I'm so confused here - I thought Apple added the ability to create content blockers to reduce revenue on the web so that more content providers resort to ADs and they get a bigger slice of the pie.
Why would Mozilla help them in their goal? Wouldn't it mean less reliance on the web and less Firefox in the long run?
Focus is a tracking blocker, not an ad blocker. Mozilla doesn't have a fundamental problem with display advertising on the web, but we do have a problem with the privacy intrusions associated with invisible trackers.
> Focus is a tracking blocker, not an ad blocker. Mozilla doesn't have a fundamental problem with display advertising on the web, but we do have a problem with the privacy intrusions associated with invisible trackers.
This comment is not directed at you, but is a more general take from your statement. With the state of the web we've had for quite sometime, I think the distinction between advertising on the web and privacy intrusion doesn't exist (barring very few exceptions). Most advertising platforms specialize in and indulge in privacy intrusions.
I know only of The Deck (deck network) that does not track users. And that's used only in a minuscule amount of sites that most non-tech people may not even encounter it.
Additionally, advertising has also become very heavy (in terms of bandwidth), distracting (how many ads can you even show until it becomes irritating and impossible to get to the actual content?) and annoying (just stop it with the popup layers, prompts and auto-playing videos with or without sound).
The entire user experience is completely ruined on many sites because of the insane amount of ads present. Nobody seems to care about this aspect at least until they get hit by ad-blockers. Not even large and popular tech sites do anything about user tracking (Ars, I'm looking at you and other popular sites).
Even if they do care, some or many are unable to change things. The whole system is complex and corrupt. Fighting back with ad-blockers despite "collateral damage" is probably the best way forward since the ad industry is not really stopping and changing things effectively or quickly.
Tracking goes way beyond advertising. An ad-blocker won't block Twitter's "Tweet" or Facebook's "Like" buttons or any third party service that isn't directly involved in serving ads. If your concern is your privacy, then an ad-blocker doesn't help as much as you think it does. See: https://donottrack-doc.com/en/
I know the differences, but I haven't seen any popular ad-blockers that don't also block or allow blocking trackers because they all have various blacklists you can use (I'm referring to the ones like uBlock Origin and Adblock Plus).
CLick on the uBlock Origin options tab and you will find a list of all the 3rd party filter lists in use ( & available by default). Most of these include a link to the source site.
I thought Apple added the ability to create content blockers to reduce revenue on the web so that more content providers resort to ADs and they get a bigger slice of the pie.
There's no non-tinfoil evidence of this. A much simpler explanation is that Apple did this because mobile browsing was becoming unusable. Nothing Apple does by tweaking their browser is going to get them a 'bigger slice of the pie' than the 40% of sweet profit on selling you a $600 phone. Unless the browser is so horrible you decide to buy a different phone.
Yes, it's hard to show off your superfast 64-bit chip performance and incredible LTE bandwidth when the browser is bogged down by loading several megabytes of JavaScript from 76 distinct origins. And the user experience isn't great when half the screen is ads.
User will avoid the web if it provide poor user experience. What user want major battery drains, unwanted traffic cost, and all the drawbacks of malware-behavior that spies, steals, and acts hostile?
The current system is unsustainable and advertisement through the web is slowly turning into the same fate as advertisement through email, and people and companies did not stop using email when spam started to get universally blocked.
Mozilla is no longer an ideological organization, if it ever was one. This gets them media attention and may attract more donations, which will perpetuate the organization's existence.
Why would Mozilla help them in their goal? Wouldn't it mean less reliance on the web and less Firefox in the long run?
What am I missing here?