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Comment by epicureanideal | Hacker News Reader

Let’s hope the result is that the 2030s are known as the decade when consumers, users of apps, figured out it was worth paying for software from honest developers or companies, rather than getting it for free temporarily and then getting their data used in unexpected ways, enshittification, etc.

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That is completely irrelevant.

A large fraction, if not most, of potential users of software in the world can simply not afford paying any non-trivial amounts of money (by US/European figuring) for software of any kind; they simply don't have such money to spare. Look at median incomes in different countries:

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-in...

Country-specific pricing is not a new thing, though. After all, if someone in a developing country paid for a smartphone they might be able to also pay for some apps.

Also, you don’t make any money advertising to poor people in poor countries. I imagine if they don’t have money in their wallets, their data isn't worth much either. (Well, except to OpenAI).

So all the existing advertising in developing countries is not profitable? I wonder why anyone is doing it, then. ;)

Sorry, I didn't make my point clearly.

My point is that "free software supported by data harvesting and advertising" isn't more profitable in poor countries than software you buy off the shelf. Advertising revenue scales down just as much as disposable income for apps.

Have you tried watching a cricket match in India? The ad frequency is incredible. It’s usually essentially a long series of ads with a bit of cricket mixed in.

If advertising were lucrative, it probably wouldn’t be that way.

What about when the consumers pay for software and still get their data harvested and the product enshittified?

Microsoft Windows has entered the chat. Apparently the next insiders version has even more ads in the start menu.

This stuff is so horrific.

Those are orthogonal; Debian is free, Windows is paid, guess which one spies on you and shows you ads?

Hi, I'm a time traveller from the 2030s and chuckled a little at the prediction that people would still by writing apps by then.

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