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Strategy: Where Either Success or Failure Can Begin

strategy-wheel

Strategy – noun – strat·e·gy\-jē\: a careful plan or method for achieving a particular goal, usually over a long period of time.

Does your company strategy meet the Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition? Would you consider your strategy carefully done, or put together on the fly? Is it in plan form, or is it more a set of loose guidelines? Do you consider your goals particular, or just a foggy idea? And perhaps most importantly, is your strategy built for the long term, sustainable in the face of adversity? Being caught without a strategy is at best embarrassing, and at worst, a disaster. But just having a strategy doesn’t make you bulletproof. By examining some of the most famous business failures of the past 30 years, your company can avoid similar mistakes, while sharpening your own strategy to meet the needs of both your customers and your bottom line.

After 40 years of existence, Sony finally announced the retirement of its Betamax Video Player for March 2016, 30 years after its failure in the video cassette war with JVC’s VHS Format in the 70s and 80s. While it was considered a superior technical format at the time, several strategic factors impacted Betamax’s ability to gain market traction (MediaCollege.com). JVC’s machines were cheaper, easier to make, and incorporated some of the elements from Sony’s Machine, as the VHS was released a year after the Betamax. However, the deciding factor was a simple difference: Betamax’s tapes could initially only tape 60 minutes, while VHS could record up to 3 hours, with most Hollywood movies clocking in at 2 hours. Sony attempted to adapt to the market demand for longer recording, but ultimately failed when VHS achieved dominance in the late 80s. Sony’s inability to meet the desires of its customers in the face of fierce competition led to its defeat in this field.

What happens when one of your products is so popular that it hurts your ability to innovate for the future? Commodore Computers realized that it may have created a monster with its C64, a system that held so tenaciously to its market share in the 80s PC field that it spawned the phrase “You can’t kill the C64” (BusinessPundit). During 1983-86 it was selling 2 million units a year and held almost half the PC market, and made it difficult for Apple’s newly debuting Macintosh—yes, that Apple—to achieve traction in the consumer market in 1984. Commodore’s luck ran out when it attempted to release its Plus/4 design, a system that despite being faster and in color was unforgivably incompatible with the beloved C64, and its customer base refused to make the switch. While the C64 stayed popular into the 90s, Commodore was unable to meet the demand without selling newer and commercially viable models, and filed for bankruptcy in 1994.

While both Sony and Commodore made the mistake of not paying enough attention to what their customers were doing, at least they had customers to lose. Pets.com has the dubious distinction of being the poster child for the Dot-com bubble of 1999-2001, and its woes could be best described by BusinessPundit’s comment that “in marketing nothing is worse than having everyone know who you are and no one interested in what you sell.” Pets.com rapidly expanded its warehouse infrastructure, flush with investor cash but lacking a base of customers. Rapid expansion makes sense for companies like Starbucks and Subway, entities that depend on constant interaction with consumers at their franchises in order to maintain market superiority. But warehouse capacity? Customers don’t care about warehouse capacity. Pets.com’s stock price went from $11 to 19 cents during the year 2000, losing over 98% of its value in that time frame.

While it can be entertaining to dance on the graves of these business failures, common themes emerge from comparing them together. Customers are the key to your bottom line – that should go without saying, but these companies show that anything from a simple oversight (Betamax’s tape length) to full-scale ignorance (Pets.com in general) can contribute to being blinded from that fact. Technological innovations are not always the answer – perhaps the right innovations can be, but all of these companies demonstrated that being caught up in the current trend or fad of what your competitors are doing could result in failure. Consumers may love your product like the Commodore 64, but if you don’t have a solid plan in place to develop from your success, then you are stuck in a stationary spiral while the competition blows past you.

How do you avoid these mistakes? Who do you have in your corner? Is your company built to compete in the current online landscape, or do the stories above hit a little too close to home? You need the answer to questions to be someone you can trust to stay by you through thick and thin, and understand exactly what both your company and your customers require. Sun Sign Designs is that answer.

Please reach out to us to find out more on how you can be eligible for a free strategy session and plan from Sun Sign Designs right now!

