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I now assume that all ads on Apple news are scams

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Re: I now assume that all ads on Apple news are scams

#331

Post by UqWBcuFx6NV4r »

tsunamifury wrote: post #238
thejohnconway wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At what point did the old Apple cross the threshold to "modern" Apple? This hardly an original sentiment, but when Steve Jobs died. Jobs was not perfect, but he believed they were there to make great products, had good taste with obsessive attention to detail, and was pretty much omnipotent in the company. I'm sure there are people with many of these traits in Apple, but not all of them together. Their first new ha…

It’s funny when people don’t understand what they are saying like you. The watch was not only eventually a mega hit, it was an Ive/jobs idea. Literally everything you are saying is wrong.

The Apple Watch was launched as a confused product. Go watch the original Apple Watch launch announcement. Basically none of it landed with consumers. Apple significantly changed their focus within, what, a couple of years? Remember how you could buy a gold one for a truckload of money? Give me a break. Kudos to Apple for managing to change course in less than 5 years, for once, but let’s not pretend the. Apple Watch was a perfect idea passed down from the almighty. It did terribly.

Re: I now assume that all ads on Apple news are scams

#332

Post by regenschutz »

kneel25 wrote: post #160
makingstuffs wrote: post #33

I don’t know if it is just a symptom of growing up during the days of the net’s Wild West and navigating through sites like gamecopyworld or what, but I just seem to have some inbuilt filter which doesn’t even acknowledge the existence of ads. It’s hard to explain but it is like some subconscious filtering that occurs on a preRecognise hook or something. Weird.

Who doesn't think this about themselves. It's like when people say they're immune to propaganda. Isn't this thinking what makes people think their smart devices are listening to conversations rather than targeted ads you only notice after it's had the effect on you.

I don't think I am immune to propaganda, and definitely not ads. I can't stand ads at all. They immediately grab my attention, even if I make a conscious attempt at ignoring them. It truly feels terrible.

Even for propaganda, I am constantly made aware of my propaganda immunity being subpar for all different kinds of propaganda. Often it's just subtle seeds of propaganda that impact the choice of words that I use to be something different than what I really believe in, and sometimes it is more serious and deeper cases of propagandisation. Very unfortunate, but each time it shows me why I should be critical of everything that I read online.

Re: I now assume that all ads on Apple news are scams

#333

Post by tpmoney »

rootusrootus wrote: post #255
mbreese wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that “customer” is a better term. I’m not sure I agree with the rest of the rationale. In my mind, “user” stated to take over when we started having web based services that were used by people, but they were the ones paying. For example, Google and Facebook. Both got paid through ads, so they advertisers were the customers. The “users” were just the eyeballs the advertisers wanted to reach. So, you had to mak…

> In my mind, “user” stated to take over when we started having web based services that were used by people Maybe I'm just old, but we've called ... users ... 'user' since Unix or before. Perhaps it is just because Unix was integral to my early computing experience that I see it that way.

User is definitely a term that long predates the modern SaaS world. And it’s an appropriate term in many cases because even today the customers of a computer hardware or software company are often not the same people using that hardware or software. I am the user of my work computer, but even as a software developer I am certainly not the “customer” of that purchase. My company has requirements as a customer that might be counter to my desires as a user. And likewise I have needs as a user that my company as a customer does not care about (except in so far as having those needs met allows me to do my job)

Re: I now assume that all ads on Apple news are scams

#334

Post by giraffe_lady »

pjc50 wrote: post #87
elashri wrote: post #68

We should assume that all ads in general are scams. The noise to signal ratio is too large to care. Word of mouth and maybe trusted communities like HN is the only way to reliably discover new things.

The only way out of this is to make ad platforms liable for scam ads. At the moment it's simply too profitable to print lies.

No there is another way. We can ban advertising completely.

Re: I now assume that all ads on Apple news are scams

#335

Post by flkiwi »

qwerpy wrote: post #288
flkiwi wrote: post #228

My "favorite", and likely related, part of Apple News is that if I have blocked a source because it is unreliable, heavily biased, etc., and a story from that source appears in the main timeline, Apple News shows a greyed out version of the story--headline and image visible--with "You have blocked this publication" (or similar). You can still clearly see the story, so it's not blocked at all. I assume this comes down…

Apple stocks app has a similar obnoxious pattern. It’s a genius UX. Why is this stock up/down today? Conveniently a bunch of articles are displayed that explain it. But there’s no way to block news sources that are paywalled. But there was a workaround in which you could individually block each news source. But then Apple gave themselves a way out. If “Apple editors” choose to highlight an article then you’ll be forc…

I actually tried Ground News for a while because, you know, why not? I appreciate what they're trying to do, but the signal to noise ratio was so, so unfavorable between the UI clutter, the curious lack of certain categories, and the oddly slow update rate.

Re: I now assume that all ads on Apple news are scams

#336

Post by altairprime »

I’m glad that I canceled when they signed with Taboola. Whatever that division is doing wrong, it’s clearly become worse under current News leadership, and I’ve seen no signs of pushback from Apple over that. They never should have invited random third-parties to sell ads at auction to their users.

Re: I now assume that all ads on Apple news are scams

#337

Post by bastard_op »

I tried an iphone once about 6 years ago, but once I realized all browsers were essentially safari and there WAS NO ADBLOCKING, I was disgusted to emphatically go back to Android and Firefox with ublock plus. Apple is like the US government protecting pedophiles, but protecting adware and everything wrong with the internet, forcing people to be insecure and watch ads. I feel bad for apple users unable to use a clean ad-free internet.

Re: I now assume that all ads on Apple news are scams

#338

Post by crummy »

diegof79 wrote: post #227
esskay wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arcade is comically poor value. I can't tell if Apple doesn't care, or they're just so deluded due to their insular nature and crap attitude towards gaming that they genuinely think its a good service to offer mediocre mobile games for a premium.

I agree that Arcade is poor. However, I’ve been subscribed to it since its inception because it is the best way to have games that my kid can play without shady ads or engagement practices. I know that is not going to last, as my kid is now a pre-teen and likes other types of games (like Hollow Knight) that are not available on Apple Arcade. But the current state of the gaming industry is terrible, especially on mobi…

Agreed. "Free mobile game" almost certainly means "malicious gambling app" at this point.

Re: I now assume that all ads on Apple news are scams

#340

Post by wnc3141 »

kyralis wrote: post #234
afavour wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness Apple did come up with a custom JSON format for articles: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/applenewsformat The problem is that people don't use it. I imagine it's a chicken/egg thing, the audience on News isn't big so it isn't worth the publishers time catering to an entirely new format, the News experience is crappy so the audience doesn't grow. They could have insisted that everyone use their f…

It's definitely that publishers don't want it. This is actually the trajectory of both Apple News and iAd before it, which is what started out providing the ad service for Apple News. Apple would like to do a high quality solution, and then keeps relaxing their standards when there's not enough buy-in from the content providers. They were forced to allow the non-curated news formats to have sufficient content.

I can't imagine it's a great deal for publishers. It's probably why NYT, Economist and other prestige publications aren't on it. (Save for Atlantic, New Yorker). I. Assuming they use the Spotify model ( paying commissions on articles per reader)?
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