
Apple vs Google vs Facebook and the slow death of the web - devhxinc
http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/17/9338963/welcome-to-hell-apple-vs-google-vs-facebook-and-the-slow-death-of-the-web
======
fenomas
Ever since iOS became ascendant I've been scared of a future like this - where
the bulk of internet use is funneled through a small number of gatekeepers,
doing an end run around the leveling power of the web. It's hard to put into
words, but it's the fear that the "internet as we know it" \- chaotic and
untamed, or more importantly unruled - will evolve into something akin to TV
before cable: more interactive, but still essentially a content delivery
system for four or five corporations. That is, a thing that our grandkids will
be free to consume, but not to create or improve.

It's funny - if a TV network had ever tried to sell people TVs that only
played that network's shows it would have flopped, but iOS has proven that the
principle can work if the experience is good enough, or the alternatives poor
enough. I suppose it's all inevitable, and maybe some think what I'm worried
about is already here, but I sure hope not.

~~~
gress
The 'leveling' power of the web is an illusion. The web is controlled by those
who have the resources to develop and distribute web browsers, which is a tiny
elite at this point.

The leveling power was never about the web - it was inherent to the Internet
and open source. What we needed was a true open-source app platform that was a
community property the way Linux was. If we had that, it wouldn't matter what
Apple did.

Unfortunately Google killed that dream with Android.

~~~
fenomas
> The 'leveling' power of the web is an illusion. The web is controlled by
> those who .. develop and distribute web browsers

I mean the leveling power of open content exchange, not the current technical
particulars. If browser wars mess up HTML badly enough the world can invent a
better system, or at least it could have. But once everyone gets their
internet though walled-garden devices, that ship has sailed.

~~~
happyscrappy
Apple has built in VPN and Tor support so at some point you have to wonder if
Apple haters are suffering a type of Stockholm syndrome.

~~~
fenomas
I don't think "Stockholm Syndrome" means what you think it means.

------
carlosrg
Highly ironic that Gruber is complaining about blocking its website ads on the
grounds that they're not annoying like other websites. Same with plenty of
other Apple bloggers.

Guess what: adblocking because some ads are obtrusive is like killing a fly
with a cannon. Or more like killing a fly with a nuclear bomb. No adblocker
maker is going to start whitelisting every single non-obstrusive ad network.
They're going to block most of them. Most users will not make the effort of
whitelisting their favorite websites either, they'll just see some adblocking
app on the Top list in the App Store, download it and forget about it.

Bigger websites will get smarter about ads. Probably more "sponsored" stories
and similar things that you can't block. Smaller websites are going to have a
harder time tho. All because some people can't understand that if you don't
like obtrusive ads the best thing to do is to stop visiting sites with
obtrusive ads.

~~~
AllenKids
I don't believe Gruber is complaining about The Deck being blocked, rather
arguing that some ad networks are "more equal than others" (which I believe is
true BTW).

It matters little financially though, Gruber's main revenue source is not the
puny little square at the bottom left corner of Daringfireball.net anyway.

------
sremani
I am actually with Apple on this one, and really think Apple is doing the
right thing. No, we have started on wrong footing about content should be
free* thanks to Napsterization of web, we discriminate digital goods and
physical goods. Now, with ads, we get junk websites or good content websites
turn into junk as soon as monetization starts. We have to some how find a way
to make people pay for the content they consume, advertising can stay for
those who can tolerate and those of us, who cannot - I am tired of Car Ads on
my kids youtube channel, I will pay.

The web will be OK, the real hell is the media like The Verge, serving mega-
pages with marginal content and click-baity.. ratty tatty articles.

~~~
NicoJuicy
you didn't read the article? The ads by iAd (= Apple) are unblockable ( like
facebook ads). They just do the "ad blocker" to piss of Google and third
parties... ( as usual)

~~~
rdsnsca
iAd's and not used on the web at all, they are only for in app ads.

~~~
untog
Which is entirely the point. To make money, companies are going to have to
move away from the open web to closed app environments.

Like the article says.

------
bryanlarsen
My take on what the Verge is saying:

Web sites that rely on advertising will die or move to Facebook and native
apps.

What percentage of Hacker News links rely on advertising? 90%?

~~~
_xander
Considering linking to pay-walled content is forbidden on HN, I'd say 100%.

~~~
DanBC
> Considering linking to pay-walled content is forbidden on HN

What?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

------
mark_l_watson
While the article makes interesting points, I feel that it is only relevant to
big media and expensive content.

The other side of the web is small businesses and individuals making money
with their own web sites for customer support, maintaining a consulting
business (I have used my web site for 20 years for this purpose), selling
their products, sharing their creative works, etc. I would argue that this
side of the web is huge and is still ripe for Google style revenue generaton.

