be Facebook’s biggest regret. And this has come back to bite them today. Crazy that it came to this.

Zuck is personally all in on capturing the VR and AR market and making it the next ubiquitous computing platform. They already have their own OS. One fifth of the company is working on VR and AR, 10,000 employees. They are pouring billions into it. Zuck likely understands that he missed the platform boat last time around and doesn't intend to miss the next one. https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/12/22326875/facebook-rea…

I don't think VR will ever take over the world. Too many people get motion sickness from it and I don't think it's only a matter of more pixels/fps.

AR... maybe. My personal opinion is the needed electronics (and especially the battery tech) aren't small enough yet, if we're talking AR glasses.

If we're talking AR on phones, where's the killer app? Pokemon go?

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