I don't use an ad blocker, not because I'm not aware of them, but in order to support the creators of content I view via ad revenue, and to avoid installing a potential MITM vector directly into my browser.
If there's a site with a really bad ad experience, such as audio playing video ads with audio, constant pop-overs, or using an ad vendor that allows ads to redirect or run super-heavy scripts, I simply stop visiting.
Short term, sure, blocking ads would be in my interest. Longer term, having content producers I'm interested in be able to get paid, and thus be able to continue to produce content is in my best interest.
Installing software that puts me one malicious update away from surveillance and/or credential theft, however unlikely, is not something I want to do. Perhaps there are protections against such things in the browser, and perhaps there are workarounds against those protections. Keeping up with the latest security status of browser plugins isn't something I want to invest any time in doing, and not something the majority of people would be able to do.
Your typical user understands perfectly well that iPhones don’t support 3rd party distributed software. This has been a well publicised fact ever since the iPhone was first released. When it was first launched one of the most well publicised talking points about it was that it didn’t support flash. Trying to claim that this isn’t well known is borderline gaslighting.
This claim you’re making here though is far more insidious. Who are you to decide what software choices are best for other people? I doubt most people care about ad blocking at all. But you think a persons right to make their own software choices should be restricted just because you think this is important? Why should anybody have any regard for what you think?
I don't claim that people don't know of alternatives existing. I don't think the reason adblockers aren't more widely used is people not knowing about their existence.
I also don't believe your implicit claim of people prefering watching ads over using an adblocker. I believe the vast majority of people would prefer a browser (or other software) that blocks ads over one that doesn't.
So if people know about adblockers and prefer not watching ads, why don't they use adblockers?
Because most people do not want to invest even a few minutes in finding the best option for them. They simply choose the default configuration of the software they have always used (e.g. Windows) or that they were introduced to by ads (e.g. Chrome).
I do believe that most people are capable of making the best decision; I don't think most people are willing to make the best decision.
People who aren't heavily into the topic will usually go with the default option. And that option is usually the worst.
(This isn't limited to software. There are many non-software products where I will chose the "default" option, too. Simply because I don't care about figuring out what the best option is for me. I will simply use the default: If it works, it's good enough. But I recognize that by doing so I, too, am promoting markets that are not trying to compete on product quality, but simply their marketing/advertising and the attention they get.)
> I do believe that most people are capable of making the best decision; I don't think most people are willing to make the best decision.
The error you’re still making, and the source of the massive level of arrogance in this statement, is presuming you know what’s best for people.
Firstly, there’s plenty of things in my life that I have no interest in learning how to optimise, and this is the best decision for me, because I get what I want, and I don’t waste my time on something I don’t care about.
But even if I did suddenly take an interest in optimising one of these things, I’m sure as hell not going to do it based on your preferences, or the preferences of anybody other than myself.
Going through life assuming you know what’s best for everybody is not only incredibly arrogant, but it’s also incredibly dangerous. Because it naturally leads to you wanting to start making decisions for everybody else as well, and the idea that they might want something different to what you want doesn’t even seem like it’s conceivable to you.
> the source of the massive level of arrogance in this statement, is presuming you know what’s best for people.
So it's ignorant for them to say it, but correct and well-reasoned when Apple says they know whats best for people?
This is exactly why they're going to get legislated. You and Apple can maintain whatever weird interpersonal relationship you percieve while letting others sideload too. It's already happening in some parts of the world. Your ivory tower hasn't crashed-down yet; it's all just been fearmongering and whataboutism from people with $AAPL shares weighing down the perceptive part of their consciousness.
I agree that going through life trying to make decisions for people is a bad idea; that's why I reject the Play Store on Android and use F-Droid for better software. You should be allowed to do that on your iPhone; Apple is making your choice for you in an attempt to force you through their payment services. If that's not illegal bundling, then nothing is.
Apple never claims to know what’s best for people. I’d presume they do their best to anticipate what people want, turn that into a product, and then people are free to either buy it or not. What you’re suggesting in this comment is that people shouldn’t be free to make that choice.
Your comment about payment services illustrates this perfectly. For starters, you're not forced to use it at all. Out of all the paid services I use on my phone, exactly none of them require me to pay via the App Store. I do however choose to use it for every single one of them, because the Apple App Store is by far the most consumer friendly subscription manager I’ve ever seen.
Can’t wait for the corporate lobbyists to take that choice away from me…
> What you’re suggesting in this comment is that people shouldn’t be free to make that choice.
I am suggesting that people in other countries are already making that choice, and it hasn't even remotely impacted your or their freedom. In fact, users that live in countries covered by the DMA have more freedom to use their iPhone than ever before.
> When it was first launched one of the most well publicised talking points about it was that it didn’t support flash.
> Trying to claim that this isn’t well known
Well known by who? I know about it, you know about it. Look where we are and what we read.
If I ask my friends if they knew about this, the first thing most would say is "What's Flash?"
Many of them would say the App Store shipped with the iPhone on Day 1.
We are in a bubble, and it's not gaslighting to point that out.
> But you think a persons right to make their own software choices should be restricted just because you think this is important? Why should anybody have any regard for what you think?
This is always the argument peddled out, like "now you'll be forced to use these things". You like the Apple way, then keep doing that. I like the Apple way and will keep doing it. It's weird for you to describe being given additional options is having something 'forced' upon you, or that your choices are being 'restricted' by having additional options now. Now that is getting to some 1984-ish language games.
I think the argument of "people usually make zero consideration about what software choice is best for them" very much holds.