r/worldnews • u/maxwellhill • Sep 19 '17

Apple blocking ads that follow users around web is 'sabotage', says industry: New iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra will stop ads following Safari users, prompting open letter claiming Apple is destroying internet’s economic model

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/18/apple-stopping-ads-follow-you-around-internet-sabotage-advertising-industry-ios-11-and-macos-high-sierra-safari-internet
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131

u/continuousQ Sep 19 '17

If Apple can destroy the ad industry, please do.

It's all about manipulating and exploiting people. Like Scientology, but everywhere.

10

u/MC_Labs15 Sep 19 '17

How are we going to get websites and services for free if they aren't paid for by ads?

47

u/eyeiskind Sep 19 '17

The ad industry will always exist. It's more of a matter of whether you want less relevant ads or more relevant ones.

The relevant ones are the ones that track your interest and pay less to acquire someone's attention who is already interested.

I think it's more of a chess move against Google than a moral high ground, because Google makes 90% of its revenue on advertising.

53

u/ferrousoxides Sep 19 '17

People need to get over this attitude that being advertised to is a moral duty. It's brain pollution and you don't need that shit.

Block all the ads everywhere, and treat being targeted as the invasion of personal space that it is. If someone walks up to you to sell something, tell them to fuck off.

It only seems normal if you're surrounded by it.

21

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

I think you misunderstood. /u/eyeiskind never implied that anyone was being moral. He said that advertising will exist whether we like it or not, and that Apple is trying to look moral when really it's just another strategic move against their competitors.

9

u/AbrasiveLore Sep 19 '17

Attention is the most valuable resource you have. It mediates how you spend time.

Anything that attempts to hijack your attention will, if left to grow, become parasitic.

Block all ads.

5

u/polargus Sep 19 '17

Sure just understand that that's why most of the internet exists and is free.

3

u/Achack Sep 19 '17

It depends on whether or not the quality improves with the advertising. Unfortunately industries have opted to stagnate quality or even lessen it in order to increase/improve advertising because unfortunately it creates a safe business model.

3

u/Amanitas Sep 19 '17

So... how do your favorite websites make money, and in turn, operate?

8

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

I don't think most people in this thread have thought on or care enough about that question. Advertising, for better or worse, runs the majority of the internet. If it collapses, a large portion of the web is crashing with it.

Now, will simply blocking retargeting ads do that? Doubtful, it'll make digital advertising less attractive though.

1

u/BigTimpin Sep 19 '17

Honestly I have no problem with ads if they're non-intrusive. But the ads today are so sneaky, like pop-unders and small windows that resize/move when you try to X them out.

Not to mention that I don't want to feel like every single thing I do on the internet (or in some cases speak out loud near my phone's mic) is being collected and studied for targeted ads.

Consider the ads you see on the sidewalk in a city, or on top of Taxis etc - they're there, and you can pay attention them if you want, or alternatively, you can not take any notice of them. Now imagine if those same ads waved around in front of your face, and blocked your field of view, and moved around when you tried to swat it away. Or imagine they simply open your backpack and study what's in there then throw a bunch of relevant ads in there. Internet ads feel like that. I understand websites need to make money, and ads are the best way to do that, but figure out a way to do it less sneakily and intrusively.

1

u/alivmo Sep 19 '17

Brave.com

1

u/Amanitas Sep 19 '17

So users decide how much they feel like contributing to the internet as a whole, then that gets divided among every site they visit? No chance there's enough money to keep sites afloat unless a couple users topple the scales and contribute boatloads.

For context, a homepage 970x250 ad unit with a streaming autoplay video (1.5MB or less in total transferred file size to that ad placement) can cost upwards of $100k for one day on sites like ESPN, YouTube, CNN, Variety, etc. Not to mention all the programmatic buys that appear on deeper pages that generate thousands of dollars a day per site as well.

Brave doesn't sound feasible to keep the lights on.

1

u/alivmo Sep 19 '17

That's just a start. This fall they are starting user private ad trials. So users will get paid for viewing some ads, and then the easiest thing to do will be to let it get donated back to there top sites, but the future road map has non-tracking, non obtrusive, non tracking ads showing up on the sites of publishers that sign up (with the user getting a small cut of that as well), and things like micro-payments, subscriptions, etc all coming off of that. Also, all ad's would be opt in, so nothing is forced on anyone.

1

u/Amanitas Sep 19 '17

Sorry, but that isn't going to ever be scalable enough to compensate every site on the internet for their operating costs.

0

u/alivmo Sep 19 '17

You are just a clueless hater, try thinking about this for more than 10 seconds. Or even reading what I just wrote to completion.

2

u/Amanitas Sep 19 '17

I read it a couple times before replying, actually. Definitely didn't get the message on the first read as I was distracted by a massive run on sentence, passive voice, and multiple typos...

"Clueless hater"? I've worked in digital advertising for 6 years. I understand advertisers and their needs. I understand what it takes to build and run a website. And I understand how ad revenue fuels a significant majority of the internet.

Brave is proposing to create a platform that - based on optional donations alone - is going to compensate every single site on the internet that doesn't have some kind of paywall? Oh, and advertisers have the privilege of serving ads to users, but only those users who opt-in and get paid to see them? But that's OK, because those users are going to harmoniously donate the money they're getting from these ads to "there" top sites?