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Conquering YouTube Nation: Why Video Is the Keystone to Your Marketing Strategy

One billion viewers a month—YouTube is simply one of the most popular hubs online, fulfilling the internet’s promise of connecting users across the world while being easy enough for any member of your entire family to use. And its medium, video, couldn’t be any hotter right now in terms of effectiveness. From a wide angle view of the mass media market, it’s no secret that Hollywood, cable television, and the video game industry dominate revenues while printed books, newspapers and the music industry currently struggle. Video is what is known as an “integrated medium,” combining visual, audio, and even textual ideas together to form an experience for the viewer that can carry more information than just appealing to one of the senses alone. As your company looks to either begin or expand its marketing efforts, video should be front and center in your strategy.

The proof is in the numbers when speaking of video’s effectiveness. According to CommsAxis, search results from Google have a 41% higher click-through rates than plain text. Once visitors make it to your website, video is able to keep them there for longer as well, for up to 2 minutes more than if there was no video. As in most things, conciseness is key: 20% of viewers are likely to click away from the video 10 seconds into the video, while another 45% are done after viewing for a minute. In addition, viewers are more likely to share your video if it is 15 seconds or shorter, which is critical to the overall success of your video reaching its full potential.

YouTube may be the most popular online video site, but it is far from being the only one. Utilizing services such as Vimeo, Vine and Instagram will take your video marketing efforts to new pools of viewers. And that doesn’t even include tapping into the vast potential that Facebook, Twitter and other social media offer for helping your video go viral across a mass population of viewers with shared interests. A successful video has the ability to convey useful information to your future customers, positioning your company as the experts while increasing the name recognition of your services. So what are you waiting for? Reach out to Sun Sign Designs now to learn more about how video marketing can make a difference for your company!

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Coding Is Power: Teaching Computer Programming in Public Schools

Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come – Victor Hugo.

When Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel called on President Obama a few weeks back publicly asking for computer programming to become a requirement for graduation in public schools (Engadget), he was not the first politician to insist on the nation learning to code. In fact, Obama himself said in December 2013 that American students shouldn’t “just play on [their] phone – program it” (Whitehouse.gov). However, Mayor Emanuel is perhaps the highest level figure to call to make programming a requirement, not just a vague idea to be supported. We here at Sun Sign Designs don’t support a full mandate, but we definitely believe that every child should have the opportunity to learn coding as a “second language,” the same way we teach foreign languages in schools. If our nation’s educational resources can be pointed in the right direction in this particular area, we can take advantage of both current and future economic opportunities to guarantee for students not only just a prosperous future, but also a realistic and practical one as well.

While Emanuel’s rhetoric may have been purposefully aggressive in order to stir conversation, there is no doubt that genuine efforts are already being made across the country to implement coding education in schools. From New York to Tennessee, administrators understand that the time is now to begin implementing coding classes. Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams spoke frankly at a city announcement for the new educational program Code Brooklyn that the “future is written in zeroes and ones, and coding will help our young people write that future while adding several zeroes to the ends of their salaries” (King County Politics). However, already schools are finding logistical obstacles to such measures. One difficulty that Tennessee schools are finding is the need for qualified coding teachers, a difficult selling point for schools who can only pay teachers an average of $49,000/yr when the average computer programmer position in Tennessee pays in the $82-88,000/yr range (The Tennessean).

Since there are many things that could be improved in the public school system–teacher salaries, test performances, graduation rates—any national measure for a new coding curriculum has to also answer these struggles, not exacerbate them. A mandate or graduation requirement is not the solution, at least until coding has been well established in schools. Not every school across the country is currently equipped to handle the teaching of coding on a mass scale, and many high school students planning on graduating may not have the educational resources in their own lives to complete Emanuel’s requirement.

The support for coding education has to come from all levels, including federal, state, and county departments, along with the schools themselves. Measures should be passed to support teacher salaries (in a way that balances with other subjects being taught) and schools could begin teaching coding as early as middle or elementary school to make sure the fundamentals are there before it is required at higher levels. When the initiative for the teaching of coding is supported by all branches of government and school administrations, then the time will come where students will be empowered to capitalize on the future that has been promised to them.

Sky’s the Limit: Shifting to Cloud Based Accounting

Cloud-based accounting is creating a large-based shift in the way that work is being done for both independent accountants and those who work for small and midsize firms. Since cloud systems offer the option for using payroll and the integration of business functions into one system, accountants are able to broaden their own practice and their functions to their firm. As accounting affects multiple aspects of any business, such as IT infrastructure, operations, and international exchanges, cloud-based accounting likewise affects and improves a company’s dealings in each of these areas.

