I think the market has said otherwise. Among aware engineers, sure. Among Suzie home maker and Tommy Q the support rep? Doesn't seem so. Facebook is free and has how many people now? ( Just one example I know )
There’s some concern about how Apple is changing the economics of free apps. I personally have always had a problem with free apps destroying the opportunity for those that charge the user cash instead of data.
My personal story is:
- Initial position 12 years ago: Apple is a closed company and they fight open standards. I don't like them
- Jump head-first into Android starting with the G1 (aka HTC Dream in Canada)
- Get worn down by the constant race to the bottom and by finding out how the sausage is made
- Get an iPhone, which is not my phone of choice, to move away from the data harvesting economy
So for me the entire reason I swapped my Android for an iPhone is to avoid the ad machine.
This will definitely sound tone-deaf, but if you want to trade your attention for apps, you are free to make the same trip in reverse to Googleland ;)
People are more than willing to pay for streaming content that they actually value, though.
If you give people the option to pay for, say, Doge memes, and they don't pay for them, that doesn't mean that they aren't willing to pay for anything, it just means that Doge memes have little to no value.