The users downloading ad blockers are most likely heavy content browsers to begin with, which I believe would actually put them in a category of generating more revenue for ad companies, versus people who browse occasionally. If this is correct, then Google, would see an immediate hit to their daily mobile browsing revenue. If said multi-billion dollar ad company were to pay a dev several million to drop it, that would be a fast way to profit with little work, if the dev were so inclined.
It could also be seen as almost a form of blackmail ... I wonder if other developers are calling Google for their highest and best offer to pull right about now?
I dont care what universe you are from, two days of software updates is not enough. Especially for a paid App
That's why he reminded you that you could get a refund. Not that you bought it anyway!
IF you had bought it, can you tell me what harm would have been caused to you by:
1) Buying an app for iOS
2) Discovering the next day that the dev had pulled the app and was longer supporting it
3) You got a refund from Apple.
What damage was done to you (in theory!) in those 24 hours that you have got so incensed about? There are at least 5 other content blockers if you had wanted another one.
I have four apps on the App Store. You may have bought or downloaded one of them. I could pull all of them tomorrow if I wanted though in fact, even my free one has just been updated and that went live back in 2009.
Most devs obviously do not want to spend time and effort coding an app, submitting it for approval, having it go live and then pull it the next day. Why would any dev intend to do that? I certainly would not ... unless, personally, I had a very good reason of my own in which case I would , as is my right.
You do realise, don't you, that there are some paid apps on the store that have not been updated for years! I hope you'll be ranting to these devs about charging for an app and not updating/supporting it so here's a few to get you started:
And you're not entitled to content that is ad-supported if you block the ads. It's that simple.
... and of course, when watching commercial television, you watch every advert shown to you from start to finish every single time. You're not entitled to watch the programme otherwise, surely?
I'm also proud that our mobile app offers both non-intrusive iAd banners and an optional subscription service for an ad-free experience...
Yet the optional subscription service isn't without ads: they still get displayed. This is due to the fact that when reading the comments to the articles we get a webpage from Huddler in the app which does display ads even when one has a subscription. Not exactly something I would be proud of, especially when it now reads you are misleading your audience.
Its about TRUST. I have ZERO trust for an App maker who drops support after 2 days.
He is offering everyone a refund. It's idiotic to suggest that he went to all this trouble as part of some evil money making scheme.
This is the guy who created Tumblr, Instapaper, and Overcast, so I think it's safe to say he's a talented and influential developer. Cut him some slack.
How would you feel if you went to a resturant and your burger had a cockroach in it? Then the resturant said they would refund your money.
Would that be a good experience? Even though they refunded your money they wasted your time. IMO, in that situation a resturant needs to do MORE than just refund their money.
That is a terrible analogy. The Peace app was not defective in any way, certainly not in any way comparable to being served a cockroach-garnished burger at a restaurant. In fact it was so good that it not only beat every other content blocker in the app store but actually topped sales charts across all categories.
The developer was taken aback both by the app's popularity and by its impact to people whose livelihood depends entirely on advertising, including many widely respected tech writers who happen to be his friends. Most people coming to such a realization would shrug it off and say "the **** with it." It takes some character to fess up to making what you feel was an ethical mistake and bear the brunt of criticism that is sure to follow (not to mention the loss of revenue from what was clearly turning out to be a very popular product.)
Your sense of indignation is grossly disproportionate to the circumstances.
That is a terrible analogy. The Peace app was not defective in any way, certainly not in any way comparable to being served a cockroach-garnished burger at a restaurant. In fact it was so good that it not only beat every other content blocker in the app store but actually topped sales charts across all categories.
The developer was taken aback both by the app's popularity and by its impact to people whose livelihood depends entirely on advertising, including many wisely respected tech writers who happen to be his friends. Most people coming to such a realization would shrug it off and say "the **** with it." It takes some character to fess up to making what you feel was an ethical mistake and bear the brunt of criticism that is sure to follow (not to mention the loss of revenue from what was clearly turning out to be a very popular product.)
Your sense of indignation is grossly disproportionate to the circumstances.