I don't underestimate the effect of mobile app use though, and I don't like
raising the bar for individuals and small businesses having to spend money to
create apps. This is a shame since the web is better in my opinion. When I do
engage in productivity killing activities like Twitter and Facebook, I use the
web versions of the sites on my phone. I do this partly to support the web as
a universal platform and partly because I resent the access permissions so
many apps require on my devices.

------
x3sphere
I'm torn on whether this will make things worse or better. I can see sites
starting to adopt in-content ads more aggressively, which will be more
difficult to block. Like the sponsored links at the bottom of news articles. I
find those much more annoying than a simple banner ad that's in the sidebar.

------
ChrisArgyle
The author's take on ad blockers is quite alarmist. There are plenty of
obvious solutions and counter-arguments:

* Is it fair that you collect and sell data on your users without telling them exactly what that data is? Do you think they'd continue patronizing your site if they knew up front?

* Create a mobile app for your content and enforce its usage

* Bring ads on premise. Back in the 90s we all hosted and sold our own ads.

* Pivot. The world only needs so many BuzzFeeds.

~~~
TarpitCarnivore
> Create a mobile app for your content and enforce its usage

Shortly after Nilay took over at The Verge the mobile app was killed off.
Likely to drive mobile traffic where they can display, rather invasive, ads.

------
copsarebastards
People are talking about this as if there are two options here: ads pay for
the internet or the internet drops behind paywalls.

There's another option: we go back to using non-monetized or minimally-
monetized services. Frankly, those are _better_. I don't care about giant
media websites aimed at providing oversimplified, sanitized content for the
lowest common denominator of people. I don't care about social media or snappy
web interfaces that put a layer of varnish on crap. I care about quality
information, and people who are knowledgeable and care about a topic will
share information on that topic even if they don't make much money for it.
People running blogs or small informational services will still do that.
Services like PBS/NPR will still be funded by government and donations.
Bloggers who are knowledgeable enough will still be able to sell books.
Facebook/Twitter/Reddit/etc. can all go bankrupt and I don't care. Sites can
go back to being straight unstyled HTML with no CSS and I'm fine with that.
Web 2.0 is completely worthless to me. Ads AND paywalls can go to hell.

Sheldon Brown's website is _still_ the best resource about bikes on the
internet. The worst degradation it has experienced is the apologies for
politically incorrect content that its current maintainer has added due to
pressure from people on social media.

------
guugul
"you wouldn't steal a car..."

what a difference in tone and attitude the tech media has for the movie/tv
studios (snickers and shrugs of indifference) and for themselves (plaintive
appeals to the reader's benevolence) when they both have issues with making
money on their content.

------
rwmj
Web seems to be doing OK. If a few of the sort of websites that rely on ads go
out of business, it may even get better.

------
jbob2000
The article is wrong. The author thinks this is about a war between the big 3.
It's not. There's no insidious plot to pull the rug out from under google.
Apple isn't trying to push their ad platform. Ads right now are just a shitty
user experience. You can try to construct whatever narrative you want, but the
simplest explanation fits; ads are shit, mobile browsing is shit because of
it.

------
NicoJuicy
Just block iOS for everything, Apple didn't see that one coming.

~~~
zimpenfish
I'm reasonably sure that would hurt the websites more than it would hurt
Apple.

------
strgrd
"TAKING MONEY AND ATTENTION AWAY FROM THE WEB MEANS THAT WEB INNOVATION WILL
SLOW TO A CRAWL"

This is the sort of messaging I would expect from a journalist who has a stake
in the online-advertisement game. Does anyone really buy this argument?

I enjoy this Apple-Google death spiral as a spectator, and I hope it will
drive more websites to subscription-based, freemium models, instead of playing
friends with global spy regimes that incentive advertisement platforms to
extract every detail of your internet browsing in order to "serve you better
ads", aka, develop behavior profiles of consumers in order to find the
"terrorist", and definitely not aggregating the behaviors of individuals in
order to create a huge information disparity that becomes a vector of
population control. Yes, that poorly placed Google AdSense blurb is trying to
take over the world.

Advertisements suck, and they're only getting worse, and more subversive, and
the intent of the platform creators is only becoming further aligned with
these spy regimes.

~~~
Jyaif
i think you missed the point.

Apple is not killing the ads, its killing ads in the browser. Content
producers are just going to leave the web and do native apps with ads. On iOS,
those ads are controlled by Apple. It's genious.

It's just a shame that the web is a casualty.

~~~
eddieplan9
> On iOS, those ads are controlled by Apple.

I don't think that is true. My understanding is that Apple has certain
policies about user tracking. It does not force ads to use iAd or take a cut
from ad revenue.

------
venomsnake
So walled gardens and "owning" the users are all fine and dandy until they
suffocate you.

No one challenged apple either legally or technologically and everyone tried
to emulate them. Enjoy your brave new world.

