Hacker News Reader

Comment by baylessj | Hacker News Reader

I'm disappointed in myself for being surprised by this article, you're exactly right about this being the norm for similar software. I've found Life360 to be a helpful free tool in many regards but as is so often the case, if you aren't paying for the product then you are the product.

View on HN

Free? At least from their website[1], it appears all the plans are paid.

Which is worse. You're paying them to then sell off all your data on the backend, violating the spirit of "If you're not paying, you're the product."

[1]: https://www.life360.com/plans-pricing/

I use it right now and it gives 24/7 livetime location reporting as well as free driver reports (top speed, number of hard braking events). There are other features you can upgrade to, but it's definitely useable at a free tier.

I'm interested, wouldn't continuous monitoring absolutely kill the phones battery?

Their secret sauce is that they have spent a lot of time and money innovating on how to not kill battery life. The app polls users for location on different intervals. Periodically if no one has the app open, but if someone opens the app it will start polling people whose locations are available to them. Find My Friends has a similar approach, although it ONLY polls when someone has Find My Friends open that has a shared location available, and it doesn't store the data (last I checked).

> violating the spirit of "If you're not paying, you're the product."

I don't understand how anyone who has ever owned a television, ridden on a bus, or flown in an airplane would think that statement has ever carried any weight with anyone.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com