I’m using an Android phone for a project. I re-downloaded some of my previously selected apps. The ones that were “free with ad support,” such as Angry Birds Star Wars, now stop the game entirely for 10 seconds out of every minute, forcing the user to watch a video ad. Has the entire ecosystem morphed from “display ads at the top or bottom” to “video ads that stop you from using the app”?
Has the huge inventory of Facebook ads made the ad-supported app world unsustainable? Is it time to have apps that are free to use for 30 days and then, if you like them, you pay?
This experience has reduced my opinion of the entire Android platform. Interrupting a user with badly targeted video ads that are entirely unrelated to the app seems cheesy and cheap compared to the iPhone world (already pretty bad with pop-ups and other distractions; maybe iOS games also have video ads but I haven’t used one lately?).
Is it fair to say that the ad-supported Android app ecosystem is done?
Related:
- June 2017 article on Apple’s policies, which state “Apps should not require users to rate the app, review the app, watch videos, download other apps, tap on advertisements, or take other similar actions in order to access functionality, content, use the app, or receive monetary or other compensation.”
In theory, Android could be the mobile OS for the control freaks. By inheriting the Linux style access rights (owner, group, other), the owner of the phone should be able to disable data for all apps but those that require data, like streaming apps and communications apps. Obviously this is against the interest of Google, although in Android version 6.0.1, the app permissions are granular, but there is no checkbox to turn off data.
The value of exclusive adds over the lifetime of a modern mid range phone can be estimated as more than $60 to $120, as this phone sells with a $60 discount if the lock screen has Amazon adds:
https://www.amazon.com/Moto-Plus-5th-Generation-Lockscreen/dp/B01N6NTIRH/ref=sr_1_4?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1501870149&sr=1-4&keywords=moto+G5
And on prime day, the discount was $120.
I am questioning the add supported internet as well as the add supported Android apps. The user (and university) financed internet (usenet and E-mail) together with individual home pages of people that want to enhance their status by offering interesting material and/or discussion satisfies most of what I want from the web. That internet was there before the entrance of ABC, CNN, Economist, Facebook ETC, and the latter are not really needed for satisfying that basic function. However, information does have value, and real journalists are not free.
What is really needed is a micro payment protocol to pay for two main flows:
1. Advertisement reaching end user, and there is no reason the end user should be cut out of the deal. Advertisers would have to pay the users.
2. Real journalism reaching readers, here the readers would have to pay the news organizations.
The presence of add supported publicly accessible news sites muddies the waters, and prevents a market price where the supply and demand curves meet from being established.
The few free apps I use (WiFi Analyzer, Geo Tracker, Network Cell Info) get by with an mildly annoying banner ad across the bottom. In a few other cases, I’ve shelled out the $3-5 for the “plus” version to avoid the ads.
In many cases $5 or less for a useful/entertaining app is a better deal than $5 spent at Starbucks.
You might call it ‘collapsing’ – but it’s a very, very slow collapse in my opinion.
Same thing has been happening on the web for a while. Many popular websites are almost unusable now on a modern mobile phone, yet they are still alive. They are going down, but slowly.
One could guess the collapse will be complete once there are ad-free viable alternatives for whatever users want to do on their phones. I think there are some viable alternatives for specific use cases (e.g. Netflix for long-form Video entertainment) but I’m not clear what alternatives will emerge for Gaming or News. The future will tell and it’d be interesting who comes out with a good idea of what that ad-free future will be!
micro-payment systems would be welcome alternative to ad-based revenue, but like electric cars, are a few more years to widespread adoption. Or more realistically, a few more decades. Nobody seems to have been able to figure out how to make them work, but eventually somebody will.
News streaming needs some catalyst or strongman to aggregate the audience and convince the individual media sites that there is a viable revenue stream.
News sites are so script-riddled and hinky they are almost insufferable. Bezos has made the WPo affordable for now but we need a multi-site “pass” with palatable rates.
the other Donald:
“almost insufferable”? I am at the point that i limit myself to a few sites like reuters and deutche welle.
Even news.google.com has been destroyed, you can only see 4 headlines at a time.
The Android experience is beyond annoying these days. In fact, it is so bad now, that I don’t bother installing any apps beyond the pre-installed apps and skype. What is particularly annoying lately is that I bought a new tablet for my mother in-law (android 6.0), and I cannot uninstall Microsoft Excel, Word, and Outlook which occupy 0.5GB of space (I like cleaning up my machines so they only have what is needed, plus there’s only 8gb storage on it 4.3 of which get taken by the OS). I am thinking of getting a used iPhone 5S/SE – I can’t wrap my mind around paying 600/700 dollars for a new iPhone. I read recently for the 10th anniversary Apple will release a $1400+ iPhone. That is just absurd/insane. Maybe it includes a special “Siri” AI with personal secretary/concierge capabilities, as well as lawyer capabilities to fight alimony cases filed against the owners (trying to stay on topic here! ).
@The_other_Donald:
You are right that voluntary aggregation of media sites could be a feasible strategy to gain leverage vs advertisers and online giants. But executing this idea has proven difficult; at the end of the day each individual player (e.g. a big, traditional newspaper) is still more vested on its own individual short-term (although likely unsustainable) results vs the group’s long-term success. Fragmentation continues to be the law of the land.
The Guardian, CNN and Reuters tried to do this in 2015 (https://www.theguardian.com/gnm-press-office/2015/mar/18/worlds-leading-digital-publishers-launch-new-programmatic-advertising-alliance-pangaea). I heard it hasn’t worked out as well as they had wished.
@Viking:
That has become my strategy as well. These days I mostly use a couple of news sources (bbc and deutsche welle). I’m looking to add a quality US-based site to the mix.