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Another terrific resource from Apple’s documentation team, also available as a PDF. Apple has long made its style guide publicly available, but I suspect many people aren’t aware of it. The previous edition was from 2022.

Worth noting though that this is Apple’s style bible, and while most of it is inarguably good advice, some of it is simply arbitrary. For example, Apple famously styles some of its product names without title-casing them: Mac mini, iPod nano, macOS, visionOS, watchOS, etc. That’s purely style though, not spelling, and my style — like most publications — is to capitalize proper names.

A new entry, some of the idiosyncrasies of which many of you have likely already noticed in Apple’s marketing and documentation:

Apple Vision Pro — Always use the full name. In general
references, don’t use the with Apple Vision Pro. It’s OK to
use another article or a possessive adjective: Adjust the fit of
your Apple Vision Pro.

You put on and take off Apple Vision Pro. When you have it on,
you’re wearing it.

Put on Apple Vision Pro and adjust the fit.
Don’t run while you’re wearing Apple Vision Pro.

In text, don’t write the name Apple Vision Pro by combining the
 symbol with Vision Pro.

Correct: Get started with Apple Vision Pro.
Incorrect: Get started with Vision Pro.

Don’t refer to Apple Vision Pro as a headset. In most cases, use
the product name; in content where the name is repeated
frequently, you can use device.

Outside Cupertino, no one eschews the in front of Apple product names when doing so sounds natural, and everyone calls the Vision Pro a “headset”, because, well, it is a headset.

(I keep thinking that if it had come out in the 1990s, it might have been named AppleVision Pro, closed-up and camel-cased, and also keep thinking that it kind of looks cool that way. Similarly: AppleWatch.)

 ★ 

Another terrific resource from Apple’s documentation team, also available as a PDF. Apple has long made its style guide publicly available, but I suspect many people aren’t aware of it. The previous edition was from 2022.

Worth noting though that this is Apple’s style bible, and while most of it is inarguably good advice, some of it is simply arbitrary. For example, Apple famously styles some of its product names without title-casing them: Mac mini, iPod nano, macOS, visionOS, watchOS, etc. That’s purely style though, not spelling, and my style — like most publications — is to capitalize proper names.

A new entry, some of the idiosyncrasies of which many of you have likely already noticed in Apple’s marketing and documentation:

Apple Vision Pro — Always use the full name. In general
references, don’t use the with Apple Vision Pro. It’s OK to
use another article or a possessive adjective: Adjust the fit of
your Apple Vision Pro.

You put on and take off Apple Vision Pro. When you have it on,
you’re wearing it.

Put on Apple Vision Pro and adjust the fit.
Don’t run while you’re wearing Apple Vision Pro.

In text, don’t write the name Apple Vision Pro by combining the
 symbol with Vision Pro.

Correct: Get started with Apple Vision Pro.
Incorrect: Get started with Vision Pro.

Don’t refer to Apple Vision Pro as a headset. In most cases, use
the product name; in content where the name is repeated
frequently, you can use device.

Outside Cupertino, no one eschews the in front of Apple product names when doing so sounds natural, and everyone calls the Vision Pro a “headset”, because, well, it is a headset.

(I keep thinking that if it had come out in the 1990s, it might have been named AppleVision Pro, closed-up and camel-cased, and also keep thinking that it kind of looks cool that way. Similarly: AppleWatch.)

Read More 

Jason Snell, writing at Six Colors:

What strikes me most about this document is that people… like using the iPhone? This suit (joined by 16 other attorneys general, mostly of blue states) has a political element to it, in the sense of trying to send a message that your government is looking out for your rights and protecting you from big, bad tech companies.

What happens when that collides with a product that has extremely high customer satisfaction ratings? Those of us in the know are well aware of all the ways that Apple plays hardball, and understand that the company is so powerful that really the only way it will be convinced to change its ways is under threat of government intervention. But will American iPhone users feel like the government is on their side, in taking on an American tech giant that makes a product they actually enjoy using?

