this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
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Privacy
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I don't see why making money needs to be at all a part of using a piece of software. The only transaction that potentially needs to take place is paying for the software up front.
Same with social media sites like whatever BlueSky or Posts is doing. Why is money involved?
Would you pay for a browser upfront?
Yes, if it avoided this headache of ads, spyware and any other intrusive monetization. I'd pay for any category of software I wanted to use for this reason. Which is how software used to be sold before people got used to not paying for anything upfront and instead paid for it in hidden data harvesting.
Would you pay for each update as well? It's not MS Word where you can still be using Word 97. You need constant updates.
Usually the up front cost of the software would fund some number of years of updates. Then after that you would pay for a new version.
Sounds like a subscription would make more sense. Which exists BTW, there are subscription browsers.
subscription means don't pay lose access. So no, not a subscription.
But as soon as you stop getting updates, a browser is as good as useless. It's a security nightmare and you shouldn't use a browser that isn't up to date.
Problem is, having loads of people using an outdated browser because they don't want to pay for updates could cause problems for everyone. Browsers need to be kept up to date.
Except the browser isn't the only thing that needs to have revenue, websites also do, so buying a browser upfront doesn't negate the need for ads
I'd pay for a browser upfront if free solutions didn't already exist.
That's the problem though, isn't it. Free solutions do exist, so browser makers have to find other ways to monetize
There are plenty of free, open sourced, browsers that don't monetize their users.
It doesn't...?
When you install Brave the crypto is opt-in, and to hide it permanently is literally 2 clicks.
The fact it's there in the first place should be enough to use something else.
I'm also tired of Firefox's bullshit pushing sponsored websites and Pocket and (before) injecting an extension to everyone to sponsor Mr. Robot.
But I don't see you complaining about that.
I'm not complaining about that because that's not what this post is about. I haven't heard about these controversies and I don't use stock Firefox anyway.
Yeah! Not sure why you get paid to work the only transaction that potentially needs to take place is paying for your work up front.
Why is money involved?
I don't know what you are trying to say here. I'll do my best to explain my point.
When I go to use a browser I have never had the expectation that I should be earning money for doing so. I do not believe this is a use case that most people have had. Similarly with some of these new Twitter clones like BlueSky you can send people money for some reason. Again, this is not a use case that I expect from a social media platform. The transfer of money to myself or to other users in these scenarios does not make a lot of sense.
Where is does make sense to have money involved is paying for software.