Any change towards traditional desktop software accounting to a cloud system will involve a change in the IT infrastructure in a firm. Cloud computing itself is a simple concept – instead of storing data on hardware, data is stored on secure internet-based systems. Accounting data that was once housed on large, in-house servers can now be based on internet systems, meaning the servers themselves can now be used for other functions or simply be made obsolete. This not only saves on costs from the hardware, but also the manpower that was once being spent on these systems can be used elsewhere.

Operations are affected due to the ability to condense once spread out functions into a clean and efficient area where all the payroll and accounting practices can be handled in one setting. The emphasis here is on having one system; the integration of company processes allows for a smoother flow of operations and tighter security measures, as it is easier to secure one centralized system. Previous problem areas, such as client bookkeeping, can be handled from the same centralized software, instead of dealing with multiple types of systems across clients.

Dealing with international financial exchanges can be a potential headache for firms not equipped for both the cost and the process involved with working with multiple currencies. Cloud based accounting software takes care of that, as the new systems are equipped to handle international exchanges. Also, since the data is stored on the internet, and not on a physical server based in one country, accounting professionals will have access to the business data wherever they are located, and an IT failure on one side of the company will not prevent a separately located branch of a firm from accessing the cloud.

Given all the benefits, it makes sense for a company to consider cloud based systems as the next step for enhancing its accounting practices. Any upfront costs would be compensated in the long term as the company saves on costs from IT, operations and ease of international use. Perhaps most importantly, cloud based accounting allows accountants to become even more vital for companies to do business, giving them the tools they need to prosper in the internet age.

Going Wherever the Customers Are: Microsoft’s Identity Issues

Fresh from its reorganization under the company Alphabet, Google turned its sights this week to the online app field by making its “Google Apps for Work” cost nothing for businesses already under enterprise contracts with competitors such as Microsoft (TechCrunch). Google directly called out Microsoft in its promotional marketing for the move, and the search giant is betting that by allowing users to work with Google’s own productivity suite, they will make the switch to become a paying customer after the contract is finished. Ironically, in the meantime, Microsoft has begun targeting Google’s Android platform as a new area to expand its applications, seemingly undercutting the company’s own efforts to establish its Windows OS Phone in the ferocious smartphone market (The Register). The Chief Experience Officer for Microsoft, Julie Larson Green, told a reporter from The Australian they would continue to expand on Android because the company will “go wherever our customers are.” But is it truly safe to say those are Microsoft’s customers? Amid the competition between the largest companies in the technology field, it seems as though Microsoft is grasping for its own identity.

Much like kids in middle school, all the cool big tech companies have their own smartphone. And while Apple continues to be the dominant player in that particular field, Microsoft has attempted to get its own market share with the Windows Phone. Strong selling points are essential to succeed in a competitive arena such as smartphones, and Microsoft’s hit Windows 10 operating system remains the highlight for its phone. This is what makes Microsoft’s expansion into the Android OS confusing: why push to develop apps for someone else’s operating system when you have your own? Especially for Google, a competitor who has no problem taking Microsoft’s customers out from under them. By showing a lack of confidence in its own product, Microsoft showed weakness exactly when it has to appear strong, and application developers are taking notes. There are new reports this week of apps disappearing and losing support from the Windows Store, increasing the already wide gap between the Windows phone and its far-ahead competitors in applications (The Verge).

This is why Microsoft’s big move this week seemed especially ripe for analysis. Today Microsoft is launching its first-ever flagship store on 5th Avenue in Manhattan, touting its new Surface and Xbox products (Engadget). One of the obvious advantages of running a huge company is that it is easy to highlight your successes while downplaying your losses given the sheer number of products you have. A more penetrating examination would be that Microsoft longs for the past, when technology products were more physical and it seemed like everyone agreed that Windows was the only big kid on the block. But unlike Google, who in response to innovative competition made the bold decision of creating its own parent company to house its experiments—a move right out of the science fiction and horror genres—Microsoft seems content to stick to its old strategy of copying Apple, this time with a Manhattan flagship store just like Apple. And while that strategy has certainly carried them this far, a more successful strategy would perhaps be to simply be confident in their own products, such as their operating system and Windows Phone. This would be especially important to do before all these issues come together to potentially form a full-blown identity crisis.

