[syspry]

The cynic in me often wonders why one of the most full featured, popular and downloaded apps on Android is not only free but has no ads. The old adage about too good to be true springs to mind here

[belodion]

Do you have any ideas about how the money is made? Because it must be made somehow.

Posted via the Android Central App

[Rukbat]

Not necessarily. Back in the bulletin board days, before most people had heard of the internet, someone wrote a program that allowed us to do something like a forum, but offline. You'd download all the messages, get off the phone (the calls cost money), answer anything you wanted to answer, start threads, etc., then dial back in and upload everything. The only problem was that once you closed a message you couldn't open it again and edit it.

That bothered me, so I wrote a program to open the whole message file, allow me to edit individual messages and rebuild the message file, to upload it. I asked if anyone would be interested in a copy and everyone was, so I uploaded it to the server so everyone could download it and use it.

A lot of software is written that way, even now. Someone needs something, he writes it, he figures other people may like something like that, so he makes it available. It's called freeware, and it has a long history. (Shareware was a slightly different concept - you were asked to pay some nominal amount [which was about $10 in those days] if you liked the program and wanted to keep using it. Few people did, unless the free version was crippled.)

I wonder why Geohot spent months figuring out how to root 4.4.2. Probably because he wanted his own phone rooted. And why Hashcode figured out how to get a locked bootloader to load TWRP. Probably because he got stuck with a Verizon Samsung phone with 4.3.

Some things really are free and not sinister.

(How many of us spend what amounts to a full time job here helping people. Why would we do that for free? [Or am I supposed to mention the $1,000/hour we get paid for this?] When I helped a lady get back over 300 pictures of her 4 month old daughter they had taken the day the baby was born, then lost them, it made up for many days of sitting here seeing people complain that they posted a question over an hour ago and it hasn't been answered yet. Besides, it keeps my mind from stagnating - I have to look things up to answer some questions, and I learn some things. And when you stop learning, they call that being dead.)

[anon8380037]

If I had been your agent then I could have, I mean we could have made a fortune. Still - I have that annual cheque from Android Central to look forward to now.
Good story.

[syspry]

Not necessarily. Back in the bulletin board days, before most people had heard of the internet, someone wrote a program that allowed us to do something like a forum, but offline. You'd download all the messages, get off the phone (the calls cost money), answer anything you wanted to answer, start threads, etc., then dial back in and upload everything. The only problem was that once you closed a message you couldn't open it again and edit it.

That bothered me, so I wrote a program to open the whole message file, allow me to edit individual messages and rebuild the message file, to upload it. I asked if anyone would be interested in a copy and everyone was, so I uploaded it to the server so everyone could download it and use it.

A lot of software is written that way, even now. Someone needs something, he writes it, he figures other people may like something like that, so he makes it available. It's called freeware, and it has a long history. (Shareware was a slightly different concept - you were asked to pay some nominal amount [which was about $10 in those days] if you liked the program and wanted to keep using it. Few people did, unless the free version was crippled.)

I wonder why Geohot spent months figuring out how to root 4.4.2. Probably because he wanted his own phone rooted. And why Hashcode figured out how to get a locked bootloader to load TWRP. Probably because he got stuck with a Verizon Samsung phone with 4.3.

Some things really are free and not sinister.

(How many of us spend what amounts to a full time job here helping people. Why would we do that for free? [Or am I supposed to mention the $1,000/hour we get paid for this?] When I helped a lady get back over 300 pictures of her 4 month old daughter they had taken the day the baby was born, then lost them, it made up for many days of sitting here seeing people complain that they posted a question over an hour ago and it hasn't been answered yet. Besides, it keeps my mind from stagnating - I have to look things up to answer some questions, and I learn some things. And when you stop learning, they call that being dead.)

I have a feeling my take on the issue is more realistic.

http://www.technologyreview.com/view...-and-ad-sites/

Once Eurecom's utility hits the Play Store I'm betting my instincts about ES are going to prove justified and I'll be sharing the results here.