# Apple helps block apps in ads with iOS 9; cry me a river, advertisers **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 19, 2015, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-helps-block-apps-in-ads-with-ios-9-cry-me-a-river-advertisers/731764 "2015-09-19T13:28:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2015, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-helps-block-apps-in-ads-with-ios-9-cry-me-a-river-advertisers/731764/1 "2015-09-19T13:28:30Z")
> **[Welcome to hell: Apple vs. Google vs. Facebook and the slow death of the web](https://www.theverge.com/2015/9/17/9338963/welcome-to-hell-apple-vs-google-vs-facebook-and-the-slow-death-of-the-web)** > > The Verge is about technology and how it makes us feel. Founded in 2011, we offer our audience everything from breaking news to reviews to award-winning features and investigations, on our site, in video, and in podcasts. I can’t remember when I first started using Firefox, which is about when I started using AdBlock Plus. 2009? In any case, I haven’t seen ads for years and years. Now Apple with iOS 9 is going to start blocking ads in apps. Cool. I _work_ in advertising and I still have no sympathy whatsoever for the “entities” (they hardly seem like legit companies at this point) that are having their ads blocked. Here’s a good blog post on the issue: [20 years is plenty: let’s stop waiting for online ads to mature](http://www.wordyard.com/2014/08/19/20-years-is-plenty-lets-stop-waiting-for-online-ads-to-mature/) What I find interesting is that people are defending the advertisers in the comments of articles about this new iOS 9 thing. But here’s my main thought: **Ad-supported content worked for a time (200 years) for distinct cultural and economic reasons, but there was no reason to expect it to last forever.** Let’s go back to 1815. The only media for advertising are the signs on shops, direct sales (street vendors, traveling salespeople, etc.), and print. Literacy is low, and there are very few publications with limited ads. The Industrial Revolution, however, is happening, and people are in general hungry for new goods and information about new goods well into the 20th century and our own lifetimes. Newspapers blow up by the end of the century, producing those quaint print ads that people still have a fun time looking at. Print advertising by its nature is pretty unintrusive, and people are hungry for information anyway. We are in the win-win zone. (Print advertising _might_ have continued to work, but, of course, the Internet is killing it.) Radio advertising has always been a murky area. Ogilvy basically dismisses it in his book _Ogilvy on Advertising_: > [@](#): > > Radio has become the Cinderella of advertising, representing only 6 percent of total advertising in the United States. There is no research to measure the efficacy of the commercials, so nobody knows what works. And that’s from back in 1983. I doubt the situation has improved. The real advertising dough was in TV, but the win-win for advertisers and viewers was fairly short-lived. It’s easy to forget that that TV is still pretty new. I’m 44, and people my age grew up hearing our parents talk about getting their first TV. Even in the 70s, commercials between and during shows were becoming more numerous, and people were bitching about them. Today, even TV is a in a [very precarious position](http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/09/02/network_tv_in_1994_how_the_big_four_s_last_golden_age_happened_20_years.html): > [@](#): > > The Big Bang Theory, last season’s No. 1 scripted show in the key demo, would have ranked No. 57 in 1994-95… So advertisers still pay high rates for shows like _Big Bang Theory,_ even though they get a lot less for their money than they used to. Why? Because TV advertising is still pretty much the only thing that works _at all._ TV is not all that different from online: the less things have worked, the more ads they have piled in, the more people get sick of TV and cut the cord completely. And here’s the final blow to advertising: people are not hungry for commercial messages as they were until the 1980s or so. Nowadays, people mostly have what they want and know what they want.\* When they want more information, they will do their own advertising. Let me provide and example, then and now: 1977: [Stupid commercial](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oUBaCyXWNk) for a shitty beer positioned as premium. 2015: I go on beer advocate and read about [3 Floyd’s](http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/26/) craft beers. Ever see a 3 Floyd’s ad? Yet they have to hide Zombie Dust beer behind the counter because it sells out the moment it gets off the truck. So it is with products people really want. The trouble is, it’s not easy to make such a product these days.\* If you are interested in Tesla cars, you are going to go online and read all about them, on the Tesla website and various reviews. That’s the kind of content I translate and write for Japanese companies: Web content, press releases, press kits, pamphlets. Doing press materials for a new golf club series now. Golfers will look for the information; they won’t have to be beaten over the head with the clubs on TV. OK, so let’s go back to the Web. In an era when TV shows can barely stay monetized via ads, why on earth should anyone expect to monetize a bunch of shitty Web content via ads? It’s a completely false expectation that derives from the TV model, which barely made it 50 years before it started creaking and groaning. People skip over ads with their DVR. People use ad blockers to block online ads. Two types of intrusive ads, two solutions. So, the whole concept of ad-supported content was the product of cultural and technological factors that have come and gone. Companies can either face that reality and adapt or pound sand. I will not be moistening the sand they pound with my tears. Thoughts? \*People always want more money and more stuff, but when they get the money they simply upgrade what they already have. If I had more money, I would buy a better house and appliances, go on vacations, buy fancy food and booze, etc. And I already feel I know what I would get, and where I lack knowledge, I would autonomously find it. In the 1940s when sales guru Zig Ziglar was starting out, he could make money selling pots and pans door to door. Enough people back then were striving for such basics that that was viable. Today, unless a product is truly new and life-changing, they’re not listening. When a product _does_ fit that description, such as the original iPhone, people will go out and buy it in droves. