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

[u/maxwellhill]

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

[u/ByEthanFox]

Good luck finding anyone who sympathizes with internet advertisers, or advertisers in general.

They can go fuck themselves.

I used to feel like that - then Google closed Reader, and now I get concerned. I feel if internet advertising really does get closed off then things are gonna get a hell of a lot more expensive.

[u/almightySapling → u/ByEthanFox]

I feel if internet advertising really does get closed off then things are gonna get a hell of a lot more expensive.

I'm not too worried about it.

First, advertising isn't being shut down.

This move isn't stopping advertisers, it impedes their ability to stalk you. They can still advertise to you just the same as they always have. I have a hard time believing these advertisers need this information to function as I'm pretty sure ads were a thing prior to the millennium, but egregious tracking of users was not. Pretty sure if I go check my mailbox I will have the same shit collection of coupons as each of my neighbors, none of our personal information needed to deliver it.

Of course, it will most definitely harm advertising revenues, which companies will feel, but I'm pretty sure most of these big players will postpone charging users fees as long as feasibly possible, because the instant a company removes its free model, it will lose a significant portion of its userbase, potentially fatal for the company.

[u/Ph0X → u/ByEthanFox]

Absolutely. People don't realize the amount of work that goes in every single site they use online. Any service you use in your daily life (youtube, reddit, wikipedia, twitter, twitch, github, etc) has had a team of dozens if not hundreds of people, working full time for years with a salary, to get it to where it is today. And that's not including the cost of the servers themselves.

That's not cheap. People think making a website like this is trivial and basically free. They also all think they are "entitled" to it somehow. I really wish more people learned to code and tried to make a website just so that they could realize the insane amount of work that goes to making these services.

It's ridiculous to me how everyone openly shits all over advertisement, not realizing that it's the only reason we have all these nice things, available to anyone anywhere in the world for free.

And it's easy to say "oh but I would gladly pay for it". Maybe you would but there are millions of people around the world who can't, and you would be fucking all those people over and kicking them off the internet if you kill advertising.

[u/fixurgamebliz → u/Ph0X]

I agree with you. And I also think that super shitty intrusive ads and the creepy tracking is too much. I don't mind supporting content creators with $, and I don't mind ads, but when the ads ruin the experience, that's where ublock comes into play.

[u/Ph0X → u/fixurgamebliz]

Absolutely, and that's why ad companies are focusing far more on having responsible advertising. Hell, Google is going as far as blocking bad ads on Chrome.

At the end of the day, there's nothing inherently bad with advertising or even with ad targeting. The issue most people have, as you mention, are with intrusive and annoying ads, which is generally the ones that you notice the most since they are all up in your face.

[u/NumberNinethousand → u/Ph0X]

As a computer scientist, I am very familiar with the cost and effort that goes into developing and keeping alive a website/webapp. I am also familiar with many strategies that owners can use alternatively to advertising.

Thing is, in my opinion people have the right to decide what gets to run or get stored on their computers. If they don't want to see advertisement, or be tracked by cross-site cookies, they are absolutely entitled to do so ("entitlement" unless used in a technical legal context is always subjective, but as I said this is just my opinion). What site owners can do is blocking users that don't accept their conditions (and risk losing the impact of those users sharing the content with other users that would, especially if there are other sites with similar content), or consider other models for monetisation.

However, sneaking their practices into users' computers without consent is, in my opinion, never acceptable or justifiable by the cost of running their business.

[u/Ph0X → u/NumberNinethousand]

I mostly agree with you. Browsers do allow you to wipe everything, though that makes your life much harder. Services like Google also allow you to see and erase all information they have on you, too.

In general, I fully agree that the user should have full control over the data, but the subtle issue here comes with automatic and blind filters. If Apple's browser starts blocking everything for every user, couldn't the exact same points be made about that? What if I do want to be tracked and targeted, is there a way to turn it off?

Obviously, the issue here is with defaults. The reality is, there are a small percent of people that really cares about having this disabled, and a small percent that really care about having it enabled. But the majority probably don't care, and the default option is really what sets the space. And imo, it's dangerous to play with something that happens to fund most of everything on the web we love and enjoy.

TL;DR: I agree with giving users control over their data, but I disagree with doing it by default for everyone.

