We created a quick tutorial on aging applications yesterday and moments after the video was loaded to YouTube a backlash began against one of the aging applications. Even in the video it was noted that as soon as the company asked for your log in information from a platform as an “easy to remember” log in you are paying for this application.
In short there are no free apps for your mobile devices.
Honestly if you download an application that claims to be free the moment you open that application you are paying for it. Whether you see it first hand or it is buried in pages of terms of service the moment the application is active it will draw your personal information into their database.
What you have to be worried about as an end user is how they use this information. Think of the refinements at Google and Facebook since they started as “free” services. There are aspects of both platforms that are obvious pay aspects but even when using the free aspect you become the product they are marketing to their clients.
Your company would like to reach a 24 year old female who likes knitting and listens to punk music while eating vegan tofu, Google or Facebook have those people in their database. Your product would like to reach a 29 year old male who listens to opera has an antique tea cup collection and studies the intricacies of Japanese professional wrestling well these free apps have databases of people like this.
So this outrage about FaceApp using a databases of faces and sharing this information should have happened as soon as the first app Store opened for both Apple and Android. As a society we are too far down the free application wormhole with applications you use on your mobile devices. Why shouldn’t the developer look to first recoup their investment in development and then generate profit? Some of these developers are beholden to shareholders or investors. In short their “bosses” are not going to allow them to give it away for free.
With every application the old adage nobody rides for free is applicable. Just remember that with the next application you download.
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