 ★ 

Jason Snell, writing at Six Colors:

What strikes me most about this document is that people… like using the iPhone? This suit (joined by 16 other attorneys general, mostly of blue states) has a political element to it, in the sense of trying to send a message that your government is looking out for your rights and protecting you from big, bad tech companies.

What happens when that collides with a product that has extremely high customer satisfaction ratings? Those of us in the know are well aware of all the ways that Apple plays hardball, and understand that the company is so powerful that really the only way it will be convinced to change its ways is under threat of government intervention. But will American iPhone users feel like the government is on their side, in taking on an American tech giant that makes a product they actually enjoy using?

Read More 

Attorney General Merrick Garland:

When an iPhone user puts a credit or debit card into Apple Wallet,
Apple inserts itself in a process that could otherwise occur
directly between the user and card issuer. This introduces an
additional potential point of failure for the privacy and security
of Apple users.

Apple Pay through Wallet obfuscates your actual credit card numbers, which retailers infamously use to track customers. It’s far more private than using your credit card itself. I highly doubt any banks or credit card issuers would do this themselves if given access to NFC tap-to-pay.

And that is just one way in which Apple is willing to make the
iPhone less secure and less private in order to maintain its
monopoly power. The Supreme Court defines monopoly power as “the
power to control prices or exclude competition.”

As set out in our complaint, Apple has that power in the
smartphone market.

Defining the iPhone as a monopoly when it has somewhere around 55 percent market share in the U.S. is obviously the first thing the DOJ needs to prove. Microsoft had over 90 percent market share of the PC operating system market when the DOJ sued them in the late 1990s. The DOJ tries to get around the uncomfortable fact of Apple’s mere 55 percent share by defining a market for “performance smartphones”. I don’t really see how Apple has any power over the price of phones made by other companies.

Now, having monopoly power does not itself violate the antitrust
laws. But it does when a firm acquires or maintains monopoly power — not because it has a superior product or superior business
acumen — but by engaging in exclusionary conduct. As set out in
our complaint, Apple has maintained its power not because of its
superiority, but because of its unlawful exclusionary behavior.

Completely backwards. Superiority is exactly what made the iPhone what it is — superior hardware, superior software, superior integration. Even a superior retail experience. Not only is the DOJ’s take on the iPhone’s success a complete misunderstanding of the actual market dynamics for phones, it’s flabbergastingly insulting.

 ★ 

Attorney General Merrick Garland:

When an iPhone user puts a credit or debit card into Apple Wallet,
Apple inserts itself in a process that could otherwise occur
directly between the user and card issuer. This introduces an
additional potential point of failure for the privacy and security
of Apple users.

Apple Pay through Wallet obfuscates your actual credit card numbers, which retailers infamously use to track customers. It’s far more private than using your credit card itself. I highly doubt any banks or credit card issuers would do this themselves if given access to NFC tap-to-pay.

And that is just one way in which Apple is willing to make the
iPhone less secure and less private in order to maintain its
monopoly power. The Supreme Court defines monopoly power as “the
power to control prices or exclude competition.”

As set out in our complaint, Apple has that power in the
smartphone market.

Defining the iPhone as a monopoly when it has somewhere around 55 percent market share in the U.S. is obviously the first thing the DOJ needs to prove. Microsoft had over 90 percent market share of the PC operating system market when the DOJ sued them in the late 1990s. The DOJ tries to get around the uncomfortable fact of Apple’s mere 55 percent share by defining a market for “performance smartphones”. I don’t really see how Apple has any power over the price of phones made by other companies.

Now, having monopoly power does not itself violate the antitrust
laws. But it does when a firm acquires or maintains monopoly power — not because it has a superior product or superior business
acumen — but by engaging in exclusionary conduct. As set out in
our complaint, Apple has maintained its power not because of its
superiority, but because of its unlawful exclusionary behavior.

