
Kids’ Apps Are Crammed With Ads - chablent
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/30/style/kids-study-apps-advertising.html
======
bpizzi
Father of two little guys of 7 & 5 here. Personal story below.

There's no tablets at home, no games on parent's smartphones. They have access
to technology thought. But we are a "NO ADS ALLOWED HERE" kind of home :)

Netflix is freely accessible on the only TV we have, during "opening hours",
so that they can choose actively their program and not be exposed to TV ads
(the TV has only access to Netflix).

They can switch on a Raspberry with an emulator where they can play some games
from the 80/90'. But they have to enter one command on the little Bluetooth
keyboard (and they do!).

And finally they can sit at the home's PC, start windows, ask parents to open
their session and launch complex games such as Age Of Empire.

No internet access, only books for now.

When they happen to be exposed to TV ads at grand-parents home, for ex, you
can really see what kind of behavior ads are ingraining in little brains: "I
want this!", "Why is this so short?", "Why don't they tell the price?". That's
always an opportunity for me to educate them to what's actually happening
before their eyes: "look guys, this is a company (some people at work) that's
working to expose their products (toys) to your eyes, hoping that you will ask
your parents to spend money to buy it. They're smart, but we are smarter!".

I'm very inclined to think that toddlers should not have access to tablets,
moreover to mainstream games on Android/Iphone. My personnal guess is that
It's not preparing them to mastering technology, it's preparing them to be
_addicted_ to technology.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _That 's always an opportunity for me to educate them to what's actually
> happening before their eyes: "look guys, this is a company (some people at
> work) that's working to expose their products (toys) to your eyes, hoping
> that you will ask your parents to spend money to buy it. They're smart, but
> we are smarter!"._

You're stopping short of telling them about what is my real reason I hate ads.
I wonder if the kids ever asked you _why_ companies are doing it?

The reason I hate ads is because it's a legitimized way of abuse, of hurting
other people. I'm gonna be a father at some point, and I dread the day I have
to explain to my kid that modern civilization is in this weird state, where
it's "friendly" in the sense that you don't generally have to fear strangers,
but it's also overrun by malicious actors trying to suck your money and
happiness dry. Our civilization pays lip service to being cooperative, yet so
much of it is still adversarial.

~~~
andrewla
I've got to say, you're using a pretty wild definition of the word "abuse", as
well as "hurting other people". How in the world does an ad hurt you?

The closest I can I think of is that there are some mobile games that use
their ads as bludgeons to force you to buy their "remove all ads" in-app
purchase, which, if I enjoy the game, I'm usually more than happy to buy, even
if I resent a little being bullied. You could possibly stretch this to meet
the definition of "abuse".

I don't like ads, but it's a pretty big stretch to say that it is abuse. Are
you talking about ads on the web or on television or in app in particular, or
are you talking about print ads or billboards or radio ads as well?

Certainly there are services which are borderline scams (and occasionally real
scams) like multi-level marketing or snake oil goop, or games that arguably
are designed to trick you into spending money on in-app purchases, but the
fact that those services use ads does not taint ads, any more than the fact
that people that work there use pencils mean that pencils are abuse.

~~~
SquishyPanda23
> I've got to say, you're using a pretty wild definition of the word "abuse",
> as well as "hurting other people". How in the world does an ad hurt you?

So, I realize this is a minority opinion, but this is close to how I feel,
especially with respect to exposing my children to advertising.

Advertising is almost always an attempt to emotionally manipulate people by
lying to them. There are some exceptions, like a catalog that lists objective
descriptions and prices. But virtually everything else falls under that
description.

Humans have the capability of reason, even though they're emotional naturally.
Children, by definition, are still learning to use reason and logic and
building effective habits. To expose children to a world of very smart adults
trying to undermine their ability to reason or make good choices really is an
act of aggression against children.

Abuse is probably too strong, but it's definitely an aggression.

~~~
tclancy
I'm not sure it is a minority opinion, I just think it's so ingrained in us at
this point we don't stop and notice. Perhaps it's having a kid, but I've
recently been thinking on a regular basis that at some point in the future
people will look back on the Advertising Age and wonder why anyone put up with
what is essentially lying to encourage you to do something you probably don't
need to.

I get why advertising exists and I think it probably did and can fill a need
in a limited way but the incentives are all wrong. Ideally advertising would
be a way of leading all buyers of mousetraps to the best mousetrap. Instead it
is a way for the lesser mousetrap manufacturers/ the lazy/ the actively evil
to foist inferior products on people via emotional appeals. We have homes
filled to the brim wth crap we don't need because advertising suggests this
next product will remove that existential dread or feeling of emptiness or
impostor syndrome from your life.

~~~
908087
> essentially lying to encourage you to do something you probably don't need
> to.

That's the best case scenario. More often than not, advertisers are actively
malicious.

By that, I mean they are attempting to manipulate people into taking actions
that are actively damaging to their health/finances/etc in order to enrich the
advertisers. The fact that this is so accepted by society that hundreds of
billions of dollars are spent doing it each year is absolutely repulsive.

~~~
sizzle
Even the news/media industry is complicit in advertising. How can you tell the
advertising bias in news articles etc? It's a tough problem to solve...

------
social_quotient
I’m so glad this topic has come up. I have a young child with some apple
devices. Apple has a feature where the child can request permission to
download an app, I can approve or not. This is great... but it would be
awesome if I could approve with “ads off”, I don’t mind taking the $$ hit on
install. What infuriates me is finding out 3 days later that my kid is either
being distracted non stop to an unplayable level with ads or trading eyeball
time to watch in app videos in exchange for some monetary system to be used in
game play.

What I can’t stand, when it comes to kids, is when I have to become an expert
at X to be able to trust that something is a safe environment for a child. I
have to actually check the game, play it, figure out its incentive protocol
and then buy the ads away. Some games sell the ads away but still have
incentives to purposefully sell your time watching a video to get more points
/ currency.

Here is what I want. I want a way to trial a game without ads. If I like the
game I’ll buy it for $1-$20 just like I would in a physical store. Then it’s
my game no ads or weird economic models. If the game maker “needs” recurring
money to provide the game play then eat me signup for a subscription like I
would on Netflix. I want a straightforward way to own the game or at least use
it like I own it (SaaS like)

~~~
jakobegger
Yep, the app store really, really needs a section for games that are ad-free
and that don't have any consumable in-app-purchases.