Paperbacks Writing Fire Tweets: A Case Study in Social Media Marketing

Twitter is probably the last place to expect two book publishers to get into an argument. And you would be forgiven for wondering if there even were prominent book publishers anymore with the advent of the Amazon Kindle and its online store threatening to remove publishers from the author-to-reader equation. So, how does the rest of the book publishing industry survive Amazon’s onslaught? If you are Brooklyn-based independent publisher Melville House, you subtly allude to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in a tweet with the slogan “Make Publishing Great Again” this past Friday and hope for someone to get the joke. Thankfully someone did, none other than Penguin Random House, the world’s largest trade publisher owning 25% of the market with $4 billion in revenues. The Twitter exchange between the two publishers was delightfully dorky, and indicated how a struggling industry can still stand strong within the constantly changing dynamics of its field.

What separated the exchange from the usual chaotic conversation of Twitter were the parties involved. The idea of two NYC-based book publishers responsible for billions of dollars of revenue acting like high school students from Mean Girls was beyond surreal, and since the authors of the posts were using their company handles it was impossible to separate the person from the company. So this resulted in Melville House tweeting lines such as “omg are you out of books… do you need some books” to Penguin Random House, who responded with “NO god, go away,” all for the world to see. The winning line went to Melville House who, after Penguin Random House joked that they always throw all of Melville House’s books into the trash compactor, fired back with the line “We hate books – Penguin Random House,” a wonderfully bizarre statement that referred to recent national politics where baseless lies are the norm.

While the interaction was of course harmless fun, it was a marketing win for both publishers, with book lovers everywhere retweeting the conversation, carrying the story to more conventional media outlets for increased coverage. It also underscored the value of the book industry beyond just putting pieces of paper together, as it is truly a necessary arbiter for what is factual and fit to be published for public consumption. And while Amazon remains a constant threat—its product names Kindle and Fire seeming predatory from a book publisher’s perspective—it is comforting to know that there remains enough confidence and swagger from the publishers that they are playfully duking it out online to everyone’s benefit.

Emojis, Edits and Giving the Thumbs Down: Navigating Today’s Social Media Platforms

Who knew how much we wanted to give everyone a thumbs down? Adam Mosseri, the head of Facebook’s news feed, told Bloomberg Business that the reason Facebook decided not to go with the much-requested dislike button was that it wouldn’t be “in the spirit of the product we’re trying to build.” The company instead has decided to go with 6 new emojis that were rolled out this past week in Spain and Ireland, with plans to eventually roll out the changes to all Facebook users. In a bit of irony, the current top comment from Facebook’s announcement of the new emojis, with 33,682 Likes, is a user saying “We want the dislike button, not this…” The emojis themselves span the range of laughter, surprise, sadness and anger, reading like the main character list from Pixar’s emotion-populated hit movie Inside Out, with one notable exception: disgust. (Anger lacks the quick flippant dismissal that is practically a pillar of online communication.)  All this asks the question, does Facebook have something against the perfectly human emotion of disliking something? The answer requires looking a bit deeper within our online interactions to see why the internet powerhouse may be hesitant to install a permanent signal of negativity, and what that means as we continue to express ourselves online.

Facebook is so dominant on the internet landscape that expectations from its over 1.49 billion users can’t possibly meet the reality of what the company actually provides, which is simply the ability for users to connect with each other over its network. Unfortunately, sometimes this ability reveals things about other users that we’d prefer we didn’t know or rather not see. And while the obvious solution to this problem, “have you thought of not going on Facebook?” may not work for everyone, the dislike button option would likely lead to worse problems than it would purport to solve. Many companies have Facebook sites, and it would be easy to imagine a scenario for firms to deal with a rash of online dislike attacks to their profiles. These attacks could be sincere customer service issues, but are likely to also consist of competitive sniping from rivals. A more serious problem would be online bullying to individuals, a nasty issue with a resolution that will likely remain beyond the current powers of Facebook. In this light, Mosseri’s statement above makes perfect sense – one can imagine the proliferation of problems caused by rampant disliking within Facebook’s huge and diverse community.

