Your opinion on App Store ads for disability products and their implication

By Labsii, 11 July, 2023

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

I guess that you are all aware of the App Store ads, but I am not sure if you are aware of their implication on the market which may be totally unacceptable for disability products.

The mechanics of this product is very cruel for developers and users, but great for Apple. If you want to advertise in the US, you need to bid something like 2$ per click. However the click means that the user has just opened the App Store listing, so there may be one or more steps till he becomes the paid user. As such acquisition costs are at the very best above 10$/user, and for some expensive subscription based apps it should go to 50$/user.

Many developers jumped this ship and got most of their users from the ads as at the start they were inexpensive. But over the time prices went app and Apple squeezed out all developer's money and then they started to rise the prices to keep up (which you have probably noticed in last few years).

I would say that this is generally very bad but for the searches that target people with disability this is very immoral.

I would be interested to hear what other people here think about this. Also, I strongly suggest you to write the email to accessibility@apple.com so that they take this seriously under the consideration.

Maybe whole App Store ads isn't pocket money for Apple, but the money from keywords related with disabilities certainly is and Apple should show that it stands for those people as much as it does in its PR and its technology.

P.S. I am writing this as the developer who doesn't advertise and want to keep his product affordable and to help people. By showing those ads Apple takes at least 30% from the traffic as ads appear on top and many people click on them. And Apple shows ads even if people search exactly for the name of my app. Not to say that it further inflates statistics of the apps that advertise so that they are then better placed in regular results too. And that is all party paid by end users, in this case people with disabilities.

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Comments

By OldBear on Sunday, July 23, 2023 - 19:28

I've always gone to the app store with finding a specific app as my goal. By the time I get to the app store, I have researched the app here and elsewhere fore its accessibility, and finding the app is mostly a matter of foraging through all the inedible, advertisement weeds for the exact morsel.
I know there are claims that get touted that advertisements precondition people in an unconscious way, or in a way that is outside one's awareness, therefore control. That all presumes I don't precondition myself to regard advertisements as inedible weeds unless they are for the specific item I want. I do the same at the brick-and-mortar stores. I know the exact product I'm looking for and its price range, and none of the other products matter until I can't find the exact product I seek.