Angry Birds was a really nice game, and I'd love to let my kids play it, but
it just isn't playable any more. It's so full of crap. Ads, in-app-purchases,
loads of shit. I'd easily pay 10€ to get back the original version of Angry
Birds that I bought in 2010 or so, but that version is gone for good.

There are some games that aren't full of crap. Monument Valley, Alto's
Adventure, Pinout, Blyss, Canabalt, Glider, Paw Patrol, Duplo Trains are some
ad-free games that I can recommend.

I'd love to have some kind of curated list of ad-free games. The games that
Apple promotes / features in the store are usually less obnoxious, but I'm not
sure if there's a way to search for them.

Since Apple has removed the affiliate payments for apps, I don't think there's
an easily monetisable way to build a recommendation website for ad-free games,
but it may be possible to build it as a volunteer effort?

~~~
fouc
Perhaps we need to consider if something is wrong about this culture of
constant upgrades.

Not just phone apps, but other applications too. Upgrades are actually hostile
to the end user. There's nothing to counter the incentives of companies to
keep sneaking in more ways to squeeze money out of their users.

Interestingly thinking back, I remember when I first discovered Chrome's
aggressive autoupdate and I felt disquieted. Now I have a better sense that
it's fundamentally not to the benefit of the end user. Actually there's some
benefits for web developers, which tricks them into becoming part of this
culture, and heavily pushing for these newer browsers with their built-in
autoupdates now.

~~~
ryandrake
Problem is, most software upgrades are all-or-nothing. You can’t just take the
good (security fixes, better performance, etc.) and leave the bad (reduced
functionality, new worse UI, more ads). It’s in my view a major unsolved
problem in software.

------
skrebbel
Unlike the better parents in this thread, I sometimes let my toddler play an
Android game. I can tell you with certainty that _every_ ad in a toddler game
is click fraud. He never wants to click the ad. He wants to play the game, but
hits the wrong button.

In my book, the fact that Google allows clickable ads in toddler games makes
them complicit in ad fraud. And hey, why wouldn't they? It's not like it's
"real fraud" right? Right?

(I'm not entirely kidding, I don't understand why other forms of fraud are
punishable with prison time but ad fraud is totally a-ok)

~~~
logicchains
>(I'm not entirely kidding, I don't understand why other forms of fraud are
punishable with prison time but ad fraud is totally a-ok).

It's very simple: no actual fraud in a legal sense has been committed. The
person clicking the ad certainly hasn't signed any contract with the ad
publisher, so how could they possibly be committing fraud by clicking the ad?
The creator of the application showing the ads does not sign a contract
guaranteeing to the advertiser that every click is legitimate (how could they
possibly enforce, or even measure that), so it's not fraud on their part
either.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
I'm pretty sure toddlers don't have the capacity to commit fraud because no
reasonable person would rely on a toddler's representation of material facts
to make a decision that could result in injury to themselves.

~~~
ceejayoz
I think the alleged fraud is on the part of the ad vendor that placed the
hard-to-click, tap three times while it makes a synchronous network request,
25% opacity, 10x10px close/skip button on the ad in a game targeted to
toddlers, not the toddler.

------
ObsoleteNerd
It's almost impossible to find good educational apps that aren't full of ads,
dark UX patterns, in-app purchases, etc etc.

I remember an abundance of educational programs back in the pre-Internet days.
Simple Alphabet/Number matching games, click-to-colour-in games, shape
identification games, etc. Most came on disks on magazines, or given away free
at meetups and events. I expected educational stuff to explode with the
internet and smart phones, but instead.. ugh.

We really do need a new category in both app stores. Software for kids that
you buy, and then that's it. No ads, no in-app purchases, no trickery or
bullshit. It should be curated by an educator and have strict rules. They make
more than enough off the app store profits to cover an educator who finds,
tests, and adds apps each day to this category and slowly fill it with quality
educational apps we can trust with our kids.

They won't though, because they don't actually care. The more they can train
kids to be ok with ads and IAP the more profit they'll make later. It's a form
of brainwashing.

~~~
protomyth
Question: If we sell an education math app that is a free download but limits
the numbers (say 1 to 5) but has an in-app purchase to get the full range, is
that acceptable?

~~~
ObsoleteNerd
If buying it then means the transaction between us is over, and I get a fully
working app with no ads, no popups asking to buy extra "coins" or anything,
and my kid can play that app with no other interruptions or anything I need to
be wary of, then yeah that sounds fine. Just sounds like a free trial/demo to
me which is fair.

~~~
protomyth
> If buying it then means the transaction between us is over

It should be, but iOS sometimes requires code upgrades which makes me wonder
how long a person supports a version of a program on iOS. The whole length of
support versus new version is problematic. I would assume version fixes for a
number of years. Should be ok for an educational program since the useful
lifetime is limited by the nature of the lesson.

------
guelo
> Google Play “discloses whether an app has advertising or in-app purchases

Yea but I can't search for apps without ads or in-app purchase, can I
scumbags? I have to scroll through the algorithmically sorted list and click
into each app page because you are evil people that sold your souls for that
six figure salary and free cafeteria food.

~~~
gpm
I don't install new apps often, but the last time I was looking for something
the yalp store (Open source google play wrapper) could filter out things with
ads or in app purchases.

------
gU9x3u8XmQNG
I have zero tolerance for advertisements. We don’t have “free to air” tv, nor
use any services otherwise delivering advertisements. I’m more than happy to
pay for content, eg; Netflix. I also actively purchase content via iTunes
(movies, music). Apps, however, and that overall ecosystem are near dead to
me.

I don’t accept anything with “in-app purchases”, and even struggle now to find
the “Pay once and own” category - though I so don’t use my devices in ways
this impacts me. I’m sure there’s apps that deliver this experience (in app
purchases) in what I believe is an ethical manner - and it sucks to rule them
all out because of a bad bunch.

I don’t have constructive feedback on how to improve this, either. My
experience in this whole space has resulted in my rather locked down
environment. And I’m extremely happy with it.

