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Ad-blocking app Peace has been pulled from the App Store |
The most popular paid app in the Apple App Store is no longer available for purchase. Marco Arment, the man behind ad-blocker Peace, has decided to stop offering the app for iOS 9. Those who already bought it will be able to continue using it, but Arment says that there will be no further updates. The app has been the number one paid app in the U.S. App Store for 36 hours.
The reason for pulling Peace is that Arment says that selling it didn’t feel good. While he still believes that ad blockers are a necessity, they hurt “many who don’t deserve the hit.” To be more precise, ad blockers prevent small publishers from getting paid. Without ads, there is no revenue. Without revenue, writers and support staff don’t eat. Eventually, content that you like to read will disappear.
But Apple News will be there to take up the slack from content providers who can’t survive without ads. And Apple News will show ads, some of which will be the same ones that are blocked by ad blockers on small news sites that are going under. The only difference is that in one case, it is Apple and its mobile platform profiting from running the ad, while the in the other case it is a small publisher who is having the bread taken out of his mouth by the ad blockers.
It could not have been an easy decision made by Arment, especially since another ad blocking app will replace Peace at the top of the charts. But he did something that many won’t do. He actually made an unselfish decision, putting others before himself. At $2.99 a pop, he could have made some decent money going forward with it. But not every one is going to do the same thing.
As for Apple, its decision to allow ad blocking in iOS 9 would have looked legitimate if it didn’t serve up Apple News at the same time. Because of the timing of its decision to allow ad blocking and the launch of Apple News, we can’t say for sure whether allowing ad blocking apps really was a decision by Apple to improve the UX on iOS 9, or just another plan set in motion that will end up bringing in more ad revenue for Apple down the road.