Completely backwards. Superiority is exactly what made the iPhone what it is — superior hardware, superior software, superior integration. Even a superior retail experience. Not only is the DOJ’s take on the iPhone’s success a complete misunderstanding of the actual market dynamics for phones, it’s flabbergastingly insulting.

Read More 

New home page for Apple Support documentation. Worth a bookmark.

 ★ 

New home page for Apple Support documentation. Worth a bookmark.

Read More 

Another recent-ish update to one of my essential Mac utilities:

Keyboard Maestro 11 expands on the powerful base of previous
versions, improving the editor, adding many new actions and
triggers, New Macro Wizard, a new Security preference pane, a
keyboardmaestro command line tool, support for Apple Text
Recognition, and more. Keyboard Maestro 11 requires macOS 10.13
High Sierra or later.

My number one tip for anyone looking to up their Mac power-user game is to get Keyboard Maestro. It’s like having super powers. $36 for a new license, $25 to upgrade. And of course there’s a free trial.

 ★ 

Another recent-ish update to one of my essential Mac utilities:

Keyboard Maestro 11 expands on the powerful base of previous
versions, improving the editor, adding many new actions and
triggers, New Macro Wizard, a new Security preference pane, a
keyboardmaestro command line tool, support for Apple Text
Recognition, and more. Keyboard Maestro 11 requires macOS 10.13
High Sierra or later.

My number one tip for anyone looking to up their Mac power-user game is to get Keyboard Maestro. It’s like having super powers. $36 for a new license, $25 to upgrade. And of course there’s a free trial.

Read More 

BBEdit 15.0.2 just shipped, which reminded me that I never linked to BBEdit 15. Most interesting and useful to me, among many new features:

There’s a new document type, “ChatGPT Worksheet”. This is created
from File → New as with other document types, and provides an
interface for conversational exchanges with ChatGPT. In order to
use this feature, you will need a ChatGPT account, and an API
key. […]

ChatGPT worksheets work similarly to a shell worksheet: type
something in, and press the Enter key to send it to ChatGPT. (You
can also use the “Send Command” keyboard equivalent, as set in the
“Worksheets” section of BBEdit’s “Menus & Shortcuts” preferences.
The default for this command is Control-Return.) After some period
of time, you’ll receive a response which BBEdit will insert into
the document window.

If you wish to cancel your request before the response arrives,
Command-period or Control-C will do that.

Responses from ChatGPT are automatically quoted, as long as the
worksheet’s language is set to “Markdown”. If you change the
worksheet’s language, this quoting will not occur.

(Since worksheets are Markdown, you can use “Preview in BBEdit” on
a worksheet to visualize it.)

Because chats depend heavily on history, a worksheet saves your
prompts and the server’s responses. Thus, the document size will
grow over time and context is preserved, even if you delete
previous prompts and responses from the text area.

BBEdit ChatGPT worksheets are my favorite interface to ChatGPT in general, but they particularly shine when using ChatGPT for programming advice. It’s so convenient to have the chat in a freeform format right there in your text editor.

Other tentpole new features include a minimap palette, customizable cheat sheets, and significant improvements to “projects”. BBEdit remains my favorite app in the world. $60 for a new license, $30 to upgrade from an older version, or $4/month or $40/year from the Mac App Store.

See also: Michael Tsai and Jason Snell.

 ★ 

BBEdit 15.0.2 just shipped, which reminded me that I never linked to BBEdit 15. Most interesting and useful to me, among many new features:

There’s a new document type, “ChatGPT Worksheet”. This is created
from File → New as with other document types, and provides an
interface for conversational exchanges with ChatGPT. In order to
use this feature, you will need a ChatGPT account, and an API
key. […]

ChatGPT worksheets work similarly to a shell worksheet: type
something in, and press the Enter key to send it to ChatGPT. (You
can also use the “Send Command” keyboard equivalent, as set in the
“Worksheets” section of BBEdit’s “Menus & Shortcuts” preferences.
The default for this command is Control-Return.) After some period
of time, you’ll receive a response which BBEdit will insert into
the document window.

