Apple and Streaming Music in 2021 (Notes)

Why is Apple implementing ATT? I believe Apple has four motivations in instituting this privacy policy:

• to benefit its own ad network, which doesn’t track users in the very specific way that Apple has defined for ATT compliance;
• to juxtapose iOS favorably with Android and drive device sales;
• to specifically hurt Facebook, which has tested the boundaries of Apple’s iOS ~ for years;
• and to regain editorial control of iOS from ad networks and influence how people use their iPhones.

This last motivation is the most poignant: Apple has lost ::distribution relevance:: on iOS, with ads becoming the primary point of first contact most users have with new apps on their phones. Ads drive discovery on iOS: ::The App Store is merely a mobile checkout lane::. Apple is using ATT as a means of crippling performance advertising—making it harder to target app ads to specific users’ interests—and driving content discovery back to the App Store.

• Apple announces its streaming music service, Apple Music - The Verge
• Apple Music: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly | The Motley Fool