Apple is building a demand-side platform
I'm a little confused by this author feeling like they are pulling back the curtain on Apple & Ads. Apple hasn't been anti-ad (though their products have way fewer ads than the competition. I installed Windows on a new machine yesterday and oh boy I was not prepared) but rather they are pro-privacy. Their recent crackdown on ad networks wasn't "we hate ads so we are going it make harder" but instead it was "you all are leaking customer data like a sieve and that's not ok".The problem with most all the ad networks out there is they are not good stewards of their data and will sell it (directly or indirectly) to anyone with the money to buy it. Personally I hate ads but I understand their place in the world and if I have to see ads I trust Apple way more than Google or whatever fly-by-night ad tracking company is out there. The problem has always been that the advertisers had way more access to the info about the customer (and sometimes the customer's PII/unique id) than I was comfortable with and they would share that indiscriminately. If Apple is the one holding that info and if they design their system in a way that protects it then I don't personally see this as a problem.