Uber Tests Push Notification Ads, a Feature Literally No One Wants (techcrunch.com) 60
Uber recently launched its new advertising division and in-app ads. Apparently, those ads aren't staying within the app. From a report: Instead, ads from other companies are being sent out as push notifications, much to the chagrin of some Uber users. Over the weekend, people turned to Twitter to complain about the notifications, sharing screenshots of ads, including one particularly popular one from Peloton that Uber had sent out. One of the primary complaints: notifications are being sent out when users aren't engaging with the app. When Uber first announced its in-app ad "experience," the company didn't mention the potentially intrusive implications.
Wow! (Score:5, Insightful)
Who'd have thought a shitty, exploitative tech company would do something shitty? I did not see that coming at all.
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Who'd have thought a shitty, exploitative tech company would do something shitty?
I did not see that coming at all.
"We hear you, valued user, and will push out an ad to clarify things." -- Uber Marketing Team
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They called themselves a ride-share that was totally not a taxi service, that was only about jumping in a car that was going your direction anyway.
Now look at them.
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Uber doesn't employ its drivers, remember? *wink* *wink*
Oh look! IOS has already uninstalled Uber for me! (Score:2)
Re:Oh look! IOS has already uninstalled Uber for m (Score:5, Informative)
I usually give the permission to send me push notifications to apps that I deem legit to do so. The first time I receive an ad (or any unwanted notification for that matter) from the app, I turn off all notifications.
I believe Uber has its notifications turned on right now. The day I receive an unwanted one (ie, not related to a ride), it'll get the same treatment. iOS is perfect for this. Just cut the channel, you will not receive another notification from the app, ever.
And if I have to force watch a video before ordering a ride, well, I'll just uninstall it. Their choice, really.
Re: Oh look! IOS has already uninstalled Uber for (Score:1)
Re:Oh look! IOS has already uninstalled Uber for m (Score:4, Interesting)
On Android (at least Android 12) there is a separate "All Promotions & Recommendations" notification category that I can turn off, while leaving "All Taking a ride notifications" turned on.
I already had that promotion shit turned off, so I had no idea they were doing this.
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Notification categories are voluntarily added by the developer.
They can also be voluntarily removed.
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Absolutely this. And it'll be worth it to go through the tedious act of enabling then disabling push notifications for when I actually am using Uber. Also, the day the make me watch an ad, is the day Uber is gone forever, agreed. Lyft + Doordash will def suffice.
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iOS is perfect for this.
Not just iOS, Android has this feature too. These days if you're getting annoyed by notifications it's starting to become apparent you have yourself to blame.
I haven't seen any Uber ads either, but then I do have the "Discounts and News" as well as the "Suggestions" and "Promotions and Recommendations" Notification categories disabled in Android.
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>And if I have to force watch a video before ordering a ride, well, I'll just uninstall it. Their choice, really.
How many choices of ride hailing companies do you have? Here it's Uber and Lyft and that's it. If both of them start to play ads before ordering a ride, what would you do, walk?
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I'll use the least annoying. If they both show ads, then I'll see if any alternative is viable, such as an electric bicycle, hailing a cab or other means of transportation. Or I'll watch an ad if there is no better choice.
Against Apple TOS (Score:4, Interesting)
A smaller company than Uber would be booted from the App Store for sending advertisements over push notifications - it's one of the things you are explicitly not supposed to do with push notifications.
User won't be booted but hopefully Apple sill shut this down quick on iOS at least. And I imagine on Android Google would not be at all pleased with advertising competition.
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Apple was perfectly happy to boot Fortnite from Epic when they were violating the TOS. I'm not sure what the relative user counts/revenue counts are but I wouldn't say it was impossible for Apple to actually do it.
Google seems far less concerned about push advertising though, I've had a number of apps do it though they're usually free "ad supported" ones that I can't be too surprised about. Usually just uninstall them or disable notifications.
