This guy, Marco Arment. If you are a developer and don’t know who Marco is, I’m judging you. If you are a muggle like me and don’t know Marco, you can be excused. Read this. Okay, you too, developer that doesn’t know Marco Arment.
Anyways, Marco wrote an ad-blocker and uploaded it to the Apple Appstore. And guess what happened? It became the number one paid app in the US Appstore in less than 36 hours. Not long after that, Marco decides to pull the app, because:
Achieving this much success with Peace just doesn’t feel good, which I didn’t anticipate, but probably should have. 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.
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.
It’s simply not worth it. I’m incredibly fortunate to be able to turn away an opportunity like this, and I don’t begrudge anyone else who wants to try it. I’m just not built for this business.
If you are a developer and don’t know who Marco is, I’m judging you
Prior to reading that post a few days ago I’d never heard of him, so judge away.
Anyway, I don’t like the angle this ad debate has been taking. People seem to be ignoring that publishers are responsible for the obnoxiousness of their ads, which is a shame. I personally don’t mind ads, but it has gotten ridiculous.
When I heard about this while listening to some podcast last week, nobody sounded like he was that important. Plus taking the moral high ground while being hypocritical at the same time is rather interesting.
He built an ad blocker based on Ghostery’s database. Then he got affected because it blocked ads by The Deck. John Gruber who was his friend wasn’t too pleased too, and the next thing he does was to pull the app. What was the motivation in building the app in the first place? Why the sudden change of heart when he got affected? In a context such as this, you are either all in, or nothing. And guess what, his app got instantly popular because everyone liked it and wanted a cleaner browsing experience (something he was going for when he built it as well). Then he turns around and pulls the plug because, ad dollars… friends… etc. Tell me, what do you call that? Forget the smooth talk on his website or in Bankole’s quote. There’s always a way to spin stuff around for the media and appear like some angel of some sort. Ad blockers have been a source of moral debate over the years that you can easily make good (and touching) points on either side of the coin.
The whole pulling of the app in the first place is a case of greed over belief/conviction. Let’s not give undue praise here.
You kinda have to be in the Apple Dev “Ecosystem” to know who Marco Arment is. He is not a poor man, so he can afford to avoid stuff he does not like. He was employee number 1 at Tumblr ,and he had an app (Instapaper) that was on the top grossing list on the App Store for what seems like years.
