Apple reportedly wanted Meta to offer a subscription-based, ad-free version of Facebook on iOS.
The Wall Street Journal reports(Opens in a new window) that Apple “suggested a series of possible arrangements that would earn the iPhone maker a slice of Facebook’s revenue.” But that was before the relationship between Apple and Meta was strained by the sweeping privacy-related changes made by iOS 14.5.
Those changes—namely the introduction of App Tracking Transparency, which requires iOS developers to ask users if their data can be used for advertising purposes, in 2021—are widely believed to have contributed to Meta’s first-ever decline(Opens in a new window) in quarterly revenues earlier this year.
It’s hard not to see Apple’s proposition as the Silicon Valley equivalent of a protection racket. Meta could either introduce an ad-free version of Facebook in exchange for a monthly subscription fee, a portion of which Apple would take for itself, or it could watch its advertising revenues drop.
Neither Apple nor Meta immediately responded to requests for comment.
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The Journal reports that “an Apple spokeswoman said there is no connection between any discussions of partnerships and the ad-tracking changes that were later implemented,” however, and that the company has also held similar conversations with other developers.
These talks reportedly took place from 2016-2018, years before App Tracking Transparency debuted, and before Meta’s revenues dropped for the first time since it went public in 2012. Maybe splitting revenues from an ad-free Facebook subscription is starting to seem like a better deal.
