Excellent article. That’s why I use OSS first and foremost as they don’t have the incentive to bring in € instead they are more focused on a quality product.

The point, in one sentence:

If you are the product, not the paying customer, then not only is there no incentive to cater to your needs, there exists incentive to make the product worse for you if it means the paying customer extracts more from you.

Users of freemium software are basically nothing more than willing cattle. Housed and fed for free only to be slaughtered.

Maybe people just can’t help themselves? I fear we can’t have a fair and free market if people are so easily manipulated.

Well written! I’ve had a similar experience with a habit tracking app. I’ve once stopped using it and after getting back to it after a year or so, it was so much worse with so many new pay walled limitations. An open source habit tracker on the other hand stayed the same for years and was even improved further. If you’re inrerested: Loop Habit Tracker https://f-droid.org/packages/org.isoron.uhabits/