Along with Facebook’s wrangling with the user feedback issue, another popular social platform is also dealing with the dilemma of adding features to its services. Twitter has long held off on a seemingly innocuous feature that has been constantly requested by its users: the ability to edit previous tweets. While it does offer the option to delete tweets, editing would seem like a no-brainer for the microblogging company given the number of times it has been requested.  However, Twitter is unable to easily add editing due to its sensitivity around two of its core sharing abilities, the Re-Tweet and Favorite options. The counter argument against editing goes like this: you find a great random tweet that you enjoy, and you quickly Re-Tweet and Favorite for all your followers to see. The person who first posted that tweet, with the editing option, would be able to modify their tweet to something that you would not be too proud to have shared—the sky is the limit here, with options such as profanities and quotes from notable 20th century dictators being the main culprits—requiring you to be notified of how the offending quote has marred your twitter feed. Much like disliking on Facebook, editing on Twitter would potentially create more problems than it would solve, at least initially.

Therein lies the bigger issue—just how much do these companies owe us to use their free software and then complain about missing features?  Of course they want the feedback, but they are not obligated in any way to respond to each and every request, even if it’s a massively popular one, if it’s destructive to the overall vision of what the company is trying to achieve. And as our social networking capabilities become more sophisticated and advanced, we owe it to ourselves and our personal network to use these social media services more responsibly before asking for bigger and brighter things from them. Even if it is just to give a thumbs down to your best friend’s selfie.

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See No Evil: Google’s Transformation into Alphabet

Starting today, Google will fully report to its parent company Alphabet, a move that while being administrative in nature could be a sign of changes on the horizon for the search engine behemoth and the internet as a whole. Google itself still exists as an individual company; Alphabet will essentially be the parent company overseeing both Google and the more experimental projects formerly housed by the search engine. While the companies have been gearing up for the organizational changes, a report by The Verge reveals an interesting finding: Google’s famous “Don’t Be Evil” saying is conspicuously absent from Alphabet’s employee code of conduct. Changes such as the name and conduct policy in a normal company wouldn’t set off reports, but Google is no ordinary company. And as Google/Alphabet seeks to further expand its horizons and beat back the advances of Apple, Microsoft and Facebook into its market share, it’s changes like these that the world watches in order to divine the future of our online lives.

Given Google’s absolute dominance of the search engine field, the name change is likely to catch some people off guard. After all, Google is a verb, and its brand has achieved a level among Coca-Cola, Kleenex and Nike that is a marketer’s dream come true. The problem for the company came with its attempts to expand its portfolio of services beyond being just a search engine. Google has a well-earned reputation for being forward thinking, and with its financial success has the power to develop technologies that may not make total sense to investors back on Wall Street who are looking for additional profits. By reorganizing under the Alphabet banner, shareholders are able to keep their investments in Google while Alphabet is able to move forward with its experimental initiatives.

Google has always had a complicated relationship with power. The company has full access to over a billion search histories and the capability to link the far-reaching elements of the internet together, and along with its world-beating brand name and technology help it remain one of the overwhelming forces of the internet. Google’s motto, “Don’t Be Evil,” while being on one level tongue-in-cheek, also felt completely appropriate given its wealth of accumulated power. So for Alphabet to change the policy to a more neutered wording—employees are encouraged to “do the right thing,” but the right thing for who, the company or the consumer?—the company has to give up the moral authority that helped make Google feel like an ally to its employees, shareholders and users.

Another powerful pop cultural force has also coincidentally changed its name around the same time as Google. Comedy Central’s The Daily Show is now featuring South African comedian Trevor Noah as Jon Stewart’s replacement at the head anchor’s chair. On his opening monologue this past Monday, Noah addressed the change in true sarcastic Daily Show fashion, saying that “[Stewart] was often our voice, our refuge. In many ways, our dad. And now it’s weird because Dad has left.” In many ways, Google also has a father-like presence over its domain of the internet. And while the company remains, it is likely to feel different somehow as its umbrella company ultimately answers for it. Whether these changes are truly just administrative, or a sign of things to come, is still unknown. For now Google is still the go-to search engine worldwide, and that is something that is unlikely to be changed.

Grand Theft Data: How to Handle Phishing Scams and Personal Data Protection

The seemingly limitless freedom that the internet provides for its users comes with an ever-present warning: be careful with where you leave your data. As the security breaches at Ashley Madison, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and even the federal government has shown, no aspect of our online lives is sacred if it happens to fall into the crosshairs of a talented hacker. And while some of these incidents may seem far removed for the standard citizen (thankfully not everyone is on Ashley Madison looking to start a destructive marital affair), the fear that our own data could be similarly targeted and assaulted can be a valid concern. Awareness is the primary weapon to use in this kind of environment, and establishing personal best practices for online hazards will keep your data safe among the rising tide of hacking and scamming.

