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| “That will be £699.99, please.” |
For all the criticisms I have of Apple, one of the things they got right was the App store. They weren’t first people to use this model (Linux distros had already used this approach for years), but they did pioneer mainstream adoption. This has brought a lot of benefits: software installed through repositories such as App Stores easily remains up to date, you don’t have to search on the internet to find the program you’re after (and therefore little danger of accidentally installing a spiked program masquerading as the one you’re after), and it’s easy to remove anything you don’t like (as opposed to hoping the program came with a working uninstall mechanism). It’s also opened up the market on paid apps beyond the big players, and pushed down prices; no more will we be forking out £29.99 for very basic games. On the whole this has been a major step forwards.
Not everything about it has been welcomed. There are quite a
few iffy questions about Apple and Windows 8’s over-zealous
vetting policies, which I’ve discussed before. But lately I’ve seen a new
breed of programs coming to App stores which I think needs questioning. These
are known as “Freemium”, and these apps, usually games, are free to
download. But if you want to advance in the game, you have to pay real money to
receive in-game power-ups. Let’s make this clear: it is nothing like the old
model of a free demo version or a paid full-version – they make their money
from customers who pay for upgrades again, and again, and again. Freemium
advocates might argue that if you want to be a football champion, you have to
spend money on a decent kit and training, but I don’t agree. This is
cyber-land, where “training” and “kit” is merely changing a few ones and zeros
in your favour, and unlike real training and kit this costs nothing to make. I would
rather liken this to an owner of a cricket pitch charging you extra for
bowling overarm.
