Apple is going to war with Facebook in this funny commercial about apps that want to track you

Titled "Privacy. That's iPhone," this Apple commercial shows a man going about his daily life using his phone. Each time he visits a new website or app a human appears to check what he is doing. These people represent cookies and trackers. Pretty soon, a large group of human trackers is following him.

But then his iPhone shows a pop-up asking him if he wants to be tracked. This is a new feature on iOS 14.5.

The pop-up says:

Allow "Pal About" to track your activity across other companies' apps and websites?

Your data will be tracked and sold to other companies.

[Ask App Not to Track]

[Allow]

He clicks "Ask App Not to Track" and one of the human trackers disappears. He clicks it again and again, and more people disappear, until he's the only one left in the room.

A cynical person might say Apple wants to kill free, ad-supported apps like Facebook because if these apps have to switch over to a subscription model Apple will get a 30% cut of subscriptions and in-app purchases. But that would ruin the purity of this video's message, so let's pretend Apple doesn't stand to profit here.