Last updated April 12, 2019
During my morning’s perusal of news feeds, I came across an article on New Media Age that discussed a recent survey conducted by the Association of Publishing Agencies (APA). According to the article, a survey of 952 iPad owners revealed that people would rather get a free app attached to a brand than pay for a non-branded application. To me, this says, people would rather allow a brand to market to them and gather their personal information than have to pay for an application that does not do those things. Am I wrong in this interpretation?
For APA, this survey is highly important; it shows that brands need to engage their users by offering things of value for free in return for their business and attention. Which is all well and good, but in the light of the recent outcries concerning Apple’s location tracking, Google’s intrusion into our personal information, and Facebook’s targeted adverts based upon what we like, link, and write in our status, it seems to me that the people in this survey at least, haven’t really thought through the implications.
Maybe it just isn’t a big deal to those surveyed. I know that I am not as stressed by these intrusions as others; but then, it is part of my job to keep up with this stuff; I have no illusions regarding privacy.
Anyway, it is food for thought. Are free, brand-provided applications worth it? Alternatively, do you figure, nothing is private anymore anyway, so why not get something for free?