Browsers could just be browsers if people paid for them. But they don't. If you're not paying for the product, you are the product.
At the end of the day, only legal requirements are going to curtail this type of behavior.
> Even paid products do this kind of stuff these days.
Yes, if you pay for the product, then not only are you still the product, but you're a sucker as well.
It's not quite that stark, but I don't see why a company would truly change its business model just because they charge a fee. It's too tempting to "do something with all this data," i.e. treat all consumer software as spyware.
He wasn't the nicest guy much earlier than that.[0]
Zero-telemetry, with built in adblocker.
Business model: pay for the browser.
Your turn!
Yes, OEMs pay for Windows; probably businesses pay for Windows. It's pretty clear they've gone to an ad-supported model whether they're honest about it or not. And of course, paying for the product doesn't mean they won't suplement invoice revenue with advertising revenue.
Last time I checked you could still just set the wallpaper via the context menu. It only locks the appearance settings.
So yeah, MS is being paid for their browser. But a trillion dollar valuation is simply not enough.
Not on Android. AOSP is free, but if you want to ship the play store then you have to also include the other Google apps. It is the Google data harvesting and advertising that pays for Android.
Maybe those goals align at some point, but corporations' alignment drift makes AI look downright peachy.
"You're always the product and willingness and ability to pay for a nonessential service makes your disposable income an even juicer target to advertisers."