You’ve probably heard that Marco Arment has pulled his content-blocking app Peace from the App Store. The app was extremely successful:
"As I write this, Peace has been the number one paid app in the U.S. App Store for about 36 hours. It’s a massive achievement that should be the highlight of my professional career. If Overcast even broke the top 100, I’d be over the moon."
I’ve seen some comments asking why he didn’t think to do this sooner, before he even shipped the app. But we are just now starting to understand the impact of ad blockers in iOS 9. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the web is different than it was a few days ago, and so our choices — and Marco’s — are different too. As I mentioned yesterday, content blockers are one facet of an overall shake-up for the web.
Brent Simmons writes that only indies can do what Marco did. Marco must have left a lot of money on the table with this decision. It will always look like the right call to me when someone goes with their gut feeling and not with profit.