Arment is a fool. He provided something people clearly wanted and then he got scared. His "fear of success" won't prevent the sale of ad-blockers. In fact, the void left by the pulling of the Peace app was quickly filled with other similar apps and the net effect will be that the same people will be affected with a huge reduction in advertising revenue. I wonder if his wife knew about his decision beforehand, which just robbed his family of a massive windfall.
Arment is a fool. He provided something people clearly wanted and then he got scared. His "fear of success" won't prevent the sale of ad-blockers. In fact, the void left by the pulling of the Peace app was quickly filled with other similar apps and the net effect will be that the same people will be affected with a huge reduction in advertising revenue. I wonder if his wife knew about his decision beforehand, which just robbed his family of a massive windfall.
He should have contacted Apple and told them to REFUND EVERY SINGLE PURCHASE.
First, I don't know that Apple even has a mechanism for automatically refunding all purchases of a given app. Second, not everyone who purchased the app wants a refund. At the moment, I still consider the Peace app to be the best content blocker in the app store and I am content with the value I receive from my $2.99 investment, even if it will not receive updates in the future. That's less than the price of a latte at Starbucks, which takes bit less skill and effort to prepare.
Arment is a fool. He provided something people clearly wanted and then he got scared. His "fear of success" won't prevent the sale of ad-blockers. In fact, the void left by the pulling of the Peace app was quickly filled with other similar apps and the net effect will be that the same people will be affected with a huge reduction in advertising revenue. I wonder if his wife knew about his decision beforehand, which just robbed his family of a massive windfall.
Marco was clear in stating that he is not opposed to content blockers, and even stated that he thought they were necessary to pressure advertisers to mend their ways. He withdrew his app because it didn't provide a better means for users to block objectionable advertising and tracking, while whitelisting ad networks (like The Deck) that are the model of acceptable advertising.
Quote:
Peace required that all ads be treated the same — all-or-nothing enforcement for decisions that aren’t black and white. This approach is too blunt, and Ghostery and I have both decided that it doesn’t serve our goals or beliefs well enough. If we’re going to effect positive change overall, a more nuanced, complex approach is required than what I can bring in a simple iOS app. I still believe that ad blockers are necessary today, and I still think Ghostery is the best one, but I’ve learned over the last few crazy days that I don’t feel good making one and being the arbiter of what’s blocked. -Marco Arment
Marco is one of the most successful iOS developers out there, without having VC funding or a huge staff.
What do you think his wife said when he told her, "Honey, I decided to deprive you and the kids of millions of dollars of income because I felt bad about giving people what they wanted."
Marco was clear in stating that he is not opposed to content blockers, and even stated that he thought they were necessary to pressure advertisers to mend their ways. He withdrew his app because it didn't provide a better means for users to block objectionable advertising and tracking, while whitelisting ad networks (like The Deck) that are the model of acceptable advertising.
Its about TRUST. I have ZERO trust for an App maker who drops support after 2 days. Especially since this was a paid App and an App that NEEDS regular updates.
If the app cost $30, I'd agree. To expect unlimited free updates on a $3 app is stupid.
Arment is a fool. He provided something people clearly wanted and then he got scared. His "fear of success" won't prevent the sale of ad-blockers. In fact, the void left by the pulling of the Peace app was quickly filled with other similar apps and the net effect will be that the same people will be affected with a huge reduction in advertising revenue. I wonder if his wife knew about his decision beforehand, which just robbed his family of a massive windfall.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpamSandwich
Quote:
Originally Posted by freediverx
Marco is one of the most successful iOS developers out there, without having VC funding or a huge staff.
What do you think his wife said when he told her, "Honey, I decided to deprive you and the kids of millions of dollars of income because I felt bad about giving people what they wanted."
Please tell us more since you seem to know what goes on in the Armont household.
You have no idea.
Maybe she supported his decision 100%. Maybe it was the main thing the two of them talked about for 2 days before coming to the decision of pulling the app.
Do you have any evidence that they didn't talk about it together and she didn't support his decision?
Without any evidence what you are saying is complete rubbish.
Please tell us more since you seem to know what goes on in the Armont household.
You have no idea.
Maybe she supported his decision 100%. Maybe it was the main thing the two of them talked about for 2 days before coming to the decision of pulling the app.