Phishing scams are particularly devious villains in the online realm, and having a solid knowledge of the frequently visited websites you go to will allow you to sidestep any troubles they may cause. Phishing is where a malicious agent will put up a front of a trusted entity (i.e. Facebook or Amazon.com) in order to collect personal information for its own purposes, often causing financial damages to the consumer or even identity theft. Phishing scams that masquerade as financial institutions are particularly dangerous, as a customer may be prompted to enter a banking routing or account number into the malware, giving extensive financial access to the customer’s bank account before it is caught. Thankfully, most banks offer fraud protection in case of these kind of emergencies, but it remains a headache for the victim of these scams. The best course of action is to take care that the website where you are entering your data is from a trustworthy source—an extra second or two of caution can save you weeks or months’ worth of pain in this area. Look for oddly placed logos and graphics and non-standard web addresses on the webpage, and make sure to take extra caution when accessing a company website through email, as this is often the origin of most of these type of scams.

For general data security purposes, standard best practices are a must in order to stay ahead of any trends in the viral and hacking fields. In their recent article reporting on the recent hacking incidents, TechCrunch provides a great list of habits to use in order to take precautions:

-Regularly change your account passwords, use strong passwords. and avoid using obvious, guessable passwords

-Keep your operating system and software constantly patched and updated.

-Invest in a reliable anti-malware program, both on your PC and your mobile devices.

-Avoid downloading programs from unreliable sources, or clicking on links in emails coming from unknown senders.

-Consider using an encryption solution that will ensure your data remains safe even if the provider is compromised.

Personal responsibility for your own data is ultimately the best course of action when dealing with security threats. There is no need to fear the web and all it has to offer despite the risk of viruses or scams, and one must only be vigilant to avoid the headaches that a personal security breach can cause.

If you own your own business, online threats can be an additional hassle as important and sensitive data can be at risk from malware attacks. If you’d like to know more on how Sun Sign Designs can assist you in protecting your business from online threats, please contact us today!

The Killer App Called Peace: How Ad Blockers Are Set to Change the iOS Field

In a post this past Friday titled “Just doesn’t feel good,” software programmer Marco Arment announced on his personal website that he was pulling his top-selling application Peace from Apple’s iOS App Store, just three days after his product’s launch. He offers a link in the post for refunds for customers who paid the $2.99 for the app as the software is no longer supported by updates, though according to Arment the program should still be usable for the next few weeks before the software becomes incompatible. Peace shot to the top of the App Store charts a day after its release due to its offered service of blocking ads listed in a database maintained by another company called Ghostery, but it set off a controversy as the ad blocker was set to damage the advertising capabilities for both large media firms and small companies that depend on ads for revenue. While Peace is officially off the market, other ad blockers, including Ghostery itself, are poised to take advantage of the new Apple iOS software update that allows apps to provide ad blocking software for the first time. The impact of this new development is set to change the way both consumers and software development companies view advertisements in iOS applications.

The concept of ad blocking is not new to the Internet. Ever since advertisers saw the empty space on web pages as prime real estate for generating views for their products, more than a few developers saw the counter-opportunity of capitalizing on the perennial consumer desire of an advertisement-free existence. Online advertisements are often held in the same contempt as their television counterparts by consumers, who are required to view a sponsor’s product so the website or application can continue running free of charge. Internet ads have the additional drawback to the online experience as they add to page load times and can decrease overall system performance. Most no-cost applications in the App Store require ads to support their own existence (unless they offer the option of purchasing additional premium content in the app itself). Ad blockers disrupt this model of doing business, as they are not beholden to any contractual agreement between the app developers and the companies that financially support them. Their existence could potentially discourage any developers making content who were depending on the ad model for their product’s success.

Whoever succeeds in filling the vacuum left by Arment’s app could stand to make a fortune by taking advantage of this consumer desire to remove ads from their daily smartphone use. However, a likely response to this from the market will be increased prices for both paid apps and premium content, and an overall reduction of no-cost apps in the App Store as developers look elsewhere to financially succeed in the online playing field. This would be a losing scenario for both developers and consumers, and points to the moral gray area that ad blocking occupies. Arment spoke to these negative feelings in his post on Friday: “Even though I’m “winning”, I’ve enjoyed none of it. That’s why I’m withdrawing from the market.” It remains to be seen how the successor to Peace’s position at the top will act with this kind of responsibility.