Developer Marco Arment pulled his iOS 9 content blocker from the App Store two days after launching it. He says it “just doesn’t feel good” to be profiting from his app Peace while taking money away from advertisers and publishers. He’s even offering refunds to anyone who already bought Peace expecting updates and support down the line, which they now won’t be getting.
“Achieving this much success with Peace just doesn’t feel good, which I didn’t anticipate, but probably should have,” Arment writes on his blog. “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.”
Over the past 36 hours, Peace was the number one paid app in the U.S. App Store. Arment said this is the most success he’s ever had with an iOS app. It’s that success that seems to have flicked a switch in his brain and he now recognizes he doesn’t want to build something that supports and enables ad blocking.
Plenty of other ad blockers are hitting the App Store right now. A new feature in iOS 9 called content blocking lets anyone with an app in this category to block certain websites or parts of websites in Safari, including advertisements. Content blockers also seem to validate Apple’s war on advertising and puts Google directly in Apple’s crosshairs, since Google makes most of its money through online advertising.
Apple’s defense is that removing ads and other types of content in Safari can provide a vastly improved mobile browsing experience for users who wish to do so. On top of just getting rid of flashy and screen-hogging advertisements, Safari can run much faster too.
Oddly enough, Marco Arment still supports the concept of ad blockers themselves, he just doesn’t want to be the one building them. He even links to two other iOS 9 content blockers in his blog post. It’s respectable that he didn’t want to continue working on a project he felt was immoral, but one might argue that pulling an app sold for only two days to a very loyal fanbase isn’t that reputable either.
“I know pulling Peace from the store after just two days is going to be an immensely unpopular move, and subject me to a torrent of unpleasantness. But that’ll end soon enough, and that’s better than how I’d feel if I kept going,” Arment writes.
If you want a refund for the $2.99 app, you’ll have to request one through iTunes on your computer or iOS device.
George Tinari has covered Apple and technology for over six years. On the rare occasion that he’s not sitting in front of his laptop, you can find him eating, awkwardly socializing, listening to music or singing along loudly to said music. You can also follow George on Twitter if you need more complaints and sarcasm in your timeline.
19 responses to “Developer pulls ad-blocker after topping App Store”
I’ll trade it Marco Arment for a $100.00 US dollars
Do I hear a payoff from the advertisers? as I read the article on a Chrome (PC) browser, I was interupted 3 times by ad’s. Bring on the ad blockers. I know they will find other ways to get the revenue from me….
why are you not using the chrome extension adblockplus?
They aren’t losing money because few people even pay attention to these idiotic ads.
The websites still get money for displaying them – some ad revenue is click-based, but most is just view-based.
Oh geez this is dumb!! I like not having those stupid ads pop up and hide my articles or dancing on my screen. I installed it yesterday. Do we get to still keep using it or will it no longer work??? Anyone know how this works as I’m confused
This is a terrible misuse of the term, “immoral”. By this standard it’s also immoral not to sit with rapt attention during TV commercials or to fail to read each ad printed in a magazine.
If you feel bad making money for the app, then don’t. Release it for FREE for those of us who would like to have that capability! Don’t be an ass.
If you don’t want to see ads, pay for the content you consume. Good luck finding any!
Otherwise let the content provider make his money and keep producing the content for “free”.
If their ads annoy you, go elsewhere.
your logic seems to be: someone worked really hard to make those ads visible to us to make money. so then shouldnt it also apply that: someone worked really hard for us to get ad blockers to hide those ads so we should be allowed to use them?
More along the lines of painting over every store front on the high street because the displays inviting you to buy somehow offend you.
hehe to be honest I would totally support that :D
advertisements dont offend me so much as I feel they are ugly and annoying for no beneficial reason
No, it’s more along the lines of pulling the unsolicited handbills stuck to my windshield. When you use my computer as your canvas, I should have a choice as to if and when I want that to keep buzzing in my face.
I’ve installed 3 ad blockers just in case, I opted to not use peace, just as well I guess. He’s made his millions and now he’s too lazy to update it. Ads on websites should be banned anyway. I’d happily donate to CoM to keep it ad free. I don’t want my 4G getting raped with pictures in ads that I would never have looked at anyway. If I want or need something I search for it, never clicking on some random ad. It’s more immoral for the ad providers to suck you in to some stupid gambling site.
I totally agree with you, ChrisC. Marco is more than once a bit too melodramatic, IMHO. He has this love/hate thing with Apple. Maybe Google reached out, we can never know. Maybe what dawned on him is the never ceasing battle to keep this going, like the Antivirus it really is and he can’t see himself doing this for free ongoing. Maybe he really has some moral values and the value is: I support it, I won’t do it but I can show you those who can. That’s a strange type of morality.
My brain is effective at zoning ADs out. The ones that really get in the way are the one that compulsorily hold onto your clientarea for several seconds or play some audio. Anyone who believes that a web page should come up with all that song and dance should tell me why it should be forced on everyone.
When Internet was invented, there was talk to charge for content. It failed. Now the new model where I am the product is also unattainable. Apple is doing something about it. We should be allowed a choice.
he was either paid off, or somebody told him he was putting his own life in danger.
I know it’s his and he has every right to do what he wants to with it but don’t give me the “poor advertisers” garbage. Most of us who have ad-blockers wouldn’t have even bothered if it weren’t for the hi-jacking our devices and taking us straight to the app store, relentless tracking, taking over our entire screens before we can view a page, dragging down our bandwidth with large videos, blaring out loud audio that scares the pee out of us or wakes someone up and I could go on and on. Personally, I find this the absolute best feature of iOS9 because advertisers have become just that annoying. So cry me a river because they did it to themselves.
Publicity stunt. A person goes through all the effort to citrate this app, launches it, and THEN has a change of heart? Please.
Up to him if he wants to lose money. Ads are damn annoying and I don’t want to look at them, so I’ll be running one. I already do on my Mac.