A large fraction, if not most, of potential users of software in the world can simply not afford paying any non-trivial amounts of money (by US/European figuring) for software of any kind; they simply don't have such money to spare. Look at median incomes in different countries:
Country-specific pricing is not a new thing, though. After all, if someone in a developing country paid for a smartphone they might be able to also pay for some apps.
Also, you don’t make any money advertising to poor people in poor countries. I imagine if they don’t have money in their wallets, their data isn't worth much either. (Well, except to OpenAI).
My point is that "free software supported by data harvesting and advertising" isn't more profitable in poor countries than software you buy off the shelf. Advertising revenue scales down just as much as disposable income for apps.
Have you tried watching a cricket match in India? The ad frequency is incredible. It’s usually essentially a long series of ads with a bit of cricket mixed in.
If advertising were lucrative, it probably wouldn’t be that way.
A large fraction, if not most, of potential users of software in the world can simply not afford paying any non-trivial amounts of money (by US/European figuring) for software of any kind; they simply don't have such money to spare. Look at median incomes in different countries:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-in...