alt Hacker News> as they are both in the advertisement business
Apple isn't. Just sayin'. They are trying to do it, but they aren't really anywhere near the scale of Google and Facebook. They make money (lots of money) by selling high-margin hardware, and, to some extent, digital media, on that hardware.
Currently, Apple is genuinely serious about preserving user privacy. I realize that can change, in the future, but it's the way it is, now. I get the feeling that a lot of folks on HN are having difficulty understanding businesses that make a profit by doing stuff other than harvesting and selling PiD, but that's not what has made Apple a 4 trillion-dollar company. They make that money the old-fashioned way; but with a modern twist.
That said, this situation is unforgivable, and I hope that Apple leads by example, by preventing this all-too-common type of dumpster fire from happening in the future.
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Apple became infected with the same thirst for "engagement" as any advertising-driven company. That's why even first-party apps like Maps or Music now waste your time with bullshit notifications. Same for every OS update trying to con you into enabling Apple "Intelligence".
Whether the advertising is ultimately successful does not matter to those people, what matters is if they can convince the person paying them (the manager paying their salary, the ad agency, etc) that they are effective.
Apple makes money on hardware and a 30% tax on developers. They might have some goodwill but are not making any money on privacy.
A full 20% of their profit comes directly from Google Ads, then there's their own ads strewn throughout apps and the App Store on top so their total profit from ads is probably close to a quarter of all their profit.
Apple has created an entire programming language (Swift) as part of their "marketing toolbox".
> genuinely serious about preserving user privacy
Nope, not anymore. That ship has sailed and more revenue is to be made by harvesting user data
Apple's ad business is estimated to be at $6.5 billion annually as of 2024[0]. Since then, they've decided to bring ads to Apple Maps. And of course there was the infamous ad for some movie on Apple TV injected into Apple Wallet earlier this year.
Just because they're not Google's size doesn't mean they don't have people making product decisions that will eventually sacrifice privacy for profits.
[0] https://digiday.com/marketing/when-it-comes-to-ads-apple-isn...