It's kind of a bizarre criticism to say that Mac software is sold via the Mac App Store...
“ Your app shares a lot of data with a third party”
You then proceeded to move the goalposts so far that now we’re talking about wether or not an app is free?
Listen, if you’re going to start an open-source/libre/data wants to be free argument, that’s your right, but don’t start it with fake accusations of privacy violations.
I didn't move the goalposts. The goalposts were always about data collection.
> fake accusations of privacy violations.
There is a real privacy violation going on here. The author has simply externalized it from his app's code. My point was that privacy can be violated outside the app itself and in the ecosystem where it is consumed. A publisher who cares about that, like GGP claimed to in the original comment I replied to, would work to mitigate that data collection as well.
To take the argument to the logical next step, it's like saying you can get my app, which doesn't collect any information at all, for free; however, to get it, you have to link your Twitter and Facebook accounts to the store website and share that you downloaded the app on those platforms.