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2015, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-helps-block-apps-in-ads-with-ios-9-cry-me-a-river-advertisers/731764/2 "2015-09-19T13:34:01Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > 1977: [1977: Stupid commercial](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oUBaCyXWNk) for a shitty beer positioned as premium. I forget, what was the premium beer in 1977? ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2015, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-helps-block-apps-in-ads-with-ios-9-cry-me-a-river-advertisers/731764/3 "2015-09-19T13:50:27Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > I forget, what was the premium beer in 1977? In this case, Lowenbrau. But no commercial US beers in 1977 were actually good AFAIK. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2015, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-helps-block-apps-in-ads-with-ios-9-cry-me-a-river-advertisers/731764/4 "2015-09-19T15:05:32Z")
It seems to me you are conflating two lines of thought. Whether or not ads are effective or required if your product speaks for itself is a different discussion. They may be making a mistake but they persist is wanting to pay money to do it. The fact is that people want cheap to free quality content and that does not exist. Either enough of us pay for it with cash or we pay for it indirectly by way of dealing with ads and let the advertisers cough up the money for us. Now if some relative few “cheat” that social contract by using an ad-blocker the model still works but if enough do then the pay by way of ads models falls apart. Apple is enough of the market share that ad blockers there threaten that model. Then the question becomes what the product choice looks like in a pay full price cash for the product world. The fear is that many smaller content producers will never get off the ground and that we end with less choices. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2015, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-helps-block-apps-in-ads-with-ios-9-cry-me-a-river-advertisers/731764/5 "2015-09-19T15:24:47Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > It seems to me you are conflating two lines of thought. > > Whether or not ads are effective or required if your product speaks for itself is a different discussion. They may be making a mistake but they persist is wanting to pay money to do it. I wasn’t so much talking about the effectiveness of ads, more about how open people are to them (not very) and how the situation in TV is similar to that of online. I think advertising can be effective if it respects people’s autonomous desire for information. Company websites are a good example. If people are interested in your company or products, they will go to your website to learn more. At that point, the better your content is, the more engaged the users will be. That’s win-win. > [@](#): > > The fact is that people want cheap to free quality content and that does not exist. Either enough of us pay for it with cash or we pay for it indirectly by way of dealing with ads and let the advertisers cough up the money for us. Agreed. Something’s gotta give. I don’t think it follows, however, that I am morally obligated to view the ads on sites I go to. > [@](#): > > Now if some relative few “cheat” that social contract by using an ad-blocker the model still works but if enough do then the pay by way of ads models falls apart. There was never such a social contract. Ads in print and on TV and radio were just “there”: you physically couldn’t get around them, though you could take a whiz during the commercial break. The infrastructure of Web pages is such that ads can be blocked. It does no good for the advertisers to cry, “But we want the ads to just stick there, as they do in a magazine–or just play, as they do on TV!” They selected the medium, so they have to deal with the consequences of that medium. And really, that only applies to the cheap and dirty ads, which compose 95% of the total. If you can get Coca-Cola to actually pay you to have a graphic ad that doesn’t come from one of the spam servers, it _will_ be seen. Intelligent sponsorship deals can work, but those require thought and effort. I recently bought Lootcrate for my daughter having learned about it from their sponsorship of Movie Fights. > [@](#): > > Then the question becomes what the product choice looks like in a pay full price cash for the product world. The fear is that many smaller content producers will never get off the ground and that we end with less choices. It’s got to be better than the current world of junk and clickbait. There probably needs to be a great dying off before we can discover a sustainable model. ---
