I am certainly on the Apple side of this spat but Stratechery wrote a rather compelling pro-Facebook article about this: https://stratechery.com/2020/privacy-labels-and-lookalike-au...

The gist of the argument being that, regardless of what you think about Facebook, hyper-targeted "lookalike audience" models to target ads against actually do level the playing field for small businesses who do not the resources to produce large scale ad campaigns. Highly recommended reading.

While that might be true, it does not change the fact that modern tracking practices are intrusive and anti-consumer. Frankly, I can't sympathize with any business, no matter how small, that is dependent on tracking to thrive.

It's an old "ends justify the means" argument. By stealing your kidneys we can give them to starving orphans.

For "ends justify the means" argument to work, we all have to understand and agree to what the "ends" are.

Typically, the "ends" is to "maximize aggregate utility across all actors" i.e. also often described as "the greater good". As shown by your example: "By stealing your kidneys we can give them to starving orphans."

However, when it comes to targeted advertising, the "ends" is "maximize aggregate utility for small and large capitalists". As such the example should be: "By stealing kidneys from starving orphans, we can sell them to temporarily[0] sustain capitalists". Which frankly is a very poor "ends" from my (and hopefully the majority of consumer's) perspective.

[0] Why "temporarily"?: Because the capitalist growth mindset will require more kidneys soon. Arguably, this implies there is no "ends" and therefore it might be incorrect to use any "ends justify the means" argument in this context.

If you know people who don't make a lot of money (just getting by), being able to exchange your privacy for a service might be an option they're willing to do.

I think transparency and allowing people to make the choice is fair. I don't suspect a lot of people give the "free" aspect much thought, and I'm glad this is getting the news out there.

I really wish companies would give you the option to pay to not be tracked, or exchange your information for tracked ads. I don't love that even though I subscribe to some online publication they still have ads.

Jaron Lanier a good set of videos on the problem and has a proposal to get you paid for your information (videos).

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/23/opinion/data-...

One need only look back at the previous threads on the App Store to find people arguing that Apple should be legally forced to open their platform up to competitors, which would pretty much gut these kinds of privacy-protecting moves. Facebook will immediately move exclusively to a separate app store that doesn't ask developers to justify user-relevant reasons for the permissions it requests, and immediately start demanding full permissions or else you don't get to use the app.

So essentially, people here tend to agree in principle with Apple protecting user privacy and think Facebook is overbearing and infringing on user privacy, but think Apple should be legally stripped of any tools to actually protect users' privacy, because muh sideloading is more important than people's privacy.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26165966

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26276238

Not being able to sideload apps really is feckin' idiotic, though. One ought to be able to install whatever they please on a handset they've purchased -- especially when they've spent that much.

Just bury a toggle deep in settings somewhere.

You can sideload, just pay for a developer account and you can sideload whatever you want.

Going further than that effectively removes the point of app review - Facebook/etc will immediately demand that you sideload to bypass the app review and just demand all permissions.

this is not a theoretical problem, Facebook has already been busted for asking users to sideload a version signed with their developer credentials that scrapes up data that apple won't let them collect on the public release. You are basically suggesting that they be allowed to do that officially.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-hits-back-facebook-revo...

If you are starting a startup and plan to monetize it by selling data of your users, you have one more problem to solve now.

If you are starting a company with a very specific market, you might pay for your first customers more.

The first point falls flat. It is as good as saying, earlier you could steal data, now you have to ask and respect consent.

Second may have some ground. But does seem shallow once you consider that in order to support small business you are opting to take away privacy controls from individuals. What ethical model favors the ability of small sized businesses to spend less on marketing over individual's right to privacy?

If your feed reader app was collecting the websites people visited and selling that data to others, you might have to ask users for permission now.