> <i>Apple ... doesn’t see the subversion of ads as stealing – which all of us in the real world know it is.</i><p>What the fuck. I am so sick of seeing this absurd and obviously false idea repeated. Did a cabal of content producers hire Frank Luntz to redefine basic English words for them?
I quite liked some aspects of the article but a lot of it is ridiculous and a lot of it is biased bitterness as this guy ran a company that suffered when Google changed its search algorithm (which he took as an attack without providing anything to back up that claim.)<p>Anyway one particular aspect I thought was pretty silly:<p>> IS IT MORAL FOR APPLE TO BLOCK ADS?
> It’s your device, so you can do whatever you want with it. When you download something onto your device, it is now yours to remix and play with in any way you want – provided you don’t republish it and make money from it.<p>That's like saying it's moral to download the free trial of adobe, and then modify it so it doesn't shut off access to the software after 30 days or call home or require payment, because hey it's your device and you can do whatever. It's ridiculous reasoning. Obviously the whole morality of adblocking isn't black and white, but at the end of the day, when a content-creator makes something and is willing to share it with you for free on a single condition which is that you keep the ads intact, you're either supposed to accept that, or reject the content. Taking the free content and rejecting the condition of the ads isn't simply completely fine because it happens to have landed on a device you own. There are plenty of well known arguments for and against that are reasonable, this isn't one of them. If you actually already paid for the content (like in the NYT example he follows up the above quote) then sure, you can do whatever, that's the principle behind gamers wanting a right to mod their games for personal.
I've been watching the web now for about 20 years and the one thing I've noticed is that we now seem to be at the turning point where Apple is dictating what the web is. It wasn't that long ago when Google calling the shots and developers paying attention to every last word that someone like Matt Cutts would say. From what I seeing those days are now over.<p>This isn't to say that the open web is dead is dead, but I'm seeing it turn into a backwater. Also what I'm not crazy about is that unlike the old days of packaged software where there were several distribution networks, it feels to me in the US that there are maybe only two app stores that have any merit. And keep in mind that back in the day you didn't need Microsoft's permission to make a title. So this walled garden feels even more closed than what I use to see in the 90s.
> Undermining a publisher’s ability to monetize is stealing<p>That is ridiculous. Stealing is taking what is not given. Stealing is not the <i>lack of</i> taking what <i>is</i> given.<p>We really are in an era of redefining words to mean whatever suits you. Everybody seems to be doing it!
This seems like thinly veiled advertising for those two apps, one of which was released just 3 days ago. The other was released 7 days ago. Crystal is also pushing an article on WSJ around the same time.
This is honestly a bad thing. I get people want to kick Google in the shins every so often but a war on advertising on this scale is going to put more and more things behind a paywall.<p>Trying to force us back to the days of the AOL-style walled garden is bad for everyone. The fact the OP hasn't figured that out is a clear sign he is out of touch.
I think iOS9 is the strongest evidence of Apple's war on Google. The number of website that I visit that now automatically redirect to an installed mobile app took me by surprised. I wasn't even asked for my permission to choose between viewing the content on the browser or in the app!<p>Bit by bit, iOS and Apple is eroding away the free and open nature of the web. Almost every app that I have seen on the AppStore are merely consumers and senders of JSON to a REST API that could have easily been implemented as a HTML5 web app.
I think Jason's wrong about self-driving cars being so "refined" and different from the core Google ad business. I see Google eyeing Tesla not for its zero-emissions, electric vehicles, but for its always-on, always-connected vehicles. I believe Google, whether they realize it or not, views cars as a gigantic new market for hyper-personalized, hyper-local, just-in-time advertising of a sort we have never seen before. While you're driving. The car, and by extension, the cloud, know where you are. Which means everything paying a fee to the Google is gonna know you're passing by right now, or about to. You really think Google's not going to enable that kind of advertising? "You're one mile from a great burger at McDonalds." "Hey you're about to pass a great sale going on at Lenscrafters. Stop by in the next 5 minutes for a 20% discount." "Hey there Claire, you have 87000 miles on your Celica. Turn right in 500 feet and stop by Bob's Toyota for a fantastic deal on a trade-in right now." Et cetera. It is coming. It is going to suck. Advertising is coming to cars and it's going to get ugly. And I fully predict Apple wants to get in on this game too. Just watch. It's coming.
So I love listening to Jason and his podcast; it's always interesting and he's right on the money so much. This piece though has me scratching my head a little bit.<p>> Apple draws the line at stealing content, and doesn’t see the subversion of ads as stealing – which all of us in the real world know it is. Undermining a publisher’s ability to monetize is stealing, but it’s Robin-Hood, feel-good stealing.<p>This is wrong on so many levels. The ad model relies on the honor system. Yes, the honor system. You are served content and it's expected-no, trusted-that whatever you view the content inside will download and show you ads. This business model made sense initially because there was no other way to get people to pay for content on a network that is based around standards versus vendor lock-in when little to no e-commerce was happening or really even possible.<p>As ads became worse and started to require clients download sometimes MORE data than the content they are viewing it's only natural the users would fight back against such shitty behavior. This was written about and predicted over 10 years ago and I'm honestly surprised it has taken so long before people began complaining about it. I remember when some of the first ad blockers became popular and many websites were writing about how this was stealing, the internet was going to die, blah blah blah.<p>Markets change when technology disrupts the status quo. Online advertisement through resource-hogging third-party ads has been the status quo and it has been eroding for quite some time. Why do you think Google makes ads look more and more like search results? Why do you think so many sites are doing "fake content" that's basically an ad disguised as content? People realize that the ad of the early 2000s just isn't going to cut it anymore.<p>Calling it theft when you give it away for free is asinine. Adapt or get out.
I think this is a very well written article, potential sour grapes aside. My concern is for the future though, what happens when/if Apple has it all but still wants more? Will they then sell you out?<p>There was a post here a few days about Apple advocating for CISA or some other act (not American, I don't remember the exact act) and how Apple is amongst those pushing to want to share data.<p>There is no doubt about it the way Google has managed to entrench itself is disgusting - Google Analytics is so common and that alone lets Google correlate your viewing habits to your user account.<p>I realised this a while back and have been browsing with SafeScript and 3rd party cookies off. The web is still surprisingly useful.<p>Just need to wean myself off Gmail... But I don't see that happening any time soon.
I don't understand the hype around this topic. Adblock and adblock plus, both freely available in Chrome store have more than 250 million downloads together. Let in sync that number a little.
I think all this is just gravy. I suspect it's more likely they did it because mobile web ads are ridiculous, ruin the web, and drain the battery. I don't think it's about Android... and, you know, Steve Jobs <i>did</i> actually die.