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Facebook and Instagram Ask Users to Enable App Tracking in Order to Keep Services 'Free of Charge'

Facebook are well within their rights to put that message up there. Apple have drastically affected their business, and millions of small to large businesses worldwide by their PR Privacy stunt.

Facebook makes most of its income from advertisers who now don’t have anywhere near as good a platform to work on, so of course they’ll need to replace that income.
 
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severe said:
Oh the irony.

Their annual revenue is near 100 billion dollars. Many pennies. And without your paying a single one.

Just say’n.
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True, but I’ll block the ads all I can, and I’m sure many others will, too. There’s a reason why he’s scared.
 
How dare facebook serve me (a consumer) with personalized ads relevant to my shopping interests. Businesses who sell things using FB ads and employ people who are feeding their family should all suffer. I want to use a service for free with no ads because I am entitled and I deserve everything for free 🤡
 
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FB/IG can just double the amount of ads that are shown to iOS users vs Android in order to make up the difference in ad rates that they can charge on each platform.
 
toastedfroggy said:
How dare facebook serve me (a consumer) with personalized ads relevant to my shopping interests. Businesses who sell things using FB ads and employ people who are feeding their family should all suffer. I want to use a service for free with no ads because I am entitled and I deserve everything for free
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Bingo! You are absolutely correct!

People need to get a grip. What Apple has done here is actually make the internet a less relevant experience for everyone.
 
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Shadow Puppets said:
Love this move by FB / IG. Apple’s ios14 has been a disaster for many a small business, based on misinformation and fear mongering. If FB and IG can pull back some of those users who’ve been duped into switching it off, then I’m all for it.
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Please keep us posted on exactly which small business that went bankrupt due to the restrictions introduced with iOS 14.x.

If a product is good enough you don’t need to spend a lot on advertising. Actually I would claim that there’s an inverse correlation between the value of a product and the marketing budget for it (spare a few extremely big companies)
 
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Seoras said:
No. Nope. Not going to happen.
Charge for FB and Insta? OK, go ahead and watch your platform turn into a ghost town.
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Exactly. This is why Facebook as well as most of the web relies on ads, including this site. It’s either free with ads or paywalls on every site you visit...
 
I would be so happy if they started charging. It would be the final straw in getting me to officially leave, and it would instantly spawn competitors who aren't being run by amoral billionaire lizardpeople
 
That whole advertising business is totally misunderstood and is just adding to the price you have to pay. The only ones that benefit are the advertising business.

The best carpenters in my town don’t need advertisements. All they need is that people tell others how good a job they did and a website with their phone number. If he’s fully booked people will start using others. The good ones will get a customer base and a good reputation and the bad ones won’t.

Same goes for tv’s, phones, restaurants etc… make a great product or service, keep customers happy and you won’t need advertisements. With internet and fora like this you will quickly go worldwide if you can and want.

If I already have made up my mind about what product I want I’ll use google/PriceRunner or similar to find the best price.

On the other hand: Make a crappy product and you need a lot of advertisements to sell your s***. Like YouTube being flooded with commercial bout “amazing” air conditioners that works by blowing air on a wet piece of paper.
 
ninecows said:
That whole advertising business is totally misunderstood and is just adding to the price you have to pay. The only ones that benefit are the advertising business.

The best carpenters in my town don’t need advertisements. All they need is that people tell others how good a job they did and a website with their phone number. If he’s fully booked people will start using others. The good ones will get a customer base and a good reputation and the bad ones won’t.

Same goes for tv’s, phones, restaurants etc… make a great product or service, keep customers happy and you won’t need advertisements. With internet and fora like this you will quickly go worldwide if you can and want.

If I already have made up my mind about what product I want I’ll use google/PriceRunner or similar to find the best price.

On the other hand: Make a crappy product and you need a lot of advertisements to sell your s***. Like YouTube being flooded with commercial bout “amazing” air conditioners that works by blowing air on a wet piece of paper.
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That's not really true at all. Marketing introduces others to your product. You cannot get business without people knowing that your product exists. All good products need some form of marketing to maximize sales and profit.