I’m also happy to provide further information to others, should they wish to
deliver what I believe is a safer environment for myself and my family.

~~~
function_seven
You probably know this, but in case you don't: A lot of apps that have "In-App
Purchases" will have one that unlocks the ad-free version of the same app.
Instead of the publisher listing two separate versions of their app in the
store, they list just the one and handle the crap-free process using IAP
instead.

BUT... then there are those apps that promise to remove the ads for $1.99 or
whatever, but _still_ have an ads-for-loot scheme. That's infuriating.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Yup, not to mention other in-app purchases for vanity items, xp boosters, etc.
AAA games have those too nowadays (notably Assassin's Creed Odyssey, which has
actively been designed to have a poor, plodding experience unless you pay
extra for boosters - just like most mobile games).

~~~
mikewhy
Those transactions have been in AC games for years. What happened with Odyssey
is they made an absolute slog of a game.

------
radoslawc
This might be unpopular opinion, but whatever happened with paper and crayons?
Or Legos? I can understand how it can be tempting to have few quiet hours
after work, giving your young ones tablet of phone to watch this specially
crafted media to attract their attention (and show them ads as it turns out),
but I don't believe it's healthy for young organism to stare blankly on screen
10 inches from face with worse possible head position (almost always bent
forward). My friend said once, that she's so grateful for technology
advancement, that she doesn't know how she would manage to change diapers
without tablet.

~~~
salvar
Why do you say "stare blankly"? My young organism stares anything but blankly
at the iPad screen when he's allowed to use it.

I think you're painting phone/tablet usage in a very negative light here, as
if parents are only using them as a pacifier to occupy their kids so they can
have some quiet time of their own. Sure some people do that, but that's the
least charitable interpretation I think.

~~~
Draiken
Saying that "some people" do it is a big understatement. The majority of
parents do that in my personal experience.

Don't think I live in a bubble on that front, but perhaps there are researches
on this that can prove me wrong.

~~~
salvar
Well I was hoping for something stronger than your personal anecdotes to back
this assertion up.

In any case, crayons and tablets are not mutually exclusive choices. You can
in fact use both, and other things as well.

------
thomasfedb
Beware the generation who are raised by phone addicts. Attachment and rearing
requires active involvement — even from a distance.

When your toddler looks back at you to check that they're okay, to see if
they're still safe, you'd better meet their gaze. Look up from your phones and
watch, else your toddler will stop looking back.

I'm a medical student on psychiatry rotation, and this stuff scares me big
time.

~~~
TaupeRanger
This is nonsense. Our ancestors only survived because they could be doing all
kinds of stuff (you know, stuff that was necessary to survive) while the kids
were playing around and keeping themselves busy. Children are more capable
than we give them credit for. It's about making your interactions meaningful
_when_ you have them, not staring at them all the time. This is the kind of
mindset that makes children grow up to be anxiety-ridden young adults. The
studies show that _emotional trauma_ (i.e. NOT "dad was looking at his phone
when I bumped my head and wasn't staring directly at me", but _actual_ trauma)
causes problems in adolescence and adulthood. But most parenting within the
normal range just does not matter. At all. Take a look at The Nurture
Assumption, or read a primer: [https://slate.com/human-
interest/2018/03/parenting-doesnt-ma...](https://slate.com/human-
interest/2018/03/parenting-doesnt-matter-that-muchas-long-as-you-dont-do-
anything-super-weird.html)

~~~
thomasfedb
I'm talking about toddlers, who definitely do need and seek reassurance as
they explore the boundaries of their expanding world. As kids develop they
need less and more distant supervision, but it is still important. Childhood
neglect is demonstrably associated with borderline personality disorder, for
example.

Interaction is good for children, and it's not the same as helicoptering. It's
far better for a kid to talk to their parent than for the kid to play Angry
Birds on the iPad while their parent sits on Facebook. I'm not suggesting a
bit of parental phone time is going to mess your kids up for life, but I won't
be surprised if the era of personal screens for everybody produces some fun
personality traits now and then.

------
andrew-dc
Father of two boys, and kinda lapsed gamer. Wanted to introduce boys to some
fun games we can play together. I cannot express how maddening the entire
casino/micro-transaction transformation of all games has ruined everything for
kids. I would happily buy a game out-right if it disabled all up-sells, and
transactional BS. Even frikkin Minecraft launches with a bazillion pay
upgrades now, and that's after you already bought it.

I play a few carefully selected Steam titles with the boys in a limited
fashion, because they are actually games, and not clever schemes to monetize
everything.

Even so, my oldest (who's 6) hasn't even ever seen Fortnight - and yet he
still asks me about it. (I guess he hears about it from friends.) That's how
good their marketing and monetization strategy works... It's sickening.

~~~
tomjen3
As someone who used to develop games I would love to work on non-ad games, but
the way the appstore works, you have to get on the top ten to make money
(first page of google effect), which you can only do if you charge .99 (in the
paid category) or free and then fill it with ads and shit. It takes a lot of
advertisments elsewhere to get on the top ten apps in the appstore, which
means if you don't fill your app with crap you can't afford to get the app up
high enough that you break even.

The best thing apple could do would be to randomize the list of which apps are
shown when the user just searches, perhaps even weighted by reviews.

~~~
andrew-dc
Oh yeah, I get that the stores and industry are a major problem here. Devs who
don't play the store ranking game, end up losing. I resent that very much. I'm
not certain what would be a decent solution for this problem, cause even if
games were rated by users on "quality" \- then the shift would be to game that
quality system, by rewarding players to rank things higher quality, etc. Just
a bummer.

------
rvanmil
There is a bigger problem here and that is a lot of parents either ignore or
simply don’t see the problem. Friends think I’m weird because I carefully
curate apps for my 3yo son and have banned youtube. This problem also exists
on iOS but I don’t think it’s as bad as described in this article. I’ve
realised quite a while ago that Google really doesn’t give a shit about your
kids being confronted with inappropriate content.

~~~
jmvoodoo
My wife and I both have Andoid phones. Whenever we get a new device removing
YouTube is the first thing we do. We have a small list of paid puzzle games we
install. And for the limited video time the kids get PBS Video which is great.
We don't let the kids watch Netflix or any other video apps because their
"kids" programming is absolute garbage if not openly hostile toward children.