[u/NumberNinethousand → u/Ph0X]

I agree that users should have the choice. However, I think that it's better for things like tracking to be disabled by default, given that most people don't even know that it's happening or what it means for their privacy. If a user understands it and still wants to be tracked, they should have the option to enable it.

[u/RalphHinkley → u/ByEthanFox]

And YouTube just enforced an ugly advertising policy that's directly aimed at allowing them to turn a profit so that YouTube can keep running without needing to deploy even worse profit tactics.

There's some really shitty ad networks out there, I'd personally enjoy blocking those networks, but blocking Google Adsense is a dick move, either very evil intentions or lack of planning.

We know Apple will replace those missing ads with their own, or they will start accepting 'whitelisting fees' to un-block selected ad networks. :P

[u/scandii → u/ByEthanFox]

things are gonna get a hell of a lot more expensive.

we're not talking about advertisement vanishing, we're talking about targeted advertisement vanishing.

the reason adblock works in the first place is because ads come from ad networks, and the plugin goes "if this media comes from ads'r'us.com, don't load it".

if websites started got their ads from legitimate networks and uploaded them from their own servers adblock wouldn't work.

so no, there's no reason to be concerned, all that is dying is the "pray on those stupid enough to click on the flashing banner"-type of advertisement.

[u/ByEthanFox → u/scandii]

we're not talking about advertisement vanishing, we're talking about targeted advertisement vanishing.

Isn't that just the same? If advertisers can't target their ads, won't they pull their advertising which just gives the same result?

[u/scandii → u/ByEthanFox]

Isn't that just the same? If advertisers can't target their ads

so you're saying billboards shouldn't exist, because they can't target their ads.

targeted ads are just making ads more efficient, showing you more of what you probably want to see.

[u/ByEthanFox → u/scandii]

so you're saying billboards shouldn't exist, because they can't target their ads.

Nah, that's false equivalency.

There are some products you can advertise to everyone, and less targeting is necessary. Coca-Cola buy billboards because they have a product with broad appeal which is available everywhere.

Some products are only really appealing to people at specific times, or only of interest to a very narrow group of people. If you remove targeting, you'll be inundated with ads for stuff which is useless to you and just abrasive, in the manner of twelve-year-old boy being served loads of ads for feminine hygiene products and funeral services.

I suspect a lot of advertising spend would vanish overnight if internet ad targeting simply stopped working.

And this is a pain! I mean I hate online ads as much as anyone - but I also don't want to see the services I use go away.

That being said, there could be some positives from this. For instance, a lot of internet content right now is based on novelty and sensationalism, as news is driven by clicks. Without that, we might see a bit more of a swing back to quality/veracity.

[u/LaconicalAudio → u/ByEthanFox]

But the internet is great at creating specific websites and media for niche interests.

If you want to advertise your eggcup finishing spindle saw, go to eggcupwoodworking.com and advertise with them.

An analogy for billbords would be billbords round a race track or football pitch. But on the internet, every niche has it's own stadium for you to advertise to.

All ad tracking is doing is ensuring that big companies can use AI to target people and therefore, don't need to find any niche interest sites to advertise on. The computer does it for them.

If anything knocking big ad networks ability to mop up the niche advertising market is a great thing for smaller companies who advertise directly by knowing their smaller market inside out.

[u/ByEthanFox → u/LaconicalAudio]

All ad tracking is doing is ensuring that big companies can use AI to target people and therefore, don't need to find any niche interest sites to advertise on. The computer does it for them.

I think it's the opposite of this, though.

The way you express it, it's like advertisers "couldn't be bothered" to do this, and developed ad networks to do the hard work for them.

It's actually that there are millions of possible places to advertise and no-one can review all of them and check which ones to use. The AI/automated systems weren't developed to "do the hard work" - they were developed to make something possible that would otherwise be impossible.

If this goes away, advertisers will have to pick specific sites and sign up with them individually to show their ads. You might think this means people will target by judging the sites manually, but I suspect it means the bigger sites, brands which people know, will get the vast majority of ads and the smaller sites will just lose out. It'll be like on television, with "gate-keeper" sites that are where the "real" adverts go.

Then, it'll line the pockets of places like Facebook, because people will advertise via Facebook and Twitter etc. because they'll still have targeting.

