The Near Memo

The Path of Enshittification: Apple Ads, Google's Toll Booth, and Meta's $18B Escape Hatch

August 28, 2026·37 min
Episode Description from the Publisher

Send us Fan Mail Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal go guest-free this week to connect three stories that are really one story. Apple has launched ads in Apple Maps — contextual, largely on-device, and with no way to turn them off — which quietly undercuts the "you're not the product" brand Apple spent years building. Google is expanding what it charges for: starting October 1, some missed Local Services Ads calls become billable leads, and LSAs have moved into Google's main ad organization as...

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