If you wish to cancel your request before the response arrives,
Command-period or Control-C will do that.

Responses from ChatGPT are automatically quoted, as long as the
worksheet’s language is set to “Markdown”. If you change the
worksheet’s language, this quoting will not occur.

(Since worksheets are Markdown, you can use “Preview in BBEdit” on
a worksheet to visualize it.)

Because chats depend heavily on history, a worksheet saves your
prompts and the server’s responses. Thus, the document size will
grow over time and context is preserved, even if you delete
previous prompts and responses from the text area.

BBEdit ChatGPT worksheets are my favorite interface to ChatGPT in general, but they particularly shine when using ChatGPT for programming advice. It’s so convenient to have the chat in a freeform format right there in your text editor.

Other tentpole new features include a minimap palette, customizable cheat sheets, and significant improvements to “projects”. BBEdit remains my favorite app in the world. $60 for a new license, $30 to upgrade from an older version, or $4/month or $40/year from the Mac App Store.

See also: Michael Tsai and Jason Snell.

Read More 

Asa Fitch, reporting for The Wall Street Journal (News+):

The Nvidia frenzy over artificial intelligence has come to this:
Chief Executive Jensen Huang unveiled his company’s latest chips
on Monday in a sports arena at an event one analyst dubbed the “AI
Woodstock.”

Customers, partners and fans of the chip company descended on the
SAP Center, the home of the National Hockey League’s San Jose
Sharks, for Huang’s keynote speech at an annual Nvidia conference
that, this year, has a seating capacity of about 11,000.

Professional wrestling’s WWE Monday Night RAW event took place
there in February. Justin Timberlake is scheduled to play the
arena in May. Even Apple’s much-watched launch events for the
iPhone and iPad didn’t fill a venue this large.

Apple never tried to fill a venue that large for a keynote (the big keynotes at Macworld Expo and WWDC in were capped at about 4,000 to 5,000), but surely could have. But the point stands: Nvidia has the world’s attention, and deservedly so.

 ★ 

Asa Fitch, reporting for The Wall Street Journal (News+):

The Nvidia frenzy over artificial intelligence has come to this:
Chief Executive Jensen Huang unveiled his company’s latest chips
on Monday in a sports arena at an event one analyst dubbed the “AI
Woodstock.”

Customers, partners and fans of the chip company descended on the
SAP Center, the home of the National Hockey League’s San Jose
Sharks, for Huang’s keynote speech at an annual Nvidia conference
that, this year, has a seating capacity of about 11,000.

Professional wrestling’s WWE Monday Night RAW event took place
there in February. Justin Timberlake is scheduled to play the
arena in May. Even Apple’s much-watched launch events for the
iPhone and iPad didn’t fill a venue this large.

Apple never tried to fill a venue that large for a keynote (the big keynotes at Macworld Expo and WWDC in were capped at about 4,000 to 5,000), but surely could have. But the point stands: Nvidia has the world’s attention, and deservedly so.

Read More 

Hannah Ritchie, writing for Our World in Data:

It wasn’t until 1859 that the UK’s Meteorological Service (the Met
Office) issued its first weather forecast for shipping.
Two years later, it broadcasted its first public weather forecast.
While meteorological measurements improved over time, the massive
step-change in predictions came with the use of computerized
numerical modeling. This didn’t start until a century later, in
the 1960s.

Forecasts have improved a lot since then. We can see this across a
range of measurements, and different national meteorological
organizations. The Met Office says its four-day forecasts
are now as accurate as its one-day forecasts were 30 years ago.

When I was a kid it was a running gag that weathermen were always wrong. I can’t remember the last time I heard anyone joke about weather forecasts being useless. Over the last 40 years, 7-day forecasts have gone from a coin toss to “highly accurate”. (Via Kottke.)