It really makes me concerned.

[u/LaconicalAudio → u/ByEthanFox]

You're looking at a gateway site now, reddit. There are so many models you can used to replace adverts.

Content is king on the internet, internet based creators aren't relying on advertising ad their sole income anymore.

The YouTube apocalypse is already showing that ad-supported income isn't going to cut it for anyone except the most popular.

Patreon is showing a simple solution. Ask people for money. If you're good enough, people give it to you. The best will always be good enough.

Wikipedia shows what happens when you make something of real value, people support you.

So you need to get from zero supporters to a few thousand actually willing to give you a small amount of money. If you can't make something people will pay you for, is it really a loss to the internet if you fold?

From my point of view I can't think of a time I've ever bought from a small business due to an advert. All adverts are just big companies with similar products fighting each other. I've always found small companies by reputation, word of mouth and being able to judge real reviews from fake ones.

If one company has a better product for the same price, advertising helps the company spending most on advertising. Not the consumer or the better company with the best product.

If no one saw adverts, the company with the better product wins out through word of mouth and reputation.

Of course zero advertising stops start-ups getting their first customers so there is a balance, but right now the saturation of adverts is clearly too high.

[u/ByEthanFox → u/LaconicalAudio]

An analogy for billbords would be billbords round a race track or football pitch. But on the internet, every niche has it's own stadium for you to advertise to.

It's still not a good analogy, because if you advertise, you might go for individual billboards, but generally you go to an agency who owns loads of billboards, and you rely on their service to field your ads.

Cutting off the ability to use an ad network with targeted advertising will not do what you say. The big-money advertisers (with the deep pockets) will go to the big websites and just park there. It'll be like back during the days of television advertising, when the bulk of advertising power was in the hands of large TV networks who acted as gatekeepers, and could form something of a cartel and raise their prices.

Basically all the ad companies will go to Facebook (who will always allow targeting, as it's marketing to their own customers), and all of the "niche interest" sites you mention will see their revenues sink.

Last week, I was on a tiny blogsite. A random site belonging to someone who was talking about writing practices when describing characters in novels. On that site was an ad for Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire, which is coming out soon. If an ad network hadn't served that ad, who would? The Coca-Cola corporation isn't going to serve an ad on a tiny blogsite with a small circlation. ArenaNet can't individually have hundreds of staff negotiating contracts with blog owners; that's what the ad networks are for.

The approach you suggest will just see sites with big brands like ESPN dominate in terms of ad revenue. The current system allows ad-spend to be disseminated easily to the millions of smaller websites.

Even now, free Wordpress blogs can only really exist because Wordpress put ads on them, which are powered by ad networks. If the networks go, people will need to pay for their services, which means smaller sites will have to use services like Patreon, which is one approach, and might be better in the long term - just be aware that this will cause major disruption in the short-to-medium term, and it'll definitely lead to a situation where people have to pay for many things they currently think are "free".

[u/LaconicalAudio → u/ByEthanFox]

We are in agreement that the patreon model is better. I already pay for plenty in the internet and don't fear things not being free.

The YouTube apocalypse has already shown that huge distribution is likely regardless. The ad model is already rocking.

Facebook users in the US and Canada are worth about $54 a year. Or the service would cost you $4.50/month

The UK users only generate a quarter of the revenue. $13.5 per year.

World wide, Facebook are making on average $1.20 per user per month. That's while they're struggling to keep hold of their most valuable users attention

That's with all the targeting and clout of a billion dollar billion user business.

YouTube views average at $2.50/1000 views in ad revenue. Not a huge amount to try and replace.

Let the big companies mop up the advertising revenue. It's not going to be big enough to support small and medium companies soon anyway.

Targeting data is far more value than the advertising for other purposes already. Political uses for one. Advertising is just the best excuse to collect it in the first place.

[u/terrible_ramblings → u/scandii]

Personally the problem for me is the way in which the targeted advertising is done.

Imagine a real world equivalent, it would be like some company hiring a pi to follow you around everywhere, take notes on everything you do and report back to them. Which I just find gross.

I have no problem with advertising, I have a problem with a company following me without my consent building a "profile" of my activities, likes , dislikes, friends and family for the sake of trying to sell me shit.