You're not weird.

~~~
move-on-by
I just installed PBS Video on my iPhone and opened up my pi-hole to see what
types of DNS requests it was making. Among regular PBS domains are:

* ssl.google-analytics.com (tracking)

* pagead2.googlesyndication.com (a google ad domain)

* pubads.g.doubleclick.net (another google ad domain)

* sb.scorecardresearch.com (tracking)

* imasdk.googleapis.com (The Google IMA SDK for ads within a video)

* localization.services.pbs.org (perhaps this one is benign)

From their Privacy Policy [1]:

> We also may share aggregated or anonymized information with third parties,
> including to help us develop content and services that we hope you or your
> child will find of interest or to help these third parties develop their own
> products and service offerings.

The above paragraph with the associated list of domains being used above
screams targeting to me

> We may allow third parties to place and read their own cookies, web beacons,
> and similar technologies to collect information through the Services.

So they let 3rd parties do whatever they want. The full privacy policy is
followed with an example use case of how its helpful and useful, but just like
Facebook's privacy policy the examples are misdirection.

[1] [https://pbskids.org/privacy/](https://pbskids.org/privacy/)

------
samwillis
I think we are very lucky here in the UK, the BBC have a channel called
“CBeebies” aimed at 0-6yo whith all the videos available through a dedicated
app, plus a huge range of games. Absolutely no ads and most have an
educational message.

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups/article-cbeebies-
app...](https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups/article-cbeebies-apps)

My 4yo is allowed to use an iPad but it only has the BBC apps on it. No
YouTube, Sky, or any other ad supported apps. The BBC has made it possible for
us to give her something and not need us to moderate what she is downloading
or playing (although we do limit time on it strongly).

~~~
move-on-by
I installed CBeebies on my iPhone and looked at the pi-hole to see what type
of DNS requests it was making when the app was opened (I haven't clicked on a
single thing in the app)

* graph.facebook.com

* analytics.localytics.com

* api.branch.io (analytics & ads)

* app-measurement.com (analytics, maybe ads too?)

* ssl.google-analytics.com

* settings.crashlytics.com (perhaps benign)

So right off the bat Facebook and Google are both siphoning off data from the
use of this app among other 3rd parties. Did you know that?

~~~
4ndr3vv
I think that (although honourable) you're off topic here. We're discussing the
prevelance of ads baked into apps that are designed specifically for children.

The ethical ramifications of third party data are important but the cbeebies
apps do a great job of providing engaging, add free content.

~~~
OpenBSD-reich
I think he's right on and should continue giving this comment section the
facts about what even these apparently "clean" apps are doing. Data tracking
is the edge of the sword opposite to advertising and should be treated on
equal terms!

------
satysin
Ads are the reason I don't both with phone and tablet games anymore. If I want
to game on the go I take the Switch with me. Same for my son (5yo). I also
don't let him watch YouTube on my phone or tablet, only the computer where the
ads are perfectly blocked thanks to uBlock Origin. I run Pi-hole but it is not
perfect on mobile devices. I was very tempted at getting YouTube Premium but
at £11.99 a month I feel it is too much. I would have gone for it if it were
£6 or 7 but something about £12 makes me question how much value it is really
giving me. Pricing psychology is strange like that. Not to mention YT Premium
only removes the YouTube ads not all the sponsored content that is a part of
the video. That is becoming a bigger issue imho but not part of this
discussion.

It sucks though in some ways as there are some great mobile games but they are
_ruined_ with adverts often with no way to remove them. Some games have an ad-
free version for a few quid but most don't. Clearly they can make much more
spamming ads every other death than they can with a one off payment of a £3-5.

------
mirekrusin
Last weekend I gave my almost 4 yo daughter my iPhone with Cut the rope on it
as I remembered it was fun... oh my... after few minutes had to turn it off
and came back to painting unicorns and playing with dolls - the amount of crap
they put there nowadays is ridiculous, you can't do anything, you're
constantly bombarded with popups I, myself, couldn't figure out how to close,
some of them you have to wait 30 seconds to close, absolute garbage, can't
even explain how the game works with different shit poping up all the time. I
guess you have to write a game yourself for kids today.

------
ohazi
Instead of giving kids an iPad / Android device, what about giving them a
lightweight Linux laptop / tablet so they can play games and watch YouTube
with an ad blocker?

The complaints are the same every time this issue comes up: "I wish I could
pay to turn off the ads."

This isn't going to happen. Take control of your computer and get rid of the
ads yourself.

~~~
saagarjha
Linux just doesn’t have the polish that an iPad does. There are very few, if
any, games, and it’s not really a good fit for younger children.

~~~
ndnxhs
The computer most of us had as a kid was a hell of a lot less polished than a
modern Linux system.

~~~
saagarjha
You can give a two year old an iPad and they can figure it out. I doubt you
were using a computer at that age. There is an age at which it’s possible to
introduce Linux computers, it it might quite young, but I think it’s quite
later than the average age that one can grasp how to use an iPad.

~~~
quadrangle
Two year olds should NOT have iPads or any such devices, period.

~~~
saagarjha
Disagree. It's entirely possible to introduce children to iPads as an
introductory device. Should you give them unrestricted access to the internet
and App Store? Probably not. But load up a couple of high-quality apps, and
you can make it a very good tool for learning.

~~~
quadrangle
I didn't oppose introducing iPads per se. I opposed it at a certain AGE.
Introduction should happen later for all sorts of reasons.

------
qsymmachus
As the comments on this post make clear, there are a lot of HN readers who go
to great lengths to reduce or even eliminate screen time for their kids. Just
this week, the NY Times wrote a piece about how parents who work in tech are
most wary of the impact screen time has on their children[1].

Even more broadly, the same gap was found between high-income families and
low-income families. Poorer children spend ~2.5 more hours in front of a
screen per day than rich children[2].

I am seriously concerned about this emerging "digital divide", which is
ironically an inversion of what everyone expected. What does it say about the
kind of things we are building, when the people who work closest with tech are
most afraid of it, and take the greatest lengths to keep it away from their
kids?