 ★ 

Hannah Ritchie, writing for Our World in Data:

It wasn’t until 1859 that the UK’s Meteorological Service (the Met
Office) issued its first weather forecast for shipping.
Two years later, it broadcasted its first public weather forecast.
While meteorological measurements improved over time, the massive
step-change in predictions came with the use of computerized
numerical modeling. This didn’t start until a century later, in
the 1960s.

Forecasts have improved a lot since then. We can see this across a
range of measurements, and different national meteorological
organizations. The Met Office says its four-day forecasts
are now as accurate as its one-day forecasts were 30 years ago.

When I was a kid it was a running gag that weathermen were always wrong. I can’t remember the last time I heard anyone joke about weather forecasts being useless. Over the last 40 years, 7-day forecasts have gone from a coin toss to “highly accurate”. (Via Kottke.)

Read More 

Foo Yun Chee, again reporting for Reuters, after an exclusive interview with Margrethe Vestager, EU commissioner and renowned user-experience designer:

A new fee structure includes a core technology fee of 50 euro
cents per user account per year that major app developers will
have to pay even if they do not use any of Apple’s payment
services, which has triggered criticism from rivals such as
Fortnite creator Epic Games.

Vestager said the new fees have attracted her attention.

“There are things that we take a keen interest in, for instance,
if the new Apple fee structure will de facto not make it in any
way attractive to use the benefits of the DMA. That kind of thing
is what we will be investigating,” she told Reuters in an
interview.

There are already several marketplaces that have announced plans to open: AltStore, Setapp, Mobivention, and of course Epic’s game store, to name three. So the CTF obviously isn’t making it “not in any way attractive to use the benefits of the DMA”. But whether this is Vestager’s code-speak for “We’re going to declare the CTF non-compliant not because it violates the terms of the DMA but simply because we don’t like it”, I don’t know.

From a transcript of yesterday’s workshop on Apple’s DMA compliance plans, the opening remarks from the EC included this gem: “The reason is that we want to achieve compliance with the spirit of the DMA not just with the letter.”

That’s not how the rule of law works in the U.S.

Vestager expressed her reservations on Meta’s new fees. The
company earlier on Tuesday said it has offered to almost
halve its monthly subscription fee for Facebook and Instagram
to 5.99 euros from 9.99 euros but Austrian privacy activist Max
Schrems said the issue is not about the level of the fee.

“I think there are many different ways to monetize the services
that you provide. Because one thing are the very targeted
advertising that builds on data being consumed. Another way of
showing your advertising is to make that contextual,” she said.
“So I think it’s important to continue the conversation with Meta
and we will assess also finally, what is the next push in order
for them to be compliant with the DMA.”

If the EC wants to ban targeted advertising, they should pass a law banning targeted advertising. But they haven’t. Targeted advertising is legal in the EU; Meta simply has to offer users a reasonable opt-out. It seems like Vestager is hinting that the only acceptable opt-out — spirit-wise — is non-targeted advertising that generates only pennies on the dollar compared to Meta’s incredibly lucrative targeted ads. This is quite a message the EC is sending to businesses around the world.

Vestager also warned companies against discouraging users from
switching to rivals by disparaging them, saying this kind of
behaviour could trigger an investigation. Apple has said some of
its changes could expose users to security risks.

“I would think of it as unwise to say that the services are not
safe to use, because that has nothing to do with the DMA. The
DMA is there to open the market for other service providers to
get to you and how your service provider of your operating
system, how they will make sure that it is safe is for them to
decide,” she said.

So it doesn’t matter whether sideloaded apps are dangerous, or, say, that third-party browser engines may adversely affect battery life — Apple can’t make honest recommendations to its customers if those recommendations would discourage switching. Even though the entire reason many, if not most, people choose Apple products is that they trust Apple. The EU is not, obviously, America, but holy hell does it sound wrong to my American ears to claim it’s illegal for a company to offer customers the truth. (And this is exactly why I’ve been so adamantly opposed to Apple’s own anti-steering rules in the App Store all along.)

