foobar2000 is a counter example, but yeah the mobile space has none of those
The point, in one sentence:
If you are the product, not the paying customer, then not only is there no incentive to cater to your needs, there exists incentive to make the product worse for you if it means the paying customer extracts more from you.
Users of freemium software are basically nothing more than willing cattle. Housed and fed for free only to be slaughtered.
Maybe people just can't help themselves? I fear we can't have a fair and free market if people are so easily manipulated.
This is also true for open source software though, a lot of open source devs are mini dictators ruling over their own fiefdoms with an iron fist and they don't care what the users, many of which have no coding ability, need or want.
Even those that do have some coding ability will be ignored if they try to change things upstream that the main devs don't agree with, even if most users would welcome such a change.
I fear we can’t have a fair and free market if people are so easily manipulated.
We can't, certainly at least in the US. People falsely believe the government will protect them from exploitation by corporations, but corporations have long since proven they can and will manipulate the government into serving them.
Sure but the same could be said and often is said for open source projects.
Open source devs often have a particular goal or vision in mind and will ignore any attempts to give the users what they actually want, either through issues or pull requests.
We've seen it so many times in open source projects, they love having that power over others and become mini dictators.
That might be the most jaded take on open source I have ever seen. Yes, sometimes open source devs ignore user feedback and it can be frustrating, but it is 100% volunteer work and they don't have any power over us because no one is forcing you to engage in digital communism by using open source projects. We have to remember that open source devs are building what they need and want and then sharing that with us for free.
I strongly believe that the truly power hungry individuals go into middle management at a for-profit where they have real power over others. There they hold your career in their hands and they know it. They can fire anyone they dislike and they often do. Destroying careers on a whim is infinitely more tyrannical than any open source dev could ever be.
Correct, it is jaded. We have watched a lot of devs become worse and worse over time, ignore perfectly reasonable and useful requests or instead of implementing an already existing solution to a problem find workaround to that problem instead which then goes on to not work forever.
So, if open source developers do not want to do the work, which is fair then either we have to create a new movement that is more community driven, or go back to corporations which the latter at least seems like not a great situation to be in.
That's a really weird way of framing a hobbyist who isn't being paid using their free time to code what they feel like coding. It seems to me that people who show up and make demands about what someone else does are literally attempting to dictate how that person spends their time. Someone coding what they want, rather than coding what other people want them to code, is just.. independent? Autonomous? Do you really think that someone spending their free time how they want to constitutes being a 'mini dictator'?
It sounds to me like some end users like to have power over others and feel entitled to dictate how those who make the things they use spend their time.
Personally, my suggestion to people with that attitude would be that they learn to make what they want themselves rather than demanding that others do it.
... Or pay them for it!
There's a prolific open-source dev that makes many plugins and themes for a widely-used OSS platform. He's quite open when asked for new features if it's something he's already planning on doing anyway (with no guaranteed timeline) or if it's not. But if it's a reasonable ask, he'll always mention that he can prioritise its development if they fund it. He even posts his current contractor rate; it's quite transparent.
I think more OSS devs should be more open like that. "Yes, I can do that feature request. Sounds like about 2-3 hours work. My hourly is $120 for contract work. Email me here if you're interested and I'll send a contract."
There are two problems there:
One is that not all open source developers accept payment, this is accurate, we have come across some that refuse to be paid for their work and not everone has the money to pay for it.
This forces, we believe, people back into the freemium etc model. So really there don't seem to be a lot of good solutions here, which seems to go against the original post.
Either folks somehow pool together to have enough resources to pay open source devs, we put up with whatever they decide to do, we create a new movement focused more around what the community wants or we go back to corporations, most will probably choose the latter as there's less tension there.
Something to think on.
Be the change you want to see in the world. Start developing what people want and be responsive to suggestions. A handful of motivated developers can get a lot done, especially in the context of whatever niche they're focused on.
Sadly, I am a writer, not a coder.
I have tried, but it never really stuck for me.
I can plan things out, know how they will work, but actually programming it is very unlikely.
okidoke, fair enough
With open source, you can fork the project.
It should be okay for an open source maintainer to say "no".
Yep. If it uses a cloud service, they're probably going to squeeze you, pull a bait-and-switch, or go out of business. The only exceptions that spring to mind are services with significant monetization in the corporate space, like Dropbox. And I'm not really confident that Dropbox's free tier will remain viable for long, either.
Even non-cloud-based apps are risky nowadays because apps don't remain compatible with mobile OSes for very long. They require more frequent updates than freeware/shareware generally did back in the 90s. I remember some freeware apps that I used for 10 years straight, across several major OS versions, starting in the 90s. That just doesn't happen anymore. I've been using Android for over 10 years and I don't think there's a single app I used back then that would still work.
Single-purchase apps are basically dead, at least on mobile platforms. Closed-source freeware is dead, too. If it's open-source, if push comes to shove someone can always pick up the torch and update it. It's very rare for an open-source project to be completely abandoned without there at least being a viable open-source alternative available.
At this point, I don't even look at Google Play. It's F-Droid or bust.
Well written! I've had a similar experience with a habit tracking app. I've once stopped using it and after getting back to it after a year or so, it was so much worse with so many new pay walled limitations. An open source habit tracker on the other hand stayed the same for years and was even improved further. If you're inrerested: Loop Habit Tracker https://f-droid.org/packages/org.isoron.uhabits/
Loop is great! I love F-Droid. Many times it's guaranteed you'll find a better alternative to a proprietary, ad-filled app on Play Store, on the F-Droid app
Excellent article. That's why I use OSS first and foremost as they don't have the incentive to bring in € instead they are more focused on a quality product.
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