Re:Against Apple TOS (Score:5, Informative)
Apple booted Fortnite from the store because Epic wanted to circumvent their payment system. This directly affects their bottom line.
Uber spamming push notifications with ads is against ToS, yes. But it doesnt really affect their profits as much so, hey, you get a pass.
Re:Against Apple TOS (Score:4, Insightful)
You have some seriously misplaced faith in Apple.
They are a multi-billion dollar corporation. They are not your friend. They don't care about whatever moral argument you want to make against Uber ads. They will do whatever makes them the most money. Full stop.
Apple has repeatedly shown that it does not care about whats best for their users. As any reasonable person could predict, they only care about what's best for Apple.
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You've got to be kidding. You're like a parody of an Apple fanboy.
Still, your alleged "faith in the greed of Apple" is seriously misplaced as Apple is perfectly fine with push notification ads [theverge.com].
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Did you not understand the article? Apple is perfectly fine with push notification ads.
Apple is not your friend. They're a multi-billion-dollar multi-national corporation. They don't care about you. They really don't care about your 'principles' or whatever. They only care about their bottom line.
Allowing push ads won't make you leave their platform. You'll just accept it as part of the 'experience'. Knowing you, you'll even make all sorts of excuses for it. I'm a little surprised that you're not def
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"so long as users agree to receive the ads first"
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That's a click-through, and users have already been trained to just give an app whatever permissions it wants. I wouldn't exactly call that an obstacle.
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Given the ad says "Uber" right next to it with an Uber logo I don't think Apple is remotely concerned about their brand being tarnished. You have to be quite silly to think anyone would attribute this to Apple, especially since Apple expressly give you the ability to control what apps are allowed to send notification.
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I don't have an iPhone, but on Android, the user can turn off all notifications from that particular app sending them from the context of the notification itself.
And if users turn off their Uber notifications, Uber won't be able to use notifications to notify their distracted customer that their transportation or that their food has just arrived.
How to alienate your customers (Score:4)
Why is advertising so ubiquitous? When does it reach the point of diminishing returns?
Ãoeber has an app for its customers to use. Can the ad revenue here really offset the anger it is going to generate? The customers it is going to lose?
Re:How to alienate your customers (Score:4, Interesting)
If tech industry history has taught me anything, it's that today's outrage is tomorrow's meh. Twitter will scream about it, their user count might dip a bit, but in the end if someone needs a ride they only have a couple options and will likely stick with the one they know and have used. They'll put up with it and eventually it'll just be another bit of noise in the pile of junk most people have in their notification bars.
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When does it reach the point of diminishing returns?
Have you ever seen a cyberpunk movie? Presumably diminishing returns come after 20 story high holograms.
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"Why is advertising so ubiquitous?"
a) We undervalue our free time.
b) We pretend external costs don't exist.
c) We have mediocre metrics for advertisement effectiveness.
Thus we overpay with our attention and think it's a good deal.
Loss of customers (Score:4, Informative)
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Here are my last two experiences with Uber:
1. Uber cancelled my carefully planned in advance ride to the airport at the time it was supposed to arrive (3am). Trying to book a new one had 30 minutes delays, and so did regular cab companies. Uber also wanted to charge me twice the originally agreed price.
I would have missed my flight, so I had to take my car and pay for parking (which was more expensive than two way cab). But at least I had a back-up solution. No compensation offered.
2. I am in a tourist spot
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Go to Settings, Apps, Uber, Notifications, and turn off "All promotions and recommendations." If I see any ads after that, we'll know they're misclassifying them (I'd hardly be surprised), and I'll step up to blocking all notifications from the app.
A little irritating to have to do this in the first place, but at least there's a way to block them.
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Which other companies beside Uber and Lyft in USA?
Well (Score:2)
Looks like Uber is giving Lyft a lift.
Maximally Greedy much? (Score:3)
I just don't get it - like can't they make money from their main product/service without selling their users eyeballs for ad impressions?