 ★ 

Foo Yun Chee, again reporting for Reuters, after an exclusive interview with Margrethe Vestager, EU commissioner and renowned user-experience designer:

A new fee structure includes a core technology fee of 50 euro
cents per user account per year that major app developers will
have to pay even if they do not use any of Apple’s payment
services, which has triggered criticism from rivals such as
Fortnite creator Epic Games.

Vestager said the new fees have attracted her attention.

“There are things that we take a keen interest in, for instance,
if the new Apple fee structure will de facto not make it in any
way attractive to use the benefits of the DMA. That kind of thing
is what we will be investigating,” she told Reuters in an
interview.

There are already several marketplaces that have announced plans to open: AltStore, Setapp, Mobivention, and of course Epic’s game store, to name three. So the CTF obviously isn’t making it “not in any way attractive to use the benefits of the DMA”. But whether this is Vestager’s code-speak for “We’re going to declare the CTF non-compliant not because it violates the terms of the DMA but simply because we don’t like it”, I don’t know.

From a transcript of yesterday’s workshop on Apple’s DMA compliance plans, the opening remarks from the EC included this gem: “The reason is that we want to achieve compliance with the spirit of the DMA not just with the letter.”

That’s not how the rule of law works in the U.S.

Vestager expressed her reservations on Meta’s new fees. The
company earlier on Tuesday said it has offered to almost
halve its monthly subscription fee for Facebook and Instagram
to 5.99 euros from 9.99 euros but Austrian privacy activist Max
Schrems said the issue is not about the level of the fee.

“I think there are many different ways to monetize the services
that you provide. Because one thing are the very targeted
advertising that builds on data being consumed. Another way of
showing your advertising is to make that contextual,” she said.
“So I think it’s important to continue the conversation with Meta
and we will assess also finally, what is the next push in order
for them to be compliant with the DMA.”

If the EC wants to ban targeted advertising, they should pass a law banning targeted advertising. But they haven’t. Targeted advertising is legal in the EU; Meta simply has to offer users a reasonable opt-out. It seems like Vestager is hinting that the only acceptable opt-out — spirit-wise — is non-targeted advertising that generates only pennies on the dollar compared to Meta’s incredibly lucrative targeted ads. This is quite a message the EC is sending to businesses around the world.

Vestager also warned companies against discouraging users from
switching to rivals by disparaging them, saying this kind of
behaviour could trigger an investigation. Apple has said some of
its changes could expose users to security risks.

“I would think of it as unwise to say that the services are not
safe to use, because that has nothing to do with the DMA. The
DMA is there to open the market for other service providers to
get to you and how your service provider of your operating
system, how they will make sure that it is safe is for them to
decide,” she said.

So it doesn’t matter whether sideloaded apps are dangerous, or, say, that third-party browser engines may adversely affect battery life — Apple can’t make honest recommendations to its customers if those recommendations would discourage switching. Even though the entire reason many, if not most, people choose Apple products is that they trust Apple. The EU is not, obviously, America, but holy hell does it sound wrong to my American ears to claim it’s illegal for a company to offer customers the truth. (And this is exactly why I’ve been so adamantly opposed to Apple’s own anti-steering rules in the App Store all along.)

Read More 

Foo Yun Chee, reporting for Reuters from day 2 of the EC’s DMA compliance workshops:

Meta Platforms has offered to almost halve its monthly
subscription fee for Facebook and Instagram to 5.99 euros from
9.99 euros, a senior Meta executive said on Tuesday, a move that
aims to address concerns from privacy and antitrust regulators.
The price cut follows mounting criticism from privacy
activists and consumer groups about Meta’s no-ads
subscription service in Europe, which critics say requires
users to pay a fee to ensure their privacy. Meta launched the
service in November to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA),
which curbs its ability to personalise advertisements for users
without their consent, hurting its major revenue source. […]

Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems said the issue is not about
the fee.