**Author:** ![MacTech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MacTech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacTech)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2015, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-helps-block-apps-in-ads-with-ios-9-cry-me-a-river-advertisers/731764/6 "2015-09-19T19:06:56Z")
I _WANT_ advertising to die a painful, screaming, agonizing death, so yes, I will be taking advantage of Apple’s content blocking in Safari, I’ve already downloaded three different blockers and am testing them out one at a time, so far, they all work, some better than others Hmm, wonder what would happen if I turned them all on at the same time… My target is nothing less than a 100% reduction/blocking of all ads, I realize it’s probably not feasible, but all advertisers can go sit-and-spin on it for all I care… …brought to you by Carl’s Jr. …And Brawndo, it’s got what web browsers crave. ---
**Author:** ![zbuzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2015, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-helps-block-apps-in-ads-with-ios-9-cry-me-a-river-advertisers/731764/7 "2015-09-19T20:49:01Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > Now Apple with iOS 9 is going to start blocking ads in apps. Cool. Apple is not blocking ads in apps. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2015, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-helps-block-apps-in-ads-with-ios-9-cry-me-a-river-advertisers/731764/8 "2015-09-20T00:56:31Z")
> [@MacTech](#): > > …brought to you by Carl’s Jr. > …And Brawndo, it’s got what web browsers crave. I want a big-ass FRY. ---
**Author:** ![RickG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rickg/32/5174_2.png) [@RickG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickG)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2015, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-helps-block-apps-in-ads-with-ios-9-cry-me-a-river-advertisers/731764/9 "2015-09-20T01:18:51Z")
> [@zbuzz](#): > > Apple is not blocking ads in apps. Apple is not blocking ads, period. They have enabled APIs to allow third-party content blockers to work in mobile Safari (extensions for desktop Safari have been around forever). Content blockers can not only reduce the clutter of ads, but also the massive numbers of trackers and analytics scripts. I have installed one so far, Peace by Marco Arment. Yesterday, after it reached number on the app store, [he pulled it](http://www.marco.org/2015/09/18/just-doesnt-feel-good), because he thought it was too blunt an instrument, and he didn’t like hurting some people while helping others. He doesn’t think ad-blocking is wrong _per se_ (in fact, he passionately advocated it a few months ago), but he doesn’t want to participate right now. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2015, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-helps-block-apps-in-ads-with-ios-9-cry-me-a-river-advertisers/731764/10 "2015-09-20T01:40:10Z")
> [@RickG](#): > > Apple is not blocking ads, period. They have enabled APIs to allow third-party content blockers to work in mobile Safari (extensions for desktop Safari have been around forever). Content blockers can not only reduce the clutter of ads, but also the massive numbers of trackers and analytics scripts. Right, hence the title of the OP. Sorry if I screwed that up somewhere else. > [@](#): > > I have installed one so far, Peace by Marco Arment. Yesterday, after it reached number on the app store, [he pulled it](http://www.marco.org/2015/09/18/just-doesnt-feel-good), because he thought it was too blunt an instrument, and he didn’t like hurting some people while helping others. He doesn’t think ad-blocking is wrong _per se_ (in fact, he passionately advocated it a few months ago), but he doesn’t want to participate right now. That’s weird to pull something after putting so much work into it. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2015, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-helps-block-apps-in-ads-with-ios-9-cry-me-a-river-advertisers/731764/11 "2015-09-20T01:51:49Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > It’s easy to forget that that TV is still pretty new. I’m 44, and people my age grew up hearing our parents talk about getting their first TV. Even in the 70s, commercials between and during shows were becoming more numerous, and people were bitching about them. Today, even TV is a in a [very precarious position](http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/09/02/network_tv_in_1994_how_the_big_four_s_last_golden_age_happened_20_years.html): > > So advertisers still pay high rates for shows like _Big Bang Theory,_ even though they get a lot less for their money than they used to. Why? Because TV advertising is still pretty much the only thing that works _at all._ And how much did TV ads ever work? In my childhood, they were just a cue that it was time to get up and go use the bathroom, or go to the kitchen for a snack. And that was long before any remote controls, and we only had 4 channels anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2015, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-helps-block-apps-in-ads-with-ios-9-cry-me-a-river-advertisers/731764/12 "2015-09-20T01:54:51Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > And how much did TV ads ever work? In my childhood, they were just a cue that it was time to get up and go use the bathroom, or go to the kitchen for a snack. And that was long before any remote controls, and we only had 4 channels anyway. Apparently they did provide very noticeable results to national advertisers at first. Big shows delivered a huge percentage of American eyeballs. But even the late 60s couldn’t compare to 50s numbers, so I bet the effect quickly attenuated, and who knows today? ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2015, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-helps-block-apps-in-ads-with-ios-9-cry-me-a-river-advertisers/731764/13 "2015-09-20T02:03:52Z")
I’ve been blocking ads since the only way to do it was to get a handy list and edit your HOSTS file. The browser plugins are nice since it’s slightly easier to do and they update often. If advertisers and web sites keep thinking that the only solution is to make ads more and more irritating, they’re going to see more and more blocking. ---
