this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
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Privacy
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Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
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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.