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Apple's Privacy Features Have Cost Social Media Companies Nearly $10 Billion in Revenue
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That’s a meaningless statistic.
Would you rather have a minority share of the market or a majority share? That seems like a simple question, but it’s really not. If you’re Apple, you’d rather have a minority share, so long as that “minority” share is the top end of the market, where all the money is.
If they wanted pure market share they could do what Dell and Samsung and others do and churn out plasticky garbage devices that cost very little to make and, likewise, earn very little in profit because the margins at the bottom of the market are razor thin.
Apple would rather have the top 20% than the bottom 80%, because there is vastly more money to be made with that arrangement.
It's kind of like when Congress was trying to pass the "Do Not Call" registry after the telemarketing cold calling to our homes got completely out of control. The main attempt by the call center industry to stop it was the argument that "thousands of call center job will be lost!"
My reaction now to the social media companies losing revenue to the tracking blockers is the same as it was to the call center people in the early 2000's: You're just gonna have to find a different way to make money! Leave us alone!.
My reaction now to the social media companies losing revenue to the tracking blockers is the same as it was to the call center people in the early 2000's: You're just gonna have to find a different way to make money! Leave us alone!.
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I take issue with this headline. It frames the “lost” revenue as something these companies were entitled to. More accurately, they were prevented from using their market positions to extract $10B using (now protected) consumer data.
This is what eventually happens when people such as Mark Zuckerberg and others similar to him in their thinking openly abuse a system that was built for all to use and thus taking liberties will peoples personal data. The internet was not built so people like Mark Zuckerberg can come along and go 'hey, i can make money from this system by grabbing users data, not tell them I am doing it and sell their data onto advertisers'.
With App Tracking Transparency (ATT) being active, social media companies will end up going two ways 1) bust because they have no more user data to sell onto advertisers or 2) they will change to a subscription service.
With App Tracking Transparency (ATT) being active, social media companies will end up going two ways 1) bust because they have no more user data to sell onto advertisers or 2) they will change to a subscription service.
The difference is that Google never changed its name. They created a new company and became a subsidary of it. Alphabet owns Google the company.
Meta Platforms is the name of the company formely known as Facebook, Inc. Meta owns Facebook the product. Not the company. It IS the company.
Because people can be idiots sometimes. They fail to read and understand the change. It is the parent company name that has changed, not the social media company. I suppose it was Facebooks fault in the firstplace by having the parent company named Facebook Inc. (Incorporated) and the social media company with just the word Facebook.
Although in other news, Apple users are complaining about the significant increase in subscription models for apps that were free, due to ads. Can't have it both ways. Expect subscriptions to become more widely used to make up for this.
But what about all the money they made from Android and Windows users.
Reminds me of a story I heard a while ago: a dad angrily called a company because they sent his daughter a bunch of ads for baby products. How dare they think that she's having sex! The person from the company the dad talked to told him to talk to her, then. Apparently, the algorithms the company used to target ads was a bit too good. Found out she WAS pregnant based on what she ordered, before she told her dad. I guess the company eventually "diluted" what ads they showed just so that they looked random and this kind of embarrassment didn't happen again.
This is written in defense of appalling advertising practices that exploit all, even children. It's long past due financial discipline in a situation where advertisers should have never been allowed to do what has been done.
They should be taking a stance of apology and regret, not annoyance for being blocked. It's like a stalker that gets a restraining order. It's been deserved for a very long time.
They should be taking a stance of apology and regret, not annoyance for being blocked. It's like a stalker that gets a restraining order. It's been deserved for a very long time.
Imagine your entire business model being dependent on scummy, anti-consumer behaviour then having the nerve to complain about users protecting themselves.
I stopped using Facebook years ago, but I'm curious how much they still managed to track me since then. My privacy approach for the last couple years (especially after reading this fun piece) has been to keep almost all location sharing severely locked down. I know I'm not really off the grid digitally, but that, plus nearly being completely off of Google products, has reduced my footprint significantly.
As long as there are options in the market for a range of privacy alternatives, I see these changes as good.
Side note, I'm eager to see how Apple's new private relay feature works out. I've found 3rd party VPN services to be okay, but you're still placing a lot of trust in a company that you might not know that well.
As long as there are options in the market for a range of privacy alternatives, I see these changes as good.
Side note, I'm eager to see how Apple's new private relay feature works out. I've found 3rd party VPN services to be okay, but you're still placing a lot of trust in a company that you might not know that well.
Well that's positive. I don't agree that companies such as Meta and others can just make money on my private details/information, especially because we don't know who they're sharing it with and we don't see any cut from that ourselves. Many of these platforms started out and had generic advertising that created their revenue streams. Since then they all branched out and started trading in personal details/targetted adds etc. and that's where it all goes wrong. Great if you're in the add business, but as the consumer, knowing that your details could be all over the place is not a good thing at all and absolutely harms the trust we may otherwise have had in these companies. (I don't trust any of them, particularly anything that 'Meta' owns). Meanwhile they start restricting what you can and can't see without either having to deal with more and more adds, or pay a subscription to get 'add free' content, all driven by 'market share and growth' pressure by shareholders, and if that growth can't be obtained by more customers, then we'll restrict our existing base and extort a bit more money out of them instead, as we the shareholders can't loose, we will win and wil get more more more....
What is this baloney about costing them money? It didn’t cost them anything. They didn’t profit from other peoples data that they didn’t pay for.
Better headline: "Social Media Companies Would Have Sold Users' Private Information For Nearly $10 Billion But For Apple's Privacy Features"
If I was you I'd have a talk with your dad about what he's up to.