Do you have any evidence that they didn't talk about it together and she didn't support his decision?
Without any evidence what you are saying is complete rubbish.
He sold what people wanted and got scared. He said this himself. You read his post.
One thing I found on loading the forum rather than the main page was it loaded over 4MB vs ~1MB and in Safari's inspector, the following tiny image showed up as 3.5MB, if you drag it to the Finder you can see the size of it, that should be about 1/1000th the size:
That kind of thing that will slow down page loading and will burn through data allowances. I'm not sure who deals with things like that and I'm not sure how you even make a 70 pixel square JPEG come out that large. On mobile devices, this kind of thing would have more of an effect.
I've noticed many images with similar problems. how, exactly, does a website operator specializing in technology, not know even the basics of web technology? that thing which is their chosen profession.
I suspect the answer to that is related to the larger problem -- not giving a shit enough to do things properly.
QFT. This site doesn't seem to enjoy attention to detail. Yet they report on All Things Apple. Ironic.
Quote:
Originally Posted by noirdesir
Quote:
Originally Posted by matrix07
He backed up to iCloud. What's your point? iCould, the basic form of backup that Apple promoted, didn't back up apps. Do you know that?
Thinking about it, the one time I attempted to restore from iCloud (in the Apple Store after buying a new phone), I remember I had to download the apps separately after the restore process. But I aborted that restore process and switched to restoring from iTunes because it was faster. But since I (a) semi-regularly sync with iTunes and (b) always back up to iTunes whenever I sync the phone with it, I know that iTunes has the apps (and I have half a dozen backups of my iTunes library) and that restoring from iTunes includes the apps, I guess I blocked out the memory that iCloud backups don't include the apps.
They optimise things like that. Also with Time Machine. That doesn't backup the Trash / Cache / iOS Software (~/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates)... stuff like that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GregoryHK
What News app? I cannot locate it on iPhone running iOS 9.
Hell, if I didn't have alternatives to this site, I'd pay to have the hostile, arrogant, self-important geek jerks eliminated from the "community", not just the topic trolls. Frankly, when the "troll" is actually a long standing member that never gets moderated, it just degrades the overall experience for those that want nothing to do with such kinds of personalities. The Internet is a wonderful medium for anonymous cowards to flex the muscles they wish they had, in a safely consequence-devoid environment.
But then, technology forums tend to attract members with social skills deficits. That's been a problem with the tech business from day one, but got much worse when Apple and others invented "geek IS chic" marketing. The revenge of the nerds thing went nuts when those nerds found the libertarian party, and the other associated mentalities rationalizing/justifying selfishness and capitalism as the apex of humanity, trying to use "cold logic" to justify their purely self-serving attitudes...
Sorry... but you might want to take a look in the mirror once in a while.
You know why I said that? Because we ALL should. The only thing that should be moderated is strictly and obvious trolls. Censoring differences of opinion is a slippery slope, and yes we/me should all do our best to state our differences as civil as possible. I personally post far too often in the heat of emotion without checking my self, and often facts... that I later have to ask forgiveness for and bow down to a better argument against my position. And it's exactly THAT is what's missing from Internet social circles IMHO: not enough people admitting when their wrong, and thanking others for their help... or even for a decent discussion.
Yup... so I'll start and Thank You for giving ME the opportunity to speak my mind.
Comments
It could also be seen as almost a form of blackmail ... I wonder if other developers are calling Google for their highest and best offer to pull right about now?
I dont care what universe you are from, two days of software updates is not enough. Especially for a paid App
That's why he reminded you that you could get a refund. Not that you bought it anyway!
IF you had bought it, can you tell me what harm would have been caused to you by:
1) Buying an app for iOS
2) Discovering the next day that the dev had pulled the app and was longer supporting it
3) You got a refund from Apple.
What damage was done to you (in theory!) in those 24 hours that you have got so incensed about? There are at least 5 other content blockers if you had wanted another one.
I have four apps on the App Store. You may have bought or downloaded one of them. I could pull all of them tomorrow if I wanted though in fact, even my free one has just been updated and that went live back in 2009.
