Top all-time · #1007
Eric Seufert
Personal blog · mobiledevmemo.combusinesseconomicsdata
Eric Seufert's personal blog at mobiledevmemo.com covers business, economics and data. Since 2013, 66 different Hacker News readers have linked it 103 times, most often “Apple privileges its own ad network with ATT”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-11-02, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (11) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Eric Seufert's blog on the mobile app advertising industry, including Apple's iOS privacy and tracking changes. HN commenters link its posts on those topics as sources and background.
- Recommended for · 2 comments
- Called pretty good for following the mobile ad industry; a 1999 Ultima Online economics paper hosted on the site called a favourite.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 11 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Independent analysis of the digital economy.
Most-linked posts?
- Apple privileges its own ad network with ATT3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-02-03
- Apple Robbed the Mob’s Bank3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-05-11
- “Allow this app to personalize advertising for you?”2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-02-08
- TikTok’s billion-dollar secret that wasn’t2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-09-14
- Apple to Ad Tech: “Fingerprinting Is Never Allowed”2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-06-13
- Apocalypse Now: per WWDC, the IDFA is dead2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-06-24
- Twitter and the quality of brand advertising revenue2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-11-10
- Everything Is an Ad Network2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-11-08
- The App Tracking Transparency Recession2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-02-06
- Will Apple redefine mobile advertising with SKAdNetwork?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-04-09
What Hacker News says?
>One big privacy issue is that there is no sane way to protect your contact details from being sold, regardless of what you do. >As soon as your cousin clicks "Yes, I would like to share the entire contents of my contacts with you" when they launch TikTok your name, phone number, email etc are all in the crowd. Fortunately this is changing with iOS 18 with "limited contacts" sharing. https://mobiledevmemo.com/wp-con…
Comment linking /wp-content/uploads/2024/09/image.png
on “Everyone knows your location: tracking myself down through in-app ads”Submitted Apple Robbed the Mob’s Bank as a story · 84 points
HN discussionIt pops up a big scary per-app dialog ( https://mobiledevmemo.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/image-1... ) that the app wants to “track you across apps and websites owned by other companies”. I just wish people understood how much they’re being manipulated by Apple’s marketing here. Credit to them: they’re the best in the world —- if Tim Cook decided to sell cigarettes, he’d have most of us on two packs a day and bel…
Comment linking /wp-content/uploads/2020/06/image-12.png
on “Facebook apologizes to users for Apple’s monstrous efforts to protect privacy”Submitted Apple to Developers: Heads I win, tails you lose (part 2) as a story · 73 points
HN discussionhttps://mobiledevmemo.com/apple-privileges-its-own-ad-networ...
Comment linking /apple-privileges-its-own-ad-network-whats-its-privacy-end-game/
on “Apple's Power Move to Kneecap Facebook Advertising Is Working”Submitted It’s Apple’s Internet Now as a story · 34 points
HN discussionHere's a link from Sept 2020 about how this was expected long in advance: https://mobiledevmemo.com/what-will-googles-deprecation-of-g... The key word here is "consensus". He's reporting that others held this expectation, not just himself. This step by Google does not yet go as far as predicted; there is a big difference between a modal opt-in/opt-out and an opt-out in settings. Here's a link speculating on the impa…
Comment linking /facebook-may-take-revenue-hit-from-apple-privacy-changes/
on “Google Joins Apple to Opt-out of Mobile Advertising IDs”Submitted Kroger and Albertsons are merging because Everything is an Ad Network as a story · 21 points
HN discussionI consider these cop-out answers, but Stratechery [0] and Money Stuff [1] are excellent. I'm bewildered daily by Matt Levines ability to write. Mobile Dev Memo is pretty good and follows mainly the mobile ad industry [2]. Apologies for the self-promotion, but in case any tech minded finns are reading this, I write a daily news letter about tech in finnish called Transistori [3]. [0]: https://stratechery.com/ [1]: ht…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What hyper-focused industry newsletters do you enjoy?”Submitted Apple Robbed the Mob's Bank as a story · 18 points
HN discussionSources? Otherwise it’s just speculation, which I’ve heard isn't generally worth considering. FWIW, I work on a national news media app and advertising CPMs are down considerably year over year thanks to Apple's ATT update, so advertising is not the driver for these business as much as it once was. Many are looking to subscription revenue to fill the void, but even that's not enough to cover the loss. I know less ab…
Comment linking /att-is-killing-advertising-performance-six-tactics-for-adapting-to-the-new-advertising-landscape/
on “San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet”Submitted Elon’s Dilemma as a story · 9 points
HN discussionThe difference is that Big Tobacco was regulated by the government. Apple is a competitor to Facebook. Apples ads are not effected by this[0]. [0] https://mobiledevmemo.com/apple-privileges-its-own-ad-networ...
Comment linking /apple-privileges-its-own-ad-network-whats-its-privacy-end-game/
on “Facebook says Apple iOS privacy change will result in $10B revenue hit this year”Submitted TikTok’s billion-dollar secret that wasn’t as a story · 7 points
HN discussion> but provide the mechanism to do so for others, then clearly Apple is still violating the law. Apple is severely limiting IDFA in the new iOS and shows a popup asking whether you want to allow apps to track you. So that's become opt-in. https://mobiledevmemo.com/mobile-advertising-without-the-idf...
Comment linking /mobile-advertising-without-the-idfa-a-comprehensive-overview/
on “Apple hits back at European activist complaints against tracking tool”Submitted Apple clarifies alternative payments on iOS and will still take a commission as a story · 7 points
HN discussion> The fact that ByteDance spent aggressively on user acquisition to grow TikTok has been common knowledge for years: at one point, the company spent an estimated $3MM per day on acquisition marketing in the United States alone, and the company is purported to have spent roughly $1BN on advertising over the course of 2018 https://mobiledevmemo.com/tiktoks-billion-dollar-secret-that... Stratospheric rise, yes. But I q…
Comment linking /tiktoks-billion-dollar-secret-that-wasnt/
on “TikTok’s stratospheric rise: An oral history”Submitted Apple to Ad Tech: “Fingerprinting Is Never Allowed” as a story · 6 points
HN discussionTo be fair, even Apple chooses to use different wording about it's own privacy labels. They opt for a friendlier "allow personalized ads" instead of the scary sounding "allow X to track your activity across other companies' apps and websites" like they force third-party app developers to use [1]. I'm not defending Google's business model and I don't disagree with Apple's move to improved privacy. I just hate how hyp…
Comment linking /allow-this-app-to-personalize-advertising-for-you/
on “Google's iOS apps release cycle before and after Apple privacy labels”Submitted Apple Robbed the Mob’s Bank as a story · 6 points
HN discussionI think video games are massively under-studied, particularly in the realm of behavioral Economics. One of my favorite seminal pieces is Zachary Booth Simpson's paper 1999 paper on the Economics of Ultima Online: https://mobiledevmemo.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/The-In-... In my own field, I keep finding more and more instances of MMO's and online virtual worlds that reproduce the real-world housing crisis. https…
Comment linking /wp-content/uploads/2021/09/The-In-game-Economics-of-Ultima-Online.pdf
on “Apology for Video Games Research”Submitted Everything Is an Ad Network as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Apple: Email lists cannot be used for ad targeting as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Avoiding Simpson's paradox in data analysis as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Europe's misguided hostility towards Pay or Okay as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted What if Meta launches a mobile app store? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Everything Is an Ad Network as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Apple robbed the mob’s bank, part 3 as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Apple to Ad Tech: “Fingerprinting Is Never Allowed” as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Is VR the bear case for Facebook? as a story · 3 points
HN discussion