Why do you think Apple spends billions of dollars on marketing? They aren't doing it just cause they feel like it or that they have extra money to burn.
 
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FSMBP said:
I don’t get it. Are personalized ads a benefit to me?

like when I click on a one-off search of a plunger and get the same ad following me everywhere (even after I purchased one).
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No, they benefit advertisers. If you have $100 to spend, would you rather spend it on 100 randos out of which maybe 1 is interested in your product, or 100 people out of which 90 are interested?
 
In an effort to prove that they only collect your information for honest and good reasons, Facebook now turns to straight up lies to collect your information.
 
ninecows said:
That whole advertising business is totally misunderstood and is just adding to the price you have to pay. The only ones that benefit are the advertising business.

The best carpenters in my town don’t need advertisements. All they need is that people tell others how good a job they did and a website with their phone number. If he’s fully booked people will start using others. The good ones will get a customer base and a good reputation and the bad ones won’t.

Same goes for tv’s, phones, restaurants etc… make a great product or service, keep customers happy and you won’t need advertisements. With internet and fora like this you will quickly go worldwide if you can and want.

If I already have made up my mind about what product I want I’ll use google/PriceRunner or similar to find the best price.

On the other hand: Make a crappy product and you need a lot of advertisements to sell your s***. Like YouTube being flooded with commercial bout “amazing” air conditioners that works by blowing air on a wet piece of paper.
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You’ve obviously never attempted to launch a new product before. You are kind of right regarding local businesses, for sure. A lot can be achieved with word of mouth. But businesses launching new products nationwide/worldwide...there is no way to replicate the local word of mouth thing. FB / Google / IG ads are the best way of doing that. Take it from me...I’ve successfully helped dozens of new businesses get off the ground, gaining thousands of customers that they would have no prospect of reaching had it not been for the ability to send relevant targeted ads.

Apple have jumped on the privacy bandwagon and massively disrupted millions of businesses worldwide because they are playing on people’s fears about “tracking”.

The truth of the matter is that the FB pixel tracking that everyone seems so scared of doesn’t actually hold any personal information at all. A pixel is installed on a website and it “fires” events when a digital footprint (ie a person) passes across it. That event might be an “add to cart” on a website or a “purchase” on a website. It tells FB, Google etc that person A might be the type of person who’d be interested in product X, Y or Z. Advertisers don’t have any access whatsoever to private information, no data is shared, other than having the ability to target ads towards people who might like products X, Y or Z. There is no private personal information shared, nothing incriminating. Just a tiny bit of binary code that helps the internet and social media become a more relevant place for people using it. It’s as harmless as it gets. But by taking it away you’re badly damaging millions of businesses and it will ultimately lead to the end of free platforms.

Moving forward, you’re going to see a tonne of completely irrelevant advertising thrust in your face 24/7, all because Apple are trying to score a PR win.
 
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lifeinhd said:
No, they benefit advertisers. If you have $100 to spend, would you rather spend it on 100 randos out of which maybe 1 is interested in your product, or 100 people out of which 90 are interested?
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Exactly. But I would go as far as saying, yes, they are also a benefit to you. Would you rather be advertised completely irrelevant products 24/7, or would you at least like them to be products you’re somewhat likely to be interested in?
 
We'll show you a few photos and self serving articles. In return, we will track you, know what you do minute-by-minute and know every breath that you take. No thank you. I'll pass.

Never been interested in Facebutt or Instacrap.

They should really follow through with that threat and start charing users a monthly fee.
 
A bit late to the party, and I'm not a Facebook defender, but why is there such vitriol and hate for Facebook? Is it just plain financial envy? Sure, they collect and sell our info, but that's normal for monetarily "free" products on the web. The user doesn't pay any money but sold their sold to the developer/provider in exchange.

Separately, I'm curious why there isn't similar concern for other places where our personal information is tracked and/or monetized. Literally everything we do is tracked in one way or another. Cars have telematics, banks track our spending/buying patterns, and so on.
 
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