This pretty mild take in my opinion is the reason why I moved from a free Gmail address to a paid
@Fastmail plan. I don't know if they are selling me out like Google has been reported to do, but at least they have less of an economic incentive to do it. #
privacy
Hot take: if we want privacy we need to normalize paying for software.
autumn đź‘» spooky szn
•Esteban Manchado Velázquez
•I doubt that Fastmail is selling out their customers tbh. They seemed really good, competent people, and concerned about privacy. I'm currently using a private mail server, but if I were to pay a company to do it, it would most likely be Fastmail.
Hans Wolters
•Hypolite Petovan
•Hans Wolters
•Hypolite Petovan
•Hans Wolters
•Hypolite Petovan
•Hans Wolters
•They do pay for knowledge you have to help them setup systems, pay you to write additional functionality, etc... That is where the money is available (for me that was)
Hypolite Petovan likes this.
silverwizard
•Sundowner60
•silverwizard
•It's definiately a transitional take
Alexander
•However I see a couple problems here:
1. Proprietary products are expensive. Not too long ago when I used Windows I simply couldn't afford anything except smaller programs costing $5-10 apiece but then I couldn't justify these costs. When Android with Google Market came and made it easy to purchase phone apps and games which costed much less and made purchases itself easier I started purchasing what i liked and in a few years my total sum spent on Android was larger than what I spent on PC licenses. Even though it was absolutely easy to pirate apps - but there was just no point to do so.
2. Data-selling model seems to be profitable because the larger companies clearly prefer it to direct fees. This also causes products and services to be clearly overpriced - because the owners seem to justify prices not by what it costs them to operate plus some profit but by how much they can earn versus turning to data brokers and earning this way or by using predatory subscription models (hidd... show more
However I see a couple problems here:
1. Proprietary products are expensive. Not too long ago when I used Windows I simply couldn't afford anything except smaller programs costing $5-10 apiece but then I couldn't justify these costs. When Android with Google Market came and made it easy to purchase phone apps and games which costed much less and made purchases itself easier I started purchasing what i liked and in a few years my total sum spent on Android was larger than what I spent on PC licenses. Even though it was absolutely easy to pirate apps - but there was just no point to do so.
2. Data-selling model seems to be profitable because the larger companies clearly prefer it to direct fees. This also causes products and services to be clearly overpriced - because the owners seem to justify prices not by what it costs them to operate plus some profit but by how much they can earn versus turning to data brokers and earning this way or by using predatory subscription models (hidden fees, vendor lock-in and so).
I don't mind paying for services and I would like very much to see a lot of affordable and honest paid services people could choose from. Right now the market isn't looking very good though.