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/style/phones-children-
sil...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/style/phones-children-silicon-
valley.html) [2] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/style/digital-divide-
scre...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/style/digital-divide-screens-
schools.html)

~~~
xvector
On a macro scale, I am absolutely horrified at what this will spell for our
democracy. Conditioning the majority of kids via ads to achieve certain
political goals and groom certain mindsets is absolutely on the table here.

------
wavewash
We've recently released an app on iOS that has ads and is aimed at a younger
audience. We have an option to remove the ads and it comes with an added
ability to put a childlock on in app messaging. Later when we add a store into
the app we will add features to lock it further because we want to do right by
our customers who we hope include parents of kids.

What I didn't expect was the slump in sales we make from ad removal offerings.
We make more money from the ads than from purchases of ad removal. I see a lot
of folks say "I'll pay for a no ads experience" but the reality is most folks
will continue to use the app with the ads even when the option to remove them
exists.

Adding code to handle ad removal is another feature which takes time to
develop and keep up to date as APIs and system versions change. Sadly, it may
not be lucrative enough for most developers to put that effort in to provide
the option.

~~~
teddyh
> _We make more money from the ads than from purchases of ad removal._

Yes, you’ll make more money doing the bad thing which people are complaining
about. This will always be true. If you could make more money the other way,
you would do it, and people would have nothing to complain about. _Therefore_
, the fact that you can make more money is not a valid reason to keep doing
it.

------
josefresco
Bought the kids Amazon Kindle Fire's a while back. Would occasionally use one
of them and every time I would launch Silk (the browser) an adult ad/website
would load complete with graphic nudity. A new ad would load each day when
launching Silk.

Thankfully she never saw them (she doesn't' use or even know what "Silk" is)
but I was forced to randomly uninstall games until I found the culprit. I
would shame them here but I forgot which game it was.

We also have a Chromebook, with a game rated "10 and up" \- this game also
loads adult ads - no nudity but plenty suggestive. I complained via Twitter -
crickets.

Kids are not so used to ads, they instinctively hunt for the "X" button
whenever anything (ad or not) overlays on top of their content.

~~~
VLM
The problem is the parents not reporting the infraction.

At least WRT google play app store, they can be brutal toward apps with ads
with wrong content criteria, see the link discussing your situation

[https://play.google.com/about/monetization-
ads/ads/inappropr...](https://play.google.com/about/monetization-
ads/ads/inappropriate/)

with a side dish of

[https://play.google.com/about/monetization-
ads/ads/interferi...](https://play.google.com/about/monetization-
ads/ads/interfering/)

Presumably whatever the amazon devices use for an app store (google play, I
donno) has similar draconian policies to enforce IF the problem is ever
reported.

Unfortunately I've had to set up ads from the developer side and the Google UI
is not bad, but nothing's perfect, so in a world of a million apps its
entirely possible the dev accidentally screwed up age criteria rather than was
willfully antagonistic; but if parents don't report the problem to the dev or
appstore there is little hope of improvement either way.

If you can get the attention of Google's automated AI eye of sauron in policy
enforcement, I assure you they are remorseless, draconian, and merciless. The
difficult part is getting their attention.

My kids have learned from youtube how to side load cracked and modified apps
such as minecraft on their devices downloaded from mysterious and unsavory
websites, which promptly messes everything on the system up, such that its
possible the app dev and Google have nothing to do with your situation.

~~~
josefresco
> The problem is the parents not reporting the infraction.

Does complaining via Twitter count? Because I did, and typically I get a
response because "public shaming" seems to be the best way to get support
these days. I also complained about the Chromebook/Android game ad and got ...
crickets.

Unfortunately, taking many minutes or a few hours from my day to report the
issue to Amazon or Google doesn't seem like a valuable use of my time - I
guess that's the problem :(

It should be two clicks/presses to report an ad violation, especially on a
device sold specifically to kids (Kindle Fire).

------
whywhywhywhy
Just a thought but maybe if parents were willing to spend enough money for
developers to make a living then they wouldn't need to resort to ads and IAP
to make a living.

Often bring this up when I see people angry over how much their child spent in
a random freemium app and the anger and vitriol they spew back at you is nuts,
because they want their kids entertained for free with no catch.

High quality entertainment exists for kids out there, Nintendo Switch, Toca
Boca tablet apps, etc. But yeah it actually costs dollars.

~~~
josefresco
I pay for Netflix (no ads) and YouTube premium which also removes ads. I also
pay for basic cable (loads of ads).

However, Google still finds a way to show me and my kids ads.

This is the problem. Even when I'm willing to (and do) pay to remove ads, the
addiction and greed shown by content creators and delivery services is too
powerful. They always find exceptions.

~~~
taormina
Each individual app developer is making this particular decision, not Google.
If you think apps should be free, this is what happens. Pay for your apps, and
you shouldn't be subjected to advertisements. This is why I've historically
refused to go back to Hulu (you don't get to double dip AND keep me as a
customer).

------
EastSmith
Father of 10 years old. Technology is everywhere. Pixels, Gaming laptops,
Youtube. I think my son have not seen an ad in a long time. TV is replaced
with Youtube (mainly kind of stupid local streamers), all Chromes (phone,
laptop, tv) are equipped with ad blockers. The time spend on these devices is
not limited at all.

The trick is my son spends a lot of time on all kind of outside activities.
Like playing with friends, language courses, math courses. When at home, I
purposely try to find activities outside tech - like just chatting, lego
before, currently doing random house projects. Also he is wikipedia expert -
name a unknown topic and he is on wikipedia reading about it.

At the end he has like 2,3 hours free a day. He can do whatever he want -
mainly playing games with his friends, when he is not installing all kinds of
software he finds on internet.

So to sum it up - nothing is forbidden, time on devices looks healthy to me. I
see some of his friends spending quite a lot time online though.

As for the ads, this streamer was advertising a stupid PC mouse. We bought it
knowing it will be a disaster. His monthly budget was spend on it, it sucked
and now he knows firsthand about the ads and as a bonus - he doubts the
streamer and online content in general.

~~~
jpkeisala
If your kid watches gamers playing Minecraft etc. on Youtube he probably is
getting product placement ad's.

~~~
ashelmire
That's extremely hard to avoid... even on HN!

