In 2014 Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote a letter that contrasted Apple with ad-funded services “where customers are the product.”
The letter has been removed from the company’s website ahead of ads coming to Apple Maps for the first time, but Apple commentator John Gruber of Daring Fireball quotes it in an op-ed piece that says Apple should completely get out of the ad business.
And I agree. After all the company is making money hand-over-fist. Milking its customers for all their worth with ever-more ads and greedy price hikes is a bad look for the company.
Here’s a quote from Cook’s letter: A few years ago, users of Internet services began to realize that when an online service is free, you’re not the customer. You’re the product. But at Apple, we believe a great customer experience shouldn’t come at the expense of your privacy.
Gruber says Apple’s upcoming CEO, John Ternus, should return Apple’s privacy policy to its 2014 clarity.
From his post: “The trust Apple would earn from such a move would far out-value whatever revenue these ads pad to their already hefty and ever-increasing quarterly Services numbers. ‘The companies that offer you services free-of-charge to show you ads are betraying your privacy and disrespecting your attention’ is a powerful marketing message that only one major tech company used to be able to credibly make. That’s always been a resonant message, but never more so than today, in the age of AI. Ternus should make the slight course correction needed so that Apple can hammer that message once again.”
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