Digiday:

Monetization on Apple News remains a slog, according to seven publishers interviewed by Digiday. Ad revenue is bogged down by advertisers’ disinterest in the ad inventory that publishers are selling directly, and by remnant ad fill rates that many publishers describe as abysmal, even after a modest improvement to start the year, sources said.

But:

But publishers contacted for this story all reported seeing steady growth in audience over the past year. For three sources, Apple News now drives more referral traffic than Facebook does. Getting featured in the product’s human-curated Top News widget inside Apple News can drive enormous boosts in traffic, sources said. Getting articles into Apple News’s content recirculation widget, which recommends stories for users to read next, can make a story one of the highest-read stories a publisher can share in a month, one source said.

This is an interesting story, worth reading. The original headline focuses on the cons, that of low revenues. Fair to point that out, but it does hide the fact that Apple News is still in its relative infancy and it has the ability to generate tremendous traffic.

Most importantly, at least to me, is Apple’s stance on privacy. Tracking users raises the value of advertising. Easier to make a buck via highly targeted user-tracking sites, since the advertiser’s results can be highly customized. But Apple offers a path that is better for users. Can publishers resist the Google/Facebook siren call?