Mike Judge's Idiocracy was .. prophecy - except he was about 475 years off in terms of his idea of what television/entertainment would be like - I remember seeing that gigantic screen with ads and flashing crap absolutely everywhere and laughing right along.. but seriously, this is the future our corporate overlords want...
I run ad blocking and also script whitelisting by domain on my main browser and many sites outright just don't work without letting intrusive crap in (I give up and click away from more and more these days.
Still, I've been fairly successful ... enough so that when I do end up having to use safari on my iPhone or someone elses setup it's super jarring how many ads there are
Anyway /rant point being that I find it fundamentally shitty when a company you are PAYING for a service feels the need to maximize profit and sell my eyeballs.
Re:Maximally Greedy much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Uber has never, in all their existence, made a profit. So I guess this is their last attempt at making some money!
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Isn't this just the way of things with a lot of these startups over the last few years? Claim to have disruptive tech, get huge valuation and tons of investments, only to fail to figure out how to properly capitalize on it and end up resorting to ads to make money.
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Uber has tons of revenue and doesn't need ads. They have a solid business model.
They just waste billions of dollars building a relatively simple app. And it's not even a stable app.
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Uber only makes sense for consumers when it is sold below cost. They were never going to make money unless they price the service at a level competitive with what they disrupted, so now they're trying to do it serving ads.
Re:Maximally Greedy much? (Score:5, Informative)
I just don't get it - like can't they make money from their main product/service without selling their users eyeballs for ad impressions?
No they can't, or they can't without otherwise more or less taking advantage of someone else some how.
Cabs were always expensive - why because operating cap company LEGALLY is/was expensive.. There is a lot you have dispatch, you have maintenance, you have medallion and license costs, insurance, fuel, and if you wanted to offer really good service - short wait times, lots idle assets bother cars and personnel.
They do what they do by playing fast an lose with livery laws, employment laws, shifting insurance and maintenance costs onto their contractors - and ultimately their clients when something happens and it turns out the driver does not have the right kind of insurance. Now I might be inclined to argue they SHOULD have the freedom to do those things but really under a plain understanding of the law its hard to conclude they currently do, but I guess their lawyers continue to find this loop hole and that and keep ahead the regulators. - but they won't forever... Which is why the plan was always to do this long enough to get the marketshare and develop self driving tech, which has not worked out. That makes Uber a really shitty company, because it has business model that is fundamentally on borrowed time, was always intended to be temporary but now isnt and while maybe technically legal today, isn't going to stay that way because the intent of all the existing legal body was to NOT allow Uber like entities. Basically its a zombie...unless they can find away to generate revenue from other sources like ads... because the mindshare they have currently isnt going to lend them so much pricing power they stay in the black one the law catches up.
Literally no one? (Score:2)
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I'm certain the advertisers are uber excited about this feature.
TFA is talking about people. Bloodsucking night dwellers from the underworld are excluded. But even among them not everyone is exited. Lawyers and politicians probably don't like this either.
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Lawyers and politicians probably don't like this either.
Are you kidding? Lawyers and politicians are taking notes.
Tell your driver to stop at jays sex shop for 50% (Score:4, Funny)
Tell your driver to stop at jays sex shop for 50% off limited time!
The only push notification I want from Uber (Score:3)
A feature nobody wants is no feature (Score:2)
You could call it a nuisance, or spam, or whatever you want, but a feature is something that is actually beneficial to the user.
And that isn't.
Double Dipping (Score:1)
If not they can take their ads and fuck themselves. You don't get to make money off my viewing your app that charges me (pretty high rates) for your service elsewhere. Same reason I don't subscribe to any video services that show ads.
This reeks of desperation (Score:3)
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No successful company would suddenly spam their customers unless they needed cash fast.
Define success. I think fleecing investors for billions without ever making a cent of profit is a hugely successful business model.
Grasping at straws. (Score:1)
Install, use, uninstall (Score:1)
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Delete until next use (Score:2)
Are you sure? (Score:1)