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iOS 14 and macOS Big Sur Redirect Users to Apple News, and Publishers Aren’t Happy

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Samuel L. Jackson and a dog on the iPad, from an issue of Esquire

Screenshot from Apple News+ on an iPad Pro

 

You’ll find posts on from this blog on Apple News. That’s going to end if Apple expands on their new tactics to redirect traffic from websites to Apple News. Currently, if you open a browser and go to a website, you expect to land on, well, that website. However, in the latest betas of iOS 14, iPadOS 14, and macOS Big Sur, if that website happens to be a news website, one that’s on Apple News, and you’re an Apple News+ subscriber, then you’ll find yourself loading up the Apple News app instead. This could steal traffic from websites that need it to drive revenue. Right now, Apple News prevents publishers from receiving any ad revenue. For many sites (including this one), that’s the only source of revenue we’ve got.

Apple’s trying to take away our lone source of revenue: web hits from users who have either been generous enough to whitelisted our sites in their ad blockers or don’t have ad blockers installed. Naturally, publishers, including myself, aren’t happy. This could lead to a mass-exodus from Apple News, killing the app.

The Apple News Interception

As you can see in the embedded tweet above, clicking on a link in Safari automatically loads the story in Apple News. The user’s going to be frustrated because this opens an app they likely didn’t have open. It takes more time to open that app and load the story than load the webpage. For most users, this will be a slow experience. Turning it off isn’t difficult, but an annoying extra step. As it turns out though, not everyone’s upset over it.

Some Want The Interception!

This is a good point. If you already have access to the news behind a paywall through an Apple News+ subscription, but don’t have an account on the specific page you’re trying to open, the only way to get to the story currently would be to close your browser and search for it in Apple News+. There’s no “View this story on Apple News+” button.

That’s the compromise we should have though. Since Apple can already identify when a story is on Apple News, they could do what they currently do for apps that correlate to webpages: present a banner with a button on the page. This wouldn’t have to be an always-visible button, just something that shows up on pages that also exist on Apple News, allowing the user to either dismiss it or head to Apple News from Safari. By doing that, the website publisher still gets their view for free content, and those who have an Apple News subscription can still get their story if it’s blocked by a paywall. Apple could even ease the problem by having Apple News load and cache the story in the background, so loading the story up is nearly instantaneous.

Why Use Apple News?

Apple News screenshot showing a Leaf & Core articleYou’re probably wondering why I automatically upload my articles on Apple News. After all, since they already scrape content, stripping me of any revenue from people reading my news and reviews, keeping my content off of Apple News would be beneficial, right? Perhaps if we think short-term, on a click-by-click basis. However, as time goes on, publishers can use a service like Apple News to get brand recognition. Then, people may start using an RSS feeder to collect news, rather than curated news apps like Apple News, or just visit the site directly. When they do that, I make ad revenue.

Showing the option to toggle off Apple News links in iOS 14. It's on by default

Fortunately, this seems to only affect Apple News+ stories, for now.

 

However, if visiting my website on an iOS or macOS device automatically sends users to Apple News, it makes using Apple News to drive web traffic pointless. There will be no more web traffic, it’ll all be Apple News traffic. I’m already working for pennies, receiving, on average, under a dollar in ad revenue for every article I write. With Apple News taking that away, I won’t be able to break even on server costs anymore, and will have to shut down. While this is currently confined to Apple News+ subscriptions, its easy to see it spreading to any site Apple can identify as an Apple News publisher.

Rather than do that, I’ll just pull Leaf and Core from Apple News, ending my presence on the platform. I won’t be alone. The only reason the news industry has collectively tolerated news aggregator apps that use our content without paying us is because it has the potential to drive web traffic and revenue. Without that traffic, no website will operate on Apple News anymore.

AMP Similarities

I’m reminded of AMP, Google’s “Accelerated Mobile Pages.” These are versions of websites that Google caches. They remove or resize large photos, remove ads, and remove formatting and scripts. Instead, you just get a news story with minimal distraction. This may look bad on a desktop browser, but that’s not where Google uses it, it’s only for mobile pages. It’s a remnant from a time when websites didn’t have mobile versions, and when we had strict (and small) data limits over our cellular connections. It’s a relic of a bygone past, but still permeates Google’s search results. (This is when I plug Ecosia for your search engine needs instead, which plants trees as you search! As of today, I’ve planted at least 87 trees with my searches!)

AMP is a problem because it strips ads. However, website owners have to opt-in to Google’s AMP project. So we were safe, right? Wrong. Google took the choice away by showing sites lower in search results if they didn’t use AMP pages, even on desktop searches. If you refused to let AMP strip the ads from your page, if you refused to allow Google to steal your content and re-share it in a way that gives you no revenue, they’d put you on the second page of search results, or worse, the third. No one looks there. You had to either give up some of your revenue, or all of it.

Fortunately, AMP pages are less common now. Also, they’re only used on mobile sites, so desktop users will still see your website, story, content, and, yes, ads. Still, they’re a problem for publishers who need to make money and don’t want to give their content away for free to Google to repackage and sell for themselves.

Google and Apple have been stealing content from publishers for years. Apple’s latest move is the worse offense though, potentially stealing all traffic to a publisher’s page, mobile and desktop views. If Apple has their way, publishers, especially small and free publishers (like this blog) will die.

Moving Forward?

Apple News+ story on an iPhone, iPad, and MacBookThis software is still in beta. It’s possible that Apple is merely forcing Apple News on beta testers so they can test an optional forwarding and detection feature, like a button on the page. It seems it’s currently limited to Apple News+ subscribers, and these users can turn the feature off, but it’s on by default. It could eventually drive traffic away from sites that aren’t part of Apple News+ as well. At the very least, it may show preference to Apple News+ sources, forcing publishers into deals with Apple, who still collects 50% of the revenue from content publishers put on their platform. Most have found this cut to be too high, and have lost money on the deal. Others have profited.

The fact of the matter is, this upsets too many publishers. Apple’s Apple News userbase isn’t large enough like Google’s search userbase to muscle us around. Apple needs publishers far more than publishers need Apple. If Apple News+ subscribers will leave publishers behind, publishers will leave Apple News behind. Apple News can’t survive without us, hell, it can barely survive with us.

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