| | | This seems like yet another incredibly shortsighted move by Apple, at least to me. Perhaps with everyone caught up in the euphoria of Apple hitting $1T market cap and reporting strong Q2 earnings, this fell by the wayside. I did not see it widely reported in the Mac media:
Apple shuts App Store affiliate program, imperiling recommendation sites
TouchArcade: "Apple extending a massive middle finger" to third-party linkers.
Gizmodo has it's own take: Apple Kills App Affiliate Program In Pointless Dick Move
Can anyone here explain how this is a smart move for Apple, especially the Apple longs? In what way is it to Apple's advantage to piss off website owners, developers, product reviewers, blog owners, etc. who rely on the income Apple's Affiliate Program provided? This will have the effect of killing off most of the 3rd-party app review sites for both Mac and iOS apps, and provide far less incentive for those that do survive to report on Mac and iOS apps at all.
It also further drives nails into the coffin of Macs and macOS.
I do understand that that fake review websites, clickfarms and other forms of affiliate program abuse are rampant, though that's been true since the earliest days of the internet for all companies that have them. Amazon seems to be doing just fine with theirs. |
|
