The App Store's Leading Ad Blocker Just Took Down His App Out of Guilt

Mic.com ^ | September 18, 2015 | By Jack Smith IV

[Swordmaker]

To take sides in the war against advertising, you have to ask yourself this question: Are you willing to watch an ad to support the creators of the articles and stories you love reading, or should those creators starve until they find a better way of doing business? 

It's a popular war too: This morning, the top app on the Apple App Store wasn't Minecraft, Facetune or some new puzzle game. It was Peace, an ad blocker, one of the greatest tools consumers have against ads on their iPhones. But the general who was leading that front has fallen on his own sword.

Source: Jack Smith IV/App Store

Marco Arment, the creator of Peace, wrote on his blog Friday that he can no longer take away revenue from writers and publishers who rely on ads to support their creative work.

"Achieving this much success with Peace just doesn't feel good, which I didn't anticipate, but probably should have," he writes. "Ad blockers come with an important asterisk: While they do benefit a ton of people in major ways, they also hurt some, including many who don't deserve the hit."

The ad blocker made Arment one of the greatest arms dealers in the online war against advertising. While he still acknowledges that ad blockers are worthwhile and that the war is worth waging, he says he couldn't stomach being on the front lines of that battle and seeing the damage he was doing.

"Ad blocking is a kind of war — a first-world, low-stakes, both-sides-are-fortunate-to-have-this-kind-of-problem war, but a war nonetheless, with damage hitting both sides," Arment writes. "I see war in the Tao Te Ching sense: It should be avoided when possible; when that isn't possible, war should be entered solemnly, not celebrated."

Advertising still powers the Web. Apps like Peace and new favorite contender Ghostery are part of the destruction of Web-based content, driving creators away from having their own websites and into the iron grip of platforms like Facebook or Apple, which are building their own places to keep news and articles.

Interesting that Marco felt bad about Peace and removed it, but Instapaper has been taking the ads out of websites for years

As Nilay Patel writes for the Verge, "[T]he collateral damage of that war — of Apple going after Google's revenue platform — is going to include the Web, and in particular any small publisher on the Web that can't invest in proprietary platform distribution, native advertising and the type of media wining-and-dining it takes to secure favorable distribution deals on proprietary platforms. It is going to be a bloodbath of independent media."

Finding peace of mind: As for Arment, he is encouraging people to seek a refund for Peace if they want one. For now, he's going to be working on Overcast, a podcasting app. 

Helping people find great content, incidentally, is more conscionable to Arment than helping people undermine the way content creators make a living.

Here's how to get a refund if you want it: http://www.imore.com/how-to-get-refund-itunes-app-store ... (No hard feelings if you do. I even encourage it.)

[Swordmaker]

The leading iPhone/iPad ad blocker app was just taken down by its author out of "guilt" for blocking the ads that bring in income to the authors of the apps where the ads were bing blocked. He is so mortified he is suggesting buyers of his app request refunds from Apple. Why doesn't he just suggest that authors of these Apps step up and charge a nominal fee for their apps? He was. — PING!

Thanks to Amigatec for the heads up on this story.

Apple allowing ad blocking causes extreme
angst in ad block app author
so he pulls his app!
Ping!

The Latest Apple/Mac/iOS Pings can be found by searching Keyword “ApplePingList” on Freerepublic’s Search.

If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.

[catnipman]

We will FORCE you to watch those ads:

[amigatec]

I am currently running 2 Ad Blockers on my iPad Air, my iPhone 5c will not run them it is to slow. It takes a 5s or above to run them.

I will be picking up a 6s+ next week.

[W.]

Obvoiusly, there are lots of people who have no idea what is, or how to use adblock software. Let them watch the ads. I'm not. All the media content is at least 33% advertising. No thanks, I value my time. Thank you AdBlock.

[amigatec]

The real problem here is you are paying for the bandwidth these ads use up. Heck they should be paying me for wasting my time and bandwidth.

[martin_fierro]

I will be picking up a 6s+ next week.

< /jealous >

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

I understand that advertising pays the way but some sites are obnoxious about it. The daily caller is one that comes to mind. And the people that put videos that run automatically should be taken out and shot.

[Unrepentant VN Vet]

...And the people that put videos that run automatically should be taken out and shot.

I wouldn't waste the powder.

I'd just chain 'em up in front of a monitor and force 'em to watch their drivel. No stops, no potty breaks, no volume control (besides the one I've already hardwired to MAX).

...and I wouldn't even hang around to watch the results, or take any over/unders on how long before they started to break or what they did to themselves after that.

Hell, the bugs gotta eat.

[Swordmaker]

I understand that advertising pays the way but some sites are obnoxious about it. The daily caller is one that comes to mind. And the people that put videos that run automatically should be taken out and shot.

You're much too kind. Drawing and quartering them is the least they deserve. For those show put up the video ads that hide the content of the page you want to read and/or don't allow a quick escape on a two minute video that leads a YouTube you really want to see that wastes your time for the UMPTEENTH TIME (yes, I'm talking about you PG&E), then running them through a meat grinder while still living is not enough!

I don't mind 15 or 30 seconds but two minutes?

[Eric Pode of Croydon]

Exactly.

When we finally get some real competition -

when the wireless providers finally do some of that "innovating" they are always whingeing about when the subject of net neutrality comes up -

when bandwidth is not priced like each byte was hand-mined by elderly gnomes on the second moon of Uranus -

THEN I'll consider turning down my ad blockers, and not a second before.

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

“(yes, I’m talking about you PG&E”

LOL. PG&E has a government granted monopoly so their only benefit of running ads is public relations ( I guess they do do some public service also). What good do they get out of running obnoxious ads? If you didn’t hate them before you do after their ad campaign.

[Balding_Eagle]

And the people that put videos that run automatically should be taken out and shot.

Twice