Analytics Suggest 96% of Users Leave App Tracking Disabled in iOS 14.5

[09872738]

It's not just Facebook, it's numerous platforms.

The economic incentives hugely favor it . . . to become a viable social network requires growing the network to a large scale. The way to do that isn't to ask people to pay - who would pay for access to a network of 1? But free allows people to try something out with no meaningful commitment other than giving up some information about themselves.

Now, why hasn't any network tried to convert its model, or at least done so successfully, to paid? Probably because they're all afraid of turning into MySpace, where everybody leaves for the next "free" network.

That said, perhaps the environment now it's possible . . . start free, but then convert to ad-free (and tracking free) with a subscription model. Really that does seem to work for some apps with the freemium/ad-free model. Try it out and then upgrade to a better (ad-free) experience. Given people seem somewhat more aware of how companies use their data, it's not inconceivable to see it working.

All true. But making money with ads is not equivalent to harvesting data and abuse people‘s privacy. And that is the point - everyone (as evidenced by your post) seems to assume privacy violations are required to be able to monetize. But it of course is not, showing ads can be done without excessive data collection.

 

[mazz0]

Of course they can. They attempt to retrieve the identifier, they get denied, they pop a dialog asking you to enable it. Whatever gave you the idea an app couldn't pop whatever dialog they wanted?

Ah, that’s a point! Poor user experience but yeah, at least they can work around it (presumably they can deep link to the right setting too).

 

[Dr_Dre]

Macrumors can show relevant ads by simply showing ads related to macs, apple, iphones, technology, etc. Macrumors does not need to pay facebook to tell it that, based on everything i browse anywhere on the web, I’m a professional hand model who is married, enjoys reading about Yugoslavia, has a penchant for underwater sports, voted libertarian in the last election, believes in aliens, and whose wife is about to give birth to triplets.

Bruh, so the only thing that you will ever buy on the internet is Apple stuff 😂. How many thing do you think MacRumors can advertise before the clicks go down

 

[cmaier]

Bruh, so the only thing that you will ever buy on the internet is Apple stuff 😂. How many thing do you think MacRumors can advertise before the clicks go down

What do these words mean?

 

[Dr_Dre]

What do these words mean?

I knew you were a super fan boy as soon as I seen you used a Memoji as your profile pic, bye Felicia

 

[cmaier]

I knew you were a super fan boy as soon as I seen you used a Memoji as your profile pic, bye Felicia

So you had nothing better to do than to post random insults?

 

[Dr_Dre]

So you had nothing better to do than to post random insults?

Shhh, 🤫🤐

 

[MK11]

Why would anyone ever choose to turn on tracking? Open to any use cases....

why do you care? How are you affected?

 

[estulin]

surprised it's only 96%. Why in the world would you want to be the product.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

surprised it's only 96%. Why in the world would you want to be the product.

According to folks in this thread, they just want to feel special that the ads are related to sites they’ve been to recently, emails they’ve gotten recently in gmail, things they’ve posted to forums, etc. Before this thread, I would have doubted that anyone intentionally clicks on ads, but I guess there are SOME folks that sit here waiting for the ads to rotate so they can click on the ad for “a new amazing product”.

 

[AppleInLVX]

The IDFA Isn’t completely static, you can reset it in Preferences.

Prior to iOS 14.5 you could reset it globally but in 14.5 you can reset it on a per-app basis.

Thanks for your reply... I did a little homework since I first asked the question, and I think I understand it better now.

 

[Artemis70]

why do you care? How are you affected?

I'm trying to learn since I do not see a reason myself. Trying to learn from others.

 

[Dr_Dre]

not quite. None of those allow mass sharing with collections of friends (other than in contact). And in-contact is problematic for two reasons - pandemic, and geography. Many people live hundreds or thousands of miles away from family and friends. My wife and I live in northern california and our only family lives in chicago, Colorado, and north and South Carolina. Our friends live in NY, New England, pennsylvania and Southern California. People move for jobs and for retirement. We’d still like to be involved in each other’s lives, month-to-month see our kids grow up, etc. Sharing a fun drink recipe, a snapshot of something funny our kid did today, excited comments about the Mets’ last win, etc. with everyone is a nice way to feel involved without having to call 30 people every week.

Then share your photo album

 

[chenks]

the wording of the question still remains ambigious IMO

can it be clarified that if the setting "allow apps to request to track" is set to OFF then it stops apps being able to ask and by default they cannot track? or does it mean that if the setting is off then apps can't ask and by default they can track?

the setting is worded that is only refers to apps being able to "ask".

 

[chenks]

surprised it's only 96%. Why in the world would you want to be the product.

you already are the product, regardless of whether you have it enabled or disabled.
and you always will be product.

 

[Abazigal]

the wording of the question still remains ambigious IMO

can it be clarified that if the setting "allow apps to request to track" is set to OFF then it stops apps being able to ask and by default they cannot track? or does it mean that if the setting is off then apps can't ask and by default they can track?

the setting is worded that is only refers to apps being able to "ask".

It's the former. If they can't ask, permission can't be given and therefore those apps aren't supposed to track.

I say "aren't supposed to" because I am not sure if developers may be able to circumvent this in any way. But the best is to just turn it off altogether.

 

[chenks]

It's the former. If they can't ask, permission can't be given and therefore those apps aren't supposed to track.

I say "aren't supposed to" because I am not sure if developers may be able to circumvent this in any way. But the best is to just turn it off altogether.

you can see where the ambiguity on the question is though, yeah?
it really needs worded differently.

i'm sure they will find other ways to do it eventually.

 

[Seanm87]

the wording of the question still remains ambigious IMO

can it be clarified that if the setting "allow apps to request to track" is set to OFF then it stops apps being able to ask and by default they cannot track? or does it mean that if the setting is off then apps can't ask and by default they can track?

the setting is worded that is only refers to apps being able to "ask".

This is explained when you click on learn more in the tracking settings

 

[chenks]

This is explained when you click on learn more in the tracking settings

it needs to be clear on the text right next to the button, not in some text deeper down the chain.

it's almost as if they purposely wrote that bit of text to be ambigious.

 

[redtape]

There must be some really special people over at Facebook that thinks a large amount of people would ever consider paying for Facebook or Instagram. Anyway, I really applaud Apple for their effort of trying to limit tracking, and I encourage all of you to consider activating the tracking blocker.