------
dnohr
Airplane mode is the safest option for when our 3yo kiddo play games on the
iPad. Unless the app is paid for, it most likely will be full of sketchy ways
to make the kids press on ads.

~~~
StapleHorse
This. It works and it is the only way I can run apps in my oldish tablet. If
it's connected while running many apps it slows down to a crowl.

------
kalleboo
In Europe, TV advertising to children is in often heavily regulated (sometimes
even to zero). In addition, in many countries you have the option of the
public broadcaster with no ads.

It seems like a matter of time until app stores get regulated in the same way.

Anyone know if the BBC et.al. have any good kids games?

~~~
samwillis
Yes, I have a 4yo and we only allow the BBC apps and videos, all ad free and
mostly have an educational direction:
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups/article-cbeebies-
app...](https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups/article-cbeebies-apps)

------
wst_
My kid is around 3yo now and likes My Little Pony, so I decided to see what's
on the Android market. I've found out some app, genuine, from Hasbro. I got it
for some time now and in the course of last few months number of ads showed
during game play jumped up dramatically. From starting the game, for first two
minutes I have counted 6-8 ads, each one including not only at least 30 sec
video but also some stub of application after that lasting also around 30
seconds, unless manually disabled. Thing is that close buttons are cramped
somewhere in the corner, small and they don't appear right from the start. It
doesn't seem to be this concrete application problem. Rather some decision has
been made by Google advertisement platform, it seems. It's so annoying that I
am not even going to consider purchasing the product, as I would in other
circumstances.

This, paradoxically, have had a great influence on our lives - no more playing
games.

------
jap
I've spent a lot of time finding apps I trust enough to leave my kids mostly
unsupervised with. For me it's mostly boiled down to finding trustworthy app
publishers, I listed some here a while ago:
[https://medium.com/@jacksonpauls/apps-for-preschool-
kids-304...](https://medium.com/@jacksonpauls/apps-for-preschool-
kids-304473a4f6db)

------
sureaboutthis
My kids grew up when all these things started coming about. My biggest regret
is introducing my oldest to computer games because it distracted him away from
me cause I ran my business out of my home and he always wanted to be with me.
It has affected him in a negative way that I still see today as he turned 30.

------
fipple
I downloaded 6TB of wholesome kid's content for my kids when they started to
want to watch screens. Animal documentaries, Mister Rogers, Sesame Street,
etc. The TV in our house can only access this content until they go to bed.

When we fly I replicate some of it to the iPad and take it along.

~~~
wilsonnb3
I’m curious as to whether that 6TB of content was paid for (or public domain).

~~~
fipple
It was not paid for and it was not public domain. I do try to support the main
producers of this content where I can (buying BBC Blu-Rays even though I have
them already downloaded), but am not super strict about it. I do pirate.

~~~
OpenBSD-reich
>I do pirate.

Y-har matey, good to see a shipmate aboard! In the age of advertising often
times the 'legit' sources where one can buy content still show ads or handcuff
your free use of it. BitTorrent (over Tor)/I2PSnark/IPFS/Freenet/etc will
probably remain the best way to obtain digital consumables. Big (and small)
media still doesn't understand that being anti-user is a Bad Thing(tm).

------
ngngngng
I'm surprised no one has released an ad blocking router yet. Just plug it in
and it has default dns rules in place to block all domains serving ads. Like a
pihole but built into the router. It could broadcast a separate network that
doesn't block ads in case the ad blocking broke something you needed to use.
If I had any experience in manufacturing i'd be all over this.

------
sneak
My bank (Chase) is now trying to sell me cars on the iOS app login screen and
on the balance page. Third party ads. In my checking account app.

Nothing is safe.

~~~
wingerlang
Third party apps would assume the third party is serving the ad right? I'd
assume they are actually first party, meaning Chase is serving it.

~~~
user5994461
I wouldn't assume that.

------
jm20
We've had a pretty popular kids coding app in the App Store for about 6 years
now (Kodable). We've never remotely considered having ads and never will, and
from the article it sounds like this heavily skews towards the ad-heavy Google
Play store.

From my experience most of the big name kids app developers do not put ads in
their apps (almost never on iOS), although I can understand why developers do.

Whether you like it or not, they work. There are two things that are always
going to be true about this - kids are going to download lots of free apps
(because it is easier than asking parents to pay), and they are going to
accidentally tap on ads. The developer doesn't care if the user will actually
purchase the product being advertised, all they care about is the click.
That's just the way PPC advertising incentivizes developers. The only way
around this is strictly limiting advertising for games targeting children.
That has to come from the App Store moderators (Google, Apple, etc).

------
cauldron
Get a router that supports dnsmasq, you can block most of ads, although it's
easy to evade, you can't really control the kids when they are able to do
that.

That way you can also get rid of the hundreds of companies eager to know what
you did on the internet.

I have a hosts file that consists of 15000+ lines of blocked domains,
accreddited to the inability of wildcards of Windows.

~~~
mverwijs
Perhaps check out pi-hole.net.

------
MrLeftHand
I bought for my kids Amazon Fire tablets and had to realise there are no games
which were suitable for them. Each one of them had some sort of ads, even the
completely free ones on their Underground market.

And Amazon is also a big offender. They have ad popups even on their kids
interface.

The only way to counter this is to go offline after you downloaded the game,
but still there are some which wouldn't even start without an internet
connection.

In Google's and Amazon's place I would uphold the app creators to certain
standards when it comes to kids games and apps. Like not putting ads in their
apps, or if even if I allow it, then forcing them to make it easily closable
and not making them with 10x10 pixel big X marks.

In the end all the games out there on the app store are either complete
rubbish, or just money grabbing schemes. There are rare exceptions, but good
luck finding them.

------
Rainymood
"Free" is the ultimate pricing tool. No one can argue or make anything cheaper
than free and those with audiences and ad revenue (Google, Youtube, Facebook,
Instagram) already have the eyeballs to make free worth it. Smaller
developers, studios, companies, can hardly compete with these apps because
free always trumps paying, even if it's only $0.01.

The willingness of people to open their wallet and vote with their wallet is
the direct cause of this mess. I have to be truly honest here and say I am
guilty of this as well. Paying for a game? Good luck unless I truly know it's
going to be great (Overwatch, for example). Let me try it out for free, and
fund it with cosmetic micro-transactions.

~~~
glenneroo
I'm not sure I understand your point about big vs small companies. The article
states:

"In Olaf’s Adventures, published by Disney, clicking on a glowing cake that is
not marked as an ad takes the player to a store;

Disney is not hurting for money, so why are they employing similarly devious
tactics? The problem is obviously not just with "smaller developers, studios
and companies".