“We know from all research that even a fee of just 1.99 euros or
less leads to a shift in consent from 3-10% that genuinely want
advertisments to 99.9% that still click yes. The GDPR requires
that consent must be ‘freely’ given,” he said, referring to the EU
privacy legislation.

“In reality it is not about the amount of money – it is about the
‘pay or okay’ approach as a whole. The entire purpose of ‘pay or
okay’ is to get users to click on okay, even if this is not their
free and genuine choice. We do not think the mere change of the
amount makes this approach legal.”

Consider Meta’s average revenue per user (ARPU) per quarter by region. For the US and Canada, it’s about $50–60 per quarter, or over $200 per year per user. In Europe, with its stagnant economy, it’s about $20 per quarter and rising. So €10/month was a reasonable deal, especially when extrapolating Meta’s ARPU trendline. €6/month is a veritable bargain — users who opt to pay would be generating slightly less than average revenue, but gaining a no-ads experience. (Sorry for mixing euros and dollars here, but they’re close enough at the moment — $1 ≈ €0.92 — to treat them interchangeably for ballpark comparisons.)

But Schrems’s argument, seemingly, is that Meta should be required to offer a no-tracking version of Instagram and Facebook completely free of charge. Meta could show ads to those users, but not the sort of ads that actually generate money. “Why can’t you just sustain your business with non-personalised ads without charging a subscription?” was, according to Kay Jebelli’s live coverage of the workshop, an actual question asked today. Next up: free ice water in hell?

Privacy fundamentalists seem upset that when given the choice between a free service with personalized ads (and tracking to do the personalization), and paying a fair fee for a service, the overwhelming majority choose the personalized ads.

 ★ 

Foo Yun Chee, reporting for Reuters from day 2 of the EC’s DMA compliance workshops:

Meta Platforms has offered to almost halve its monthly
subscription fee for Facebook and Instagram to 5.99 euros from
9.99 euros, a senior Meta executive said on Tuesday, a move that
aims to address concerns from privacy and antitrust regulators.
The price cut follows mounting criticism from privacy
activists and consumer groups about Meta’s no-ads
subscription service in Europe, which critics say requires
users to pay a fee to ensure their privacy. Meta launched the
service in November to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA),
which curbs its ability to personalise advertisements for users
without their consent, hurting its major revenue source. […]

Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems said the issue is not about
the fee.

“We know from all research that even a fee of just 1.99 euros or
less leads to a shift in consent from 3-10% that genuinely want
advertisments to 99.9% that still click yes. The GDPR requires
that consent must be ‘freely’ given,” he said, referring to the EU
privacy legislation.

“In reality it is not about the amount of money – it is about the
‘pay or okay’ approach as a whole. The entire purpose of ‘pay or
okay’ is to get users to click on okay, even if this is not their
free and genuine choice. We do not think the mere change of the
amount makes this approach legal.”

Consider Meta’s average revenue per user (ARPU) per quarter by region. For the US and Canada, it’s about $50–60 per quarter, or over $200 per year per user. In Europe, with its stagnant economy, it’s about $20 per quarter and rising. So €10/month was a reasonable deal, especially when extrapolating Meta’s ARPU trendline. €6/month is a veritable bargain — users who opt to pay would be generating slightly less than average revenue, but gaining a no-ads experience. (Sorry for mixing euros and dollars here, but they’re close enough at the moment — $1 ≈ €0.92 — to treat them interchangeably for ballpark comparisons.)

But Schrems’s argument, seemingly, is that Meta should be required to offer a no-tracking version of Instagram and Facebook completely free of charge. Meta could show ads to those users, but not the sort of ads that actually generate money. “Why can’t you just sustain your business with non-personalised ads without charging a subscription?” was, according to Kay Jebelli’s live coverage of the workshop, an actual question asked today. Next up: free ice water in hell?

Privacy fundamentalists seem upset that when given the choice between a free service with personalized ads (and tracking to do the personalization), and paying a fair fee for a service, the overwhelming majority choose the personalized ads.

Read More