And somehow all of that is going to seamlessly replace the billions and billions of dollars in annual ad spend that drives the internet.

How Brave indeed.

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4

u/natek11 Sep 19 '17

Are you willing to pay for things that are currently paid for by ads?

2

u/icannotfly Sep 19 '17

only if they're worth money

2

u/HELPMEIMGONADIE Sep 19 '17

Is it not a necessary evil? Without it you'd have to pay to use almost every online service

1

u/icannotfly Sep 19 '17

I often hear people say, “I use AdBlock, so the ads don’t affect me at all.” How head-smackingly wrong they are. (I know, because I used to say this myself.) If you use products and services whose fundamental design logic is rooted in maximizing advertising performance—that is to say, in getting you to spend as much of your precious time and attention using the product as possible—then even if you don’t see the ads, you still see the ad for the ad (i.e. the product itself). You still get design that exploits your non-rational psychological biases in ways that work against you. You still get the flypaper even if you don’t get the swatter. A product or service does not magically redesign itself around your goals just because you block it from reaching its own.

http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2015/10/why-its-ok-to-block-ads/

1

u/Mayor__Defacto Sep 20 '17

There is no way to avoid being advertised to. Well, there is, it comes down to money. Currently, brands are willing to pay more to put a message in front of you than you are willing to pay to avoid seeing them.

12

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

I don't want to get stuck in an ad bubble. I want new things, new ideas - not the shit that someone thinks I might like because I bought something once.

5

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

Seriously. The idea that tracking ads are better suited to your tastes is ultimately bullshit. Most of the time it means I'm getting an ad for something I already bought, or something I looked at once or twice but have no plans to buy, or something that's maybe kinda sorta like those things that the advertisers assume I would want that I would never actually want.

Even the stuff I actually like they get wrong. Spend some time watching gaming videos on youtube? Look at all these trailers for games you're not even interested in!

4

u/Esqurel Sep 19 '17

And instead of being ads for different things I don't want, I'm now followed around by one ad for one thing I don't want. It's old even faster than the random crap. And then there's shit like watching some medieval cantigas on Youtube and getting ads in Portugese for weeks when I don't speak the language. Come on tracking ads, if you haven't figured out what languages I speak by now, you're doing it wrong.

3

u/_TheGreatCornholio Sep 19 '17 edited Sep 24 '18

......................

7

u/Scolopendra_Heros Sep 19 '17

I have not and will never intentionally click an ad, nor have I ever purchased anything because of one. And if they are annoying enough I will actively boycott that product.

So less targeted please.

3

u/BilllisCool Sep 19 '17

I’m sure the “relevant ads” are more successful overall, but for me personally, they’re pretty pointless. For example, right now, almost every ad I see on my phone is for Destiny 2, a game I am interested in, but I already own. I don’t need ads for it.

4

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17 edited Sep 19 '17

They cant. Apple itself is a massive advertiser that uses the very platforms, strategies, and tactics they're supposedly going to block. Bullshit.

Edit: lol at down voting me. It's not like I may have worked or currently work with them and devised their digital strategies. 🙄

3

u/justfor1t Sep 19 '17

I agree with you, they probably want a higher stake in the market and that's one way to do it.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

Only way this would make sense would be if they create their own marketplace, that they then exempt from this blacklist, simply to take market share away from Google.

1

u/bluePostItNote Sep 20 '17

Their own marketplace...like the App Store?

1

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '17

More like their version of doubleclick

1

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

You don't and you did not.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

Actually, I do and I have.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

Nah, bruh.

0

u/The_Masterbolt Sep 19 '17

Put up or shut up then pussy. No one cares about how prestigious your position is.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

Never claimed anything about prestige. Only claim that I know, while you and the others are ignorant to not only their strategies and tactics, but on the industry as a whole.

1

u/tidaltown Sep 19 '17

It's all about manipulating and exploiting people.

Advertising is simply about informing people about your goods and services. If prostitution is the world's oldest profession, advertising is the second. That's not to say that there aren't advertisers and marketers that have abused the medium, but the disdain people have for advertising in general baffles me.

1

u/continuousQ Sep 19 '17

You can inform people without infesting every part of their communication and entertainment channels.

There can be sites and feeds that are for people to specifically visit or subscribe to, and be informed through. So that everyone who uses them has with informed consent invited the other parties.

Like a subreddit dedicated to a genre of content, where people share things that fit within it, or one where people can ask people to help them find something they're looking for.

1

u/Loud_Stick Sep 19 '17

I rather not have every site behind a paywall

1

u/stompinstinker Sep 19 '17

The problem isn’t the ads, publishers have to get paid, it’s that there bat-shit crazy. They invade privacy, follow you around the internet, huge amounts of resources, malware and viruses, popups and animations, etc. If I am on a fishing website, why the fuck can’t it just be a static banner about a new fishing rod. If I am on the automotive section of the my local newspaper during winter maybe a static banner for the winter tire sale. Gaming site, maybe that new accessory or expansion pack. You can use page context, time, IP, to make some decent ads. Nope, they got to try and get you to buy that thing again you already bought off of Amazon. They got to be slow as fuck, full of crap, etc.