~~~
Rainymood
Smaller and more frequent micro-transactions have been the norm rather than
the exceptions. Micro-transaction and lootboxs, this is the world we live in.
If we want to change it we have to vote with our wallets.

------
dabei
My strategy as a parent: cultivate healthy hobbies with your kid. I taught
chess to my daughter when she was 5. We play it together all the time, not
only standard chess but also all kinds of variants (she invented a few fun
variants herself). She goes to chess club every week and tournaments every
couple of months. The iPad is loaded with dozens of chess apps, nothing else.
Chess, together with other activities like art and sports take up most of her
leisure time. There is no room left for the ads infested games and videos. We
never have to tell her not to play or watch those. And she's having a great
time anyway.

------
moltar
YouTube videos too. I was at my friend’s place and they were showing some
cartoon to their kid.

After the cartoon was over came a 10 minute ad that does not look like an ad.
It’s just a woman and 2 kids playing with toys. Ofc the toys being the focus.

It’s so dirty!

------
thrower123
There's so much hand-wringing about this of late, but it has ever been so, at
least for the past sixty years. Ever since the advent of television,
children's programming has been laced with breakfast cereal and toy ads. The
era I grew up with in during the late 80s, early 90s, was all about
merchandising, to the point that it's almost impossible to remember what
started out as a cartoon and then became a toy line versus the other way
round.

Somehow, "This time it is different!" But that seems incredibly myopic given
any understanding of history.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Those ads were policed properly, unlike some of the sexual / gambling /
alcohol / otherwise unsuitable content I've seen advertised in kids' apps.

------
rchaud
I remember playing boatloads of old-school Flash games in the mid-2000s. Never
saw a single ad in-game. When Jobs wrote his "On Flash" open letter, I thought
at the time he was pushing for a mobile-friendly equivalent of what Flash
offered. It was years later I realized he was really only pushing to keep the
walled garden "app store" the dominant distribution model for interactive
mobile content, with Apple taking a cut of every dollar spent.

I really hope HTML5 games sitting on simple websites go back to being a thing.

~~~
tqi
My recollection was those sites were stuffed to the gills with banner ads...
how else would those free to play flash game sites make money?

~~~
rchaud
You're right, they must have been showing ads of some sort. I simply don't
remember any; perhaps they weren't that egregious or so numerous that I would
recall it ~13 years later. I know I didn't have any adblockers installed on my
PC until at least 2010, so I must have seen them if there were any.

------
taurath
So is the New York Times app, and I’m paying for it. Not much longer though -
they’ve now got autoplaying video.

~~~
dawnerd
Good luck trying to cancel. They’re pretty clingy... Expect to get spammed
with “please come offers” every single day.

~~~
Rjevski
Raise a dispute/chargeback with your card issuer. The only way to make them
stop this bullshit is to hit them where it hurts and increase their dispute
percentage to dangerous levels where their acquirer bank threatens to drop
them.

------
logicallee
"Dad when are you going to remortgage the house?"

"What? You're five years old, how do you know about mortgages"

"Well.. I was just thinking... Interest rates have never been lower"

------
benj111
Anyone uk based, iplayer is a good option. Although speaking as a father of a
2 yr old you're in trouble if their favourite program gets removed. So black
market backup required.

Slightly off topic, but how does everyone deal with these issues for older
kids. I would like when they get to the age of asking for a playstation X to
just not plug it in to the internet, so I don't have to worry about it. But
I'm not sure offline capable consoles are going to exist by then.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
The solution my wife and I came up with was to just not have kids. It's
depressing to admit, but we're genuinely that disillusioned with the state of
the world (we're in our mid-30s FWIW).

~~~
whywhywhywhy
Seems drastic maybe try going off the grid and into the countryside for a bit.
Honestly the world isn't anywhere near as bad as a lot of the media and the
social media hivemind will lead you to believe.

------
kenhwang
As someone working in advertising, I wonder how many of these apps and
advertisers are in violation of COPPA. We have so much annoying code scrubbing
so much information from users we suspect or discover to be children.

We really don't want to advertise to children, they're absolutely awful for
any meaningful non-impression metric for the advertiser. But there are
definitely ad networks that are more than happy to turn a blind eye to serving
ads to children.

~~~
bulditand
> We really don't want to advertise to children, they're absolutely awful for
> any meaningful non-impression metric for the advertiser.

Yeah, that's the reason not to advertise to children!

------
floatboth
Heh, I grew up with PC games (mostly pirated, though I still have my legit DVD
copy of NFS Most Wanted) —

and I just realized that I _was_ mildly exposed to in-game ads back then — in
the form of product placement! (or rather brand placement?)

