Apple CEO links Facebook’s business model to real-world violence
cnbc.com
cnbc.com
Imagine for a second that social networks started charging their users, and how this would shift the incentives.
Suddenly, now that paid networks don’t have to worry about showing ads in their GUIs, they can finally offer fully functional APIs. Third-party clients bridging different networks together in a single polished app for user’s convenience become a viable possibility.
Suddenly, the field is more competitive. Not having to compete against incumbents riding on investor/ad money and past network effects anymore, new social networks can survive by differentiating themselves—by price, uptime, speed, privacy and security controls, customer care, data interoperability, different standards of moderation, and so on.
Suddenly, troll armies and mass misinformation campaigns become less viable: payments leave traces, and social networks no longer benefit from inflated active user counts.
Apple might be well-positioned to start this trend, though I have qualms about them doing it. Based on their approach to other products, it seems unlikely they would offer a complete and well-documented API to empower third-party clients.
Or social networks are so critical to our existence that they should be subsidized – and scrutinized – by the government. Like any other infrastructure.
This would mean solidifying social networks’ status as public good. Obvious question “are they?” aside, mandating them to be free (not making money from advertisers or the user) and operate on equal subsidy from the government will have a chilling effect on competition and innovation—why enter a space where there’s really not much to win by being great; where battles are fought in optics and politics rather than in technical superiority?
Sure, social networks won’t work for advertisers anymore, but neither they will for the user—they’ll strive to appease the government, since that’s where the money comes from. Inflating user counts and letting troll bot armies run amok will continue coming in handy: dear government, so many people like our network that our servers can’t cope anymore. (And no, social networks won’t even want to try to optimize—they’ll want to use as much compute as possible, securing contracts for their friends in hardware hosting, possibly getting kickbacks in some shape or form from them in return.) Opening API and data interoperation will thus remain against their interests; you might say the government will mandate that, but companies will just deliver poorly working half-solutions doing only as much as necessary to continue getting the subsidy.
Scrutinized, on the other hand, sure. A cafe or a restaurant makes money, but is of course still required to pass some controls in order to operate.
I think letting the market do its thing and voting with our money will just work once we are the true customers and not the product. Trouble is, big social networks actually prefer status quo where they’re treated as a sort of public-good-adjacent in the eyes of the government and the public. It is much safer to be too large to fail than going paid and having actual competition.
I wonder who he is referring to by "we". Shareholders? MBAs?
Misinformation spread are part of the wider problem on the Internet, with or without Facebook. And increasingly Instant messenger is the norm and channel. You can self made misinformation and see how fast it is channeled / forwarded back to you. One reason why WhatsApp now has a threshold for forwarding message.
That is one thing.
There is the other thing about Tim Cook's Apple. Right now their strategy is in the name of privacy, all business conducted on Apple devices are Apple's customers where Apple is the middle man. All while they are branching out onto every single sector for services revenue. It reeks of Hypocrisy.
Also, just because Apple has a business incentive to push this narrative doesn’t make the other side any less despicable. At least Apple’s business interests are aligned with their customers’ unlike Facebook & similar who make money exploiting their users.
Timmy could fix this in many ways if he really cared.
How about NOT allowing them to include trackers in Safari or apps, bankrupting their revenue stream?
Genocide for dollars, the way it's always worked. Apple is being disingenuous here.
That will only make the case against Apple - walled garden and all that
>> How about NOT allowing them to include trackers in Safari or apps, bankrupting their revenue stream?
You know they are anonymized right? Also, you are not even talking about pennies on the dollar, when it comes to Apple's revenue. I suggest you read the recently quarterly financial report.
>> Genocide for dollars, the way it's always worked. Apple is being disingenuous here.
There's a case to be made for world to be appearing as we see it. You don't kick the good boy in a rowdy party(that is web) for not being good enough.
revenue stream: I'm referring to FB's revenue stream here. Apple could have a policy like: Your apps cannot contain advertisements targeted by sex, race, or religion
genocide: You think FB is the good boy in this party? Or am I misunderstanding? Because to me, that seems comically naive.
It's related because this is an empty statement put out for PR purposes, and I believe is purposefully misleading to paint Apple in a good light.