Issues With Paid Services

It is rather clear that throughout our website we are heavily critical of paid services online. But what issues have lead to this criticism? Our biggest focust is correcting the negative impact these issues have on the user, and so this will be the initial focus of this article. Many users have limited finance in a way that they cannot afford services online, even if they can afford internet. Additionally, to those who can afford these services, it can still be an unnecessary detriment to their financial situation that would not work for them.

Many programs also use methods to manipulate common users, the general criteria we use for this manipulation is when users pay when they don't intend to. Some examples of this manipulation is only telling a user the service is paid when they have finished using it, or by adding an unexpected watermark that requires payment to remove. We call this method of manipulation "save ransoming". Sometimes, services also claim to be free but require payment for core features that would be part of the normal user experience. Additionally, some services start out free, but make use of a hidden clause in their TOS that allows them to charge at any time. We recommend users take some extra time to look into an online program before using it.

Paid services don't only create problems for users, however. Developers may find that charging in the short term is good, but ends up as a bad long-term investment. The profit margin for paid services tend to be much higher, but free services gather users at a larger and more exponential rate. Therefore, free services are a better long-term investment. Below, we approximate the speed of users joining on a service from which the main user base does not come from search engine results:

The speed of free users joining to paid ones would likely be even larger if mostly from search engine and not word of mouth, as less trust would be given initially to the service. A great example of the advantage in providing free services would be Google, using almost exclusively non-paid methods and becoming a highly successful company. One could look to a variety of other tech companies too, however, since many of the biggest use similar methods.