e.g. Cingular and Burger King (NFS Underground 2), Motorola (Tony Hawk's
Underground 2)… but Cingular was a US thing, and Burger King didn't exist in
my country back then either, so these ads were hilariously irrelevant to me.

~~~
pszndr
> and I just realized that I was mildly exposed to in-game ads back then — in
> the form of product placement! (or rather brand placement?)

Well of course, ever since OutRun there is blatant product placement in most
racing games: car brands

There is a reason your DVD copy of Most Wanted has a BMW M3 on the cover

------
humanetech
For all those of you who are worried, and want to help work on solutions to
the harms that come with our modern technology, I invite you to join the
Humane Tech Community at our community forum [0].

We are still a relatively small community, having just repositioned ourselves
as a separate subsidiary of The Center for Humane Technology [1]. We will
start a number of crowdsourced community-driven projects - all in the public
domain - to help _Re-align Technology To Humanity 's Best Interests Again_.

Just created our first Awareness Campaigns project and will soon launch our
community website. Our forum has lotsa information about tech harms and their
solutions. But we are just at the start, and need as much help as we can get.

[0] [https://community.humanetech.com](https://community.humanetech.com)

[1] [https://humanetech.com](https://humanetech.com)

------
mtgx
What's almost just as bad is that networks such as Google also abuse
advertisers by counting random clicks from kids. All ads on mobile should
_require_ a 2-click action, and it shouldn't be easy to click twice by mistake
either. Like the second button should appear in another location of the screen
or something.

------
nkkollaw
I've been buying AdGuard for 2 years: completely removes all ads from browsers
and every single app.

Bought it for a family devices.

------
move-on-by
This is one of many reasons I do not feel the least bit bad about having a Pi-
Hole [1] on my network to block ads and trackers [2]. The companies behind
this are predatory. The advertisement and analytic platforms they use are
complicit. I have an obligation to shield my family from their manipulative
and malicious intentions. The option to just avoid these types of
apps/websites is a farce. The platforms have infiltrated our lives at every
level - analytics are always being collected. My own ISP has the right to spy
on me and my family and sell our activities to be used against us in the form
of advertisements.

[1] [https://pi-hole.net](https://pi-hole.net)

[2]
[https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts](https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts)

------
hpwrg
I have no children, but I have seen a child in a loop of ads on a tablet. She
was so fustrated, and no way to help her but to explain how the world works to
a 4y old. The whole play store is deceiving, and no way for children to learn
except trough frustration.

------
quickthrower2
I can see why, babies are going to accidently click ads making more money for
the developer.

------
dgzl
This reminds me of a thought experiment I was entertaining with a friend.

Imagine a program within your city, that would allow citizens to travel by
public transit for free. All they would need to do is wear a pancho of sorts,
completely covered with advertising. Although practical, this experience would
be humiliating, annoying, and would probably be extremely beneficial for those
who truly need it, and might be an eyesore for the rest of us.

Should we support our friends in need, and encourage something like this? Or
is selling ourself (and others) to marketing and advertising going to hurt us
in the long run? If so, then what is a fair price for keeping ads away?

~~~
leetcrew
> Although practical, this experience would be humiliating, annoying, and
> would probably be extremely beneficial for those who truly need it, and
> might be an eyesore for the rest of us.

i don't think it's inherently humiliating to wear an advertisement. plenty of
people _pay_ to do this today (eg baseball hats and branded clothing). now if
the advertising is tasteful/stylish enough that people actually want to wear
it, probably no one will pay you to do it. perhaps a middle ground exists
where people can get paid to wear moderately tasteful ads. for example, the
livery of a formula one car is a bit garish, but they do seem to make some
effort to make the colors work together.

~~~
dgzl
I think that forcing other subjects on the bus to view your advertisement
would be insulting and an eyesore for them, thus being humiliating for you. I
don't think a single logo would suffice though, I'm thinking of a very large
and obnoxious advertisement, with many brands and logos. Essentially, endless
ads that are stitched together. I couldn't imagine this being comparable to a
Nike t-shirt.

~~~
leetcrew
sure, it makes sense to go to the extreme "worst page on the internet" case
for the purpose of your thought experiment. i'm just saying something like [0]
might be enough ads to be worth money to someone, while not being completely
ugly. i wouldn't wear something like that myself in public, but i wouldn't be
too offended to stand near someone wearing it.

[0]
[https://image.redbull.com/rbcom/010/2012-11-08/1331578705540...](https://image.redbull.com/rbcom/010/2012-11-08/1331578705540_1/0001/1/3000/1/wings-
for-life-race-suits.jpg)

------
brownkonas
As a parent , I simply request search functionality in the App Store and Play
Store to search for apps with no ads , and no in-app purchases.

Happy to pay an up front fee for well designed , strategy based games and apps
for limited use by my kids.

------
ameister14
I run ads - I really, really don't want to advertise to kids so I have an
exclusion list of hundreds of kids-oriented apps and youtube channels where
Google insists on placing my ads; I believe this is because parents own the
phones and log into things and Google thinks it's within the 25-64 demo I
chose.

It's exceptionally annoying, because kids click on ads CONSTANTLY - that makes
Google more likely to show the ads there and has me paying for absolutely
useless clicks over and over.

~~~
WrtCdEvrydy
[https://adnauseam.io/](https://adnauseam.io/)

This is my favorite after adblock.

------
tobyhinloopen
Thats what you get with free games. Why do you think they are free?

~~~
doombolt
The problem here is that

* There's no paid quality content that you can use instead.

* Even if there is, you can't find it. Googe Play will shove pages after pages of "popular" useless toxic crap.

------
post_break
And now Apple removed the ability to see in app purchases, so you can't even
see if you can remove the ads with a paid upgrade.

------
Tsubasachan
You don't need root to block ads on Android. To hell with the marketing
industry:

[https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.jak_linux.dns66/](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.jak_linux.dns66/)

If you're on iOS its FUBAR though.

------
scotty79
I wonder why people pay to show those adds there. This must be a lot of very
low quality ad clickthroughs.

------
derReineke
I feel like whoever wrote this doesn't have kids or just now started paying
attention to what they are doing on their devices. Also, this seems like it
would be really obvious; people want money. Kids love to just click everything
so there is a ton of revenue there.

------
fpn
I am going to take a different position, my kids are now trained to not even
see the ads. The search for the hidden x to close the ad is fully automatic.

------
mlcrypto
I remember being 11 years old with dial up internet and getting to play
RuneScape for 30 minutes every now and then. I always wanted to play more

------
yohann305
Developers have to make a living, that's what happens with the race to the
bottom pricing in app stores

------
IvanK_net
At least kids can still use thier Apps, unlike me at NYTimes.com

------
NelsonMinar
The US should ban all advertisement to children.

------
esotericn
Upon entering the page, I am greeted with a page that looks like this:

Top third of page: "Please disable your ad blocker" Next third: "Kids' Apps
Are Crammed With Ads" Final third: "Review our Cookie Policy"

Yeah, it's a wild west out there, alright.

~~~
Double_a_92
> Final third: "Review our Cookie Policy"

Technically that's a good thing.

~~~
esotericn
Nah.

------
pbarnes_1
iOS tablet + pi-hole - anything youtube = good kids tablet.

------
all2
I didn't see this anywhere:

[https://www.ted.com/talks/james_bridle_the_nightmare_videos_...](https://www.ted.com/talks/james_bridle_the_nightmare_videos_of_childrens_youtube_and_what_s_wrong_with_the_internet_today/transcript?language=en)

TL;DR - algorithms are not unbiased, in fact the bias of the writers is baked
into them. See this HN post for similar observations:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18184697](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18184697)