**Author:** ![RickG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rickg/32/5174_2.png) [@RickG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickG)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2015, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-helps-block-apps-in-ads-with-ios-9-cry-me-a-river-advertisers/731764/14 "2015-09-20T02:20:42Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > That’s weird to pull something after putting so much work into it. He was the first or second employee of Tumblr, and created and sold Instapaper. I get the impression that his current software development projects (like Overcast, my favorite podcast app), are not required to keep his family fed and clothed. I think maybe he was so surprised by the instant success that he had second thoughts on the effects it would have on people he knows and respects (a lot of them tech journalists whose sites rely heavily on ads to pay the bills). Again, not that he thinks the web doesn’t need a new revenue model, but he didn’t want to personally be the one to benefit from killing the ads and trackers. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2015, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-helps-block-apps-in-ads-with-ios-9-cry-me-a-river-advertisers/731764/15 "2015-09-20T02:36:56Z")
> [@RickG](#): > > He was the first or second employee of Tumblr, and created and sold Instapaper. I get the impression that his current software development projects (like Overcast, my favorite podcast app), are not required to keep his family fed and clothed. > > I think maybe he was so surprised by the instant success that he had second thoughts on the effects it would have on people he knows and respects (a lot of them tech journalists whose sites rely heavily on ads to pay the bills). Again, not that he thinks the web doesn’t need a new revenue model, but he didn’t want to personally be the one to benefit from killing the ads and trackers. Makes sense, thanks. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2015, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-helps-block-apps-in-ads-with-ios-9-cry-me-a-river-advertisers/731764/16 "2015-09-20T05:17:06Z")
Now that web sites can detect ad blockers (FARK puts a 'we feed our squirrel with ads… , WaPo has a ‘we are commited to free content, please disable your ad blocker’ msg), so the race is on. I am viewing this page with at least 2 filters turned on. If ads don’t pay for content, who does? News does not ‘write itself’ - if you like news, how do you pay for it? Newspapers had both paid subscriptions and advertising. There were free papers, but those were either all of 90% ads. Money comes from somewhere - maybe a tax on ISP services to fund PBS and other, passed-by-Congress entities - or the service doesn’t get provided. ---
**Author:** ![zbuzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2015, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-helps-block-apps-in-ads-with-ios-9-cry-me-a-river-advertisers/731764/17 "2015-09-20T06:55:54Z")
> [@RickG](#): > > I think maybe he was so surprised by the instant success that he had second thoughts on the effects it would have on people he knows and respects (a lot of them tech journalists whose sites rely heavily on ads to pay the bills). Again, not that he thinks the web doesn’t need a new revenue model, but he didn’t want to personally be the one to benefit from killing the ads and trackers. The problem with that is if he didn’t want to be the one to personally benefit from killing ads and trackers, he wouldn’t have invested the time and energy developing the app and charging $3 for it in the first place. I mean, wtf did he think was going to happen? ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2015, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-helps-block-apps-in-ads-with-ios-9-cry-me-a-river-advertisers/731764/18 "2015-09-20T11:17:08Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > If ads don’t pay for content, who does? > > News does not ‘write itself’ - if you like news, how do you pay for it? > > Newspapers had both paid subscriptions and advertising. There were free papers, but those were either all of 90% ads. I see this as the biggest issue. All the other content can go away and we’ll hardly suffer, but good journalism is important. Ad-based journalism had a good run. Papers (mostly) kept their editorial and news staff separate from ad sales. They could do good journalism because the money was just there. The interesting thing about the Web is that it is killing papers because online advertising doesn’t work as well as print advertising used to work. That’s just a simple fact that will make it impossible for papers as we know them to survive in the long run (doing things as they do now), regardless of whether we block ads or not. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2015, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-helps-block-apps-in-ads-with-ios-9-cry-me-a-river-advertisers/731764/19 "2015-09-20T22:40:23Z")
Maybe we’ll get down to a handful of News sites - NYT, WaPo, Freep, SFChron, LATimes, and BBC and so on, all behind paywalls. The tiny papers in Counties with less than 50,000 population are simply screwed. Maybe a bake sale once a year and run a site on donated servers. Want to know how your local HS teams are doing? Where ya gonna go? ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2015, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-helps-block-apps-in-ads-with-ios-9-cry-me-a-river-advertisers/731764/20 "2015-09-20T22:56:49Z")
Online ads went from annoying to intrusive right into malicious, i felt absolutely zero guilt in shutting them all down. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-helps-block-apps-in-ads-with-ios-9-cry-me-a-river-advertisers/731764.md?page=2)