Most devs obviously do not want to spend time and effort coding an app, submitting it for approval, having it go live and then pull it the next day. Why would any dev intend to do that? I certainly would not ... unless, personally, I had a very good reason of my own in which case I would , as is my right.
You do realise, don't you, that there are some paid apps on the store that have not been updated for years! I hope you'll be ranting to these devs about charging for an app and not updating/supporting it so here's a few to get you started:
Free
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/whats-that-word-guess-1-word/id598596405?mt=8
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/free-hangman/id289265443?mt=8
Paid:
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/katie-parlas-rome/id475306005?mt=8
And you're not entitled to content that is ad-supported if you block the ads. It's that simple.
... and of course, when watching commercial television, you watch every advert shown to you from start to finish every single time. You're not entitled to watch the programme otherwise, surely?
I'm also proud that our mobile app offers both non-intrusive iAd banners and an optional subscription service for an ad-free experience...
Yet the optional subscription service isn't without ads: they still get displayed. This is due to the fact that when reading the comments to the articles we get a webpage from Huddler in the app which does display ads even when one has a subscription. Not exactly something I would be proud of, especially when it now reads you are misleading your audience.
I'm not angry at all.
Its about TRUST. I have ZERO trust for an App maker who drops support after 2 days.
He is offering everyone a refund. It's idiotic to suggest that he went to all this trouble as part of some evil money making scheme.
This is the guy who created Tumblr, Instapaper, and Overcast, so I think it's safe to say he's a talented and influential developer. Cut him some slack.
How would you feel if you went to a resturant and your burger had a cockroach in it? Then the resturant said they would refund your money.
Would that be a good experience? Even though they refunded your money they wasted your time. IMO, in that situation a resturant needs to do MORE than just refund their money.
That is a terrible analogy. The Peace app was not defective in any way, certainly not in any way comparable to being served a cockroach-garnished burger at a restaurant. In fact it was so good that it not only beat every other content blocker in the app store but actually topped sales charts across all categories.
The developer was taken aback both by the app's popularity and by its impact to people whose livelihood depends entirely on advertising, including many widely respected tech writers who happen to be his friends. Most people coming to such a realization would shrug it off and say "the **** with it." It takes some character to fess up to making what you feel was an ethical mistake and bear the brunt of criticism that is sure to follow (not to mention the loss of revenue from what was clearly turning out to be a very popular product.)
Your sense of indignation is grossly disproportionate to the circumstances.
Arment is a fool. He provided something people clearly wanted and then he got scared. His "fear of success" won't prevent the sale of ad-blockers. In fact, the void left by the pulling of the Peace app was quickly filled with other similar apps and the net effect will be that the same people will be affected with a huge reduction in advertising revenue. I wonder if his wife knew about his decision beforehand, which just robbed his family of a massive windfall.
Arment is a fool. He provided something people clearly wanted and then he got scared. His "fear of success" won't prevent the sale of ad-blockers. In fact, the void left by the pulling of the Peace app was quickly filled with other similar apps and the net effect will be that the same people will be affected with a huge reduction in advertising revenue. I wonder if his wife knew about his decision beforehand, which just robbed his family of a massive windfall.
"Flappy Arment"
He should have contacted Apple and told them to REFUND EVERY SINGLE PURCHASE.
First, I don't know that Apple even has a mechanism for automatically refunding all purchases of a given app. Second, not everyone who purchased the app wants a refund. At the moment, I still consider the Peace app to be the best content blocker in the app store and I am content with the value I receive from my $2.99 investment, even if it will not receive updates in the future. That's less than the price of a latte at Starbucks, which takes bit less skill and effort to prepare.
Exactly. Developers don't always make good businesspeople.
Arment is a fool. He provided something people clearly wanted and then he got scared. His "fear of success" won't prevent the sale of ad-blockers. In fact, the void left by the pulling of the Peace app was quickly filled with other similar apps and the net effect will be that the same people will be affected with a huge reduction in advertising revenue. I wonder if his wife knew about his decision beforehand, which just robbed his family of a massive windfall.
