Apple’s ad business set to boom on the back of its own anti-tracking crackdown

Re:Apple’s ad business set to boom on the back of its own an... by adrr on Monday October 03, 2022 @04:30PM (#33073250)

Targeted ads is why we see an explosions in new companies. With traditional marketing, new companies had no way to reach an audience effectively. You could start a company but couldn’t build a customer base. With targeted advertising, it gave us things like free trading with Robinhood that leveraged targeted ads to buy installs. It gave us a bunch of new banking options that offer zero fees. It gave us new clothing brands, razors, workout equipment, cosmetics and washable rugs.

Killing targeted ads will just mean the incumbents will dominate and without competition, consumer prices will rise. Gillette did their first price reduction because of dollar shave club is an example.

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Re:Apple’s ad business set to boom on the back of its own an... by pdntspa on Monday October 03, 2022 @05:32PM (#33073982)

You seem to say that as if it were the only way to build an audience. There have been disruptors and innovators out there long before targeted advertising became a thing.

Targeted ads gave us none of the things you mentioned, it merely gave them highly-effective ad targeting. But a company can still buy TV ad spots, they can still spread via word-of-mouth or grassroots campaigns, they can still hire people to canvas and pitch, nowadays they can still go viral.

I agree with GP that ads are manipulation, and that we cannot give ad people (or any people, really) tools that are too good in this area.

Literally every big company in existence today started small, disrupting or innovating or just effectively competing at something. Yet somehow they managed to become what they are without targeted advertising?

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Re:Apple’s ad business set to boom on the back of its own an... by amelius on Monday October 03, 2022 @05:43PM (#33074112)

You can have targeted ads without user tracking. E.g. you can show job openings on a website where hackers meet.

User tracking is absolutely despicable and must be killed.

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Re:Apple’s ad business set to boom on the back of its own an... by HWR_14 on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @02:25AM (#33077182)

RobinHood didn't use targeted ads. That should blow a hole in your thesis.

Okay, I'm sure they used some of them as well, but that was not their primary advertising mechanic to get the first 1,000,000 signups.

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