About the project

Fission is a tech company that is building developer tools for applications. Their founding team believes in paying for your products and the tools you use on the internet for a variety of reasons.

After meeting online with Boris and his team during an interview process, we decided to work together on a contract basis providing blogs for his website. This is one of the pieces I created that outlines why individuals should pay for their applications, versus using free apps that are paid for by advertising.

Article is property of Fission. Written Fall 2021.

SKILLS NEEDED

Research
Copywriting
Tech Knowledge

CATEGORIES

Copywriting

COPYRIGHT

Fisson

The Price Associate With Free Applications

Why You Should Pay For Apps and How it Can Protect Your Personal Data.

Written in the Fall of 2020 for Fission. See published article on Fission.Codes

It’s “Free!” That’s Amazing! Who doesn’t love something that comes with no cost? For small businesses, hobbyists, startups and everyday people, I think it’s fair to say we all get excited when we hear this. In fact, in a world filled with social media, apps and games on our phones, perhaps we even expect it–but what is the hidden cost to you?

If you have seen The Social Dilemma then you might be familiar with this quote:
“If you’re not paying for the product, then you are the product” — Daniel Hövermann

The hard fact here is that these “free” apps (ad-supported products) profit from collecting your data. They also make money from your attention through your clicks, likes and screen time. The real product for sale in all of these cases is your attention and subsequent interactions while logged in.

Here’s a simple example of how you become the product: In advertising-supported products, ads are presented to you.  These advertisements are curated based on cookies you agree to in your web browser as well as other behaviours you exhibit within the app itself.

Let’s break this down a bit more. You’re scrolling Facebook when you see a “post” for something you were recently shopping for online. This is called an impression and the app/platform gets paid by the advertiser simply for it coming into your view. Now say you click on that ad. Facebook receives another payment for your behaviour, in this instance for your click. This might sound familiar given what we all know about Facebook, but this kind of advertising is rampant in our world. A recent article from the website MLSDev states that currently, “7 out of 10 apps contain embedded advertisements”. This seems innocent at first glance, but who can advertise on these platforms is largely unregulated and monitored primarily by algorithms. Algorithms that many people–including those who work at these companies– don’t completely understand.

Using ads to provide free apps for users means that these companies are collecting information about you. This information is collected via your behaviour, views, and interactions. Then, this harvested information is used to infer demographic information about you. This includes but is not limited to where you live, your age, if you have kids etc. All of this is made available simply from behaviours you exhibit online.

At Fission, we are on a mission to normalize the payment of apps for this very reason and believe that a movement towards paying for apps, even at nominal rates, would bring about greater protection for you, the user.

What happens when you pay for your app:

  1. Your data becomes more secure and we begin to move towards a more ethical and humane technological future.
  2. Your behaviour and attention are not propagated and sold.
  3. Your privacy is more protected because the profitability of the application you are using is not contingent on your screen time/attention and personal information for targeted advertisements.
  4. Charging for apps can improve the standard of living for app developers outside of North America and Western Europe.
    a. Example: You publish an app and promote it, developing a user base of    500 users. If those 500 users pay $50 for that app, we’re talking about a    $25,000 USD salary for that developer. Pretty substantial for an        independent developer in most parts of the world, especially in developing    countries
  5. Payment places value on the work. In an article from Derek Sivers, “Psychology experiments have shown that the more people pay for something, the more they value it.”
  6. Developers should be paid ethically without distributing their user’s data for financial gain to largely unregulated advertisers.

Let’s think about this. Would you be comfortable telling a stranger you met on the street, where you live, how many kids you have, where you went to high school, if you’re married or not? We readily volunteer this information online every day using ad-supported apps, like social media, productivity apps and games. Sounds insane right?

The future is not as abysmal as it might seem. While technology is bound to proliferate there are ways to prevent this dark picture above. The first step of many is to pay for the applications and software you use.

At Fission this is a driving focus for us. We believe in the protection and privacy of our users is essential–That’s why we feel so strongly about our mission. By supporting a movement for normalizing the payment of apps, we aim to be part of the solution. We encrypt the data of every end-user–while giving developers the tools to build great apps, and eventually include the ability to easily charge for them.

For end-users wanting to try out some of these apps, you can start by logging into Fission’s Drive app. It’s free for small amounts of data, and you can pay for a premium account on Open Collective, which helps us build more apps and tools for developers.

For developers, check out some of the App ideas in the forum, or start with the dev guide to build an app of your own.

References

The Social Dilemma. Jeff Orlowski. Tristan Harris, Jeff Seibert, Justin Rosenstein, Tim Kendall. Netflix, 2020. Film

Catherine Han, Irwin Reyes. “Do You Get What You Pay For? Comparing The Privacy Behaviours of Free vs Paid Apps” UC Berkeley, International Computer Science Institute. University of Calgary, IMDEA Networks Institute, Universidad Carolos de Madrid. 2017

MLSDev. (2021) How Do Free Apps Make Money?
Retrieved from: https://mlsdev.com/blog/how-do-free-apps-make-money

Derek Sivers.  (2018) The Higher The Price, The More They Value It.
Retrieved from: https://sive.rs/morepay#:~:text=Psychology%20experiments%20have%20shown%20that,the%20more%20they%20value%20it.&text=When%20people%20want%20the%20best,the%20expensive%20wine%20tastes%20better.

Space O Technologies. (2021) How Do Free Apps Make Money
Retrieved from: https://www.spaceotechnologies.com/how-do-free-apps-make-money/

“Her sharp eye for details amazes me, and never looses sight of the bigger picture. Inherently curious, Jennie strives not only to continue to grow herself, but to help those who surround her in their own personal and professional development. ”

TAYLOR BOND - MILESTONES

“Jennie is a force of nature and an unreal addition to any team. She is organized, passionate and talented at what she does. She has the ability to go above and beyond, not only with her work but for the people she works with. Her energy is contagious and she is a joy to spend the day working with.”

ALEX MCDOONALD - STUBBS ISLAND WHALE WATCHING

“Jennie did a wonderful job working on my project. She was great at communicating, produced a high quality product and delivered it on time. Highly recommended!”

STEVE G - LIFE COACH and MEDITATION GUIDE

“Jennie designed a professional poster that did a great job of representing the tone of our film. She asked all the right questions, provided us with a few alternatives, and got us the finished product with time to spare.”

CHRIS GRIFFIN - FILM PRODUCER ANGRY BEAR FILMS

“Very solution-oriented, Jennie helped me work through questions including those I didn’t know I needed to answer; that’s where her thoughtfulness and experience really came in handy. I highly recommend Jennie for any web content creation or renovations!”

LOUISA K MEYER - REIKI MASTER

Let’s Work Together

Let’s Collaborate on creating something amazing for you.