Marco was clear in stating that he is not opposed to content blockers, and even stated that he thought they were necessary to pressure advertisers to mend their ways. He withdrew his app because it didn't provide a better means for users to block objectionable advertising and tracking, while whitelisting ad networks (like The Deck) that are the model of acceptable advertising.
http://www.marco.org/2015/09/18/just-doesnt-feel-good
Exactly. Developers don't always make good businesspeople.
Marco is one of the most successful iOS developers out there, without having VC funding or a huge staff.
What do you think his wife said when he told her, "Honey, I decided to deprive you and the kids of millions of dollars of income because I felt bad about giving people what they wanted."
HE wasn't the arbiter, Ghostery was! He was just terrified with the success of the app. His excuse is pathetic.
Its about TRUST. I have ZERO trust for an App maker who drops support after 2 days. Especially since this was a paid App and an App that NEEDS regular updates.
If the app cost $30, I'd agree. To expect unlimited free updates on a $3 app is stupid.
Arment is a fool. He provided something people clearly wanted and then he got scared. His "fear of success" won't prevent the sale of ad-blockers. In fact, the void left by the pulling of the Peace app was quickly filled with other similar apps and the net effect will be that the same people will be affected with a huge reduction in advertising revenue. I wonder if his wife knew about his decision beforehand, which just robbed his family of a massive windfall.
Marco is one of the most successful iOS developers out there, without having VC funding or a huge staff.
What do you think his wife said when he told her, "Honey, I decided to deprive you and the kids of millions of dollars of income because I felt bad about giving people what they wanted."
Please tell us more since you seem to know what goes on in the Armont household.
You have no idea.
Maybe she supported his decision 100%. Maybe it was the main thing the two of them talked about for 2 days before coming to the decision of pulling the app.
Do you have any evidence that they didn't talk about it together and she didn't support his decision?
Without any evidence what you are saying is complete rubbish.
He sold what people wanted and got scared. He said this himself. You read his post.
One thing I found on loading the forum rather than the main page was it loaded over 4MB vs ~1MB and in Safari's inspector, the following tiny image showed up as 3.5MB, if you drag it to the Finder you can see the size of it, that should be about 1/1000th the size:
http://forums-cdn.appleinsider.com/f/f4/70x70px-ZC-f4c9c066_1275818098_iPhone5White.jpeg
That kind of thing that will slow down page loading and will burn through data allowances. I'm not sure who deals with things like that and I'm not sure how you even make a 70 pixel square JPEG come out that large. On mobile devices, this kind of thing would have more of an effect.
I've noticed many images with similar problems. how, exactly, does a website operator specializing in technology, not know even the basics of web technology? that thing which is their chosen profession.
I suspect the answer to that is related to the larger problem -- not giving a shit enough to do things properly.
QFT. This site doesn't seem to enjoy attention to detail. Yet they report on All Things Apple. Ironic.
He backed up to iCloud. What's your point? iCould, the basic form of backup that Apple promoted, didn't back up apps. Do you know that?
Thinking about it, the one time I attempted to restore from iCloud (in the Apple Store after buying a new phone), I remember I had to download the apps separately after the restore process. But I aborted that restore process and switched to restoring from iTunes because it was faster. But since I (a) semi-regularly sync with iTunes and (b) always back up to iTunes whenever I sync the phone with it, I know that iTunes has the apps (and I have half a dozen backups of my iTunes library) and that restoring from iTunes includes the apps, I guess I blocked out the memory that iCloud backups don't include the apps.
They optimise things like that. Also with Time Machine. That doesn't backup the Trash / Cache / iOS Software (~/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates)... stuff like that.
What News app? I cannot locate it on iPhone running iOS 9.
It's not available in Hong Kong.
Sorry... but you might want to take a look in the mirror once in a while.
You know why I said that? Because we ALL should. The only thing that should be moderated is strictly and obvious trolls. Censoring differences of opinion is a slippery slope, and yes we/me should all do our best to state our differences as civil as possible. I personally post far too often in the heat of emotion without checking my self, and often facts... that I later have to ask forgiveness for and bow down to a better argument against my position. And it's exactly THAT is what's missing from Internet social circles IMHO: not enough people admitting when their wrong, and thanking others for their help... or even for a decent discussion.
Yup... so I'll start and Thank You for giving ME the opportunity to speak my mind.