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Apple Finds Its Next Big Business: Showing Ads on Your iPhone

(www.bloomberg.com)
115 points miles | 2 comments | 14 Aug 22 18:36 UTC | HN request time: 1.617s | source
1. stereoradonc ◴[15 Aug 22 09:51 UTC] No.32467695[source]▶
When will the HN forums get rid of it's fascination for Apple, the privacy company, and realise it's as bad as Meta or Google or Amazon in terms of invasiveness (and possibly worse), since it cloaks everything as "privacy company". It doesn't. They are as evil as anyone else.
replies(1): >>32472606 #
2. nerdix ◴[15 Aug 22 17:28 UTC] No.32472606[source]▶
I think ultimately a lot of people really don't care as much about the privacy angle as they let on. And they just use it as a talking point to justify supporting Apple despite its bad behavior regarding platform lock-in and walled gardens (something that the hacker ethos has historically despised). Apple's current walled garden would have made Bill Gates blush in the 90s and we know how hacker types reacted to 90s era Microsoft.

So how do you keep your hacker card while stilling buying Macbooks and iPhones? Well, its because the "other side" isn't just worse than Apple. They are actually evil. And while Apple is a dictator, they are benevolent. And so thats actually a good thing because Apple is using the immense unilateral power bestowed upon them to protect us from the evils of non-Apple Big Tech.

What we learned about Apple over the weekend was pretty incredible.

Apple tried to extort Facebook for a portion of its ad revenue (arguing that boosted posts paid for by iOS users were IAP).

Facebook didn't relent. Apple couldn't bully Facebook like it did Tumblr (by rejecting app updates until boosted posts were implemented as IAP) so instead they eventually crushed its core business with ATT. Does anyone actually think that Apple would have done that if it were getting a cut?

Now, we see that Apple is expanding its own advertising business.

Its really sort of remarkable when you think about it. They are acting exactly like the mob. Pay us or we'll crush you. And after we burn your laundromat down, we might just build our own to replace it. No doubt that if this were Google, people would be screaming for the DOJ to break the company apart on anti-trust grounds and it would be justified.