App spam is making me sick

I am so pissed with Google/Android and WordPress both because of the fact that its not possible to filter their lists of apps (plugins for WP). How hard would it be to add filters when searching for apps, one of which would be the ability to filter for things which are genuinely free, not some BS scams which deceptively claim to be free and end up being not free or laden with ads?

A second thing – more significantly for WordPress, and this would actually be useful for Linux distro repositories as well – would be the ability to filter by crustiness: the age of an app or how recently it has or has not been updated, or perhaps some kind of rating on how frequently it is maintained and updated by its author(s).

For this last one, there could be a rating system such as one that, if the author hasn’t updated an app every three months, it loses a star (or point or whatever). There needs to be some way to know that the author updates/maintains the app at regular intervals. How often? Weekly? Monthly? Bi-annually? Yearly?

There are so many reasons why people would not want to use or employ crusty software not the least of which is security.

But the thing that kills me completely every time with Android and WordPress is the way so many apps masquerade as free and end up not being free. There are times when I’m looking for something, searching for an app or plugin, and I really only want to see a list of things that are free. Do there have to be varying categories of free? Fine, then have them: Ad-status: yes/no. License: GPL/BSD/etc. In-app purchases: yes/no. Etc.

There are many times when I really want only something that is free, ad-free, no in-app purchases. No enhanced, paid-version promos/ads. Etc.

Its sad, but it seems like with Android, Google has created a new type of monster on the Internet: that of App spam. First there was regular e-mail spam. Later there was search-engine spam. Now there are spam apps and it is a total drag!

There are also deeper considerations behind this. With the app-as-spam model which Google and WordPress foster, it has really changed the mentality of the tech industry in a seriously negative way. It is cultivating a kind of grubbiness and greediness which I think is very unhealthy.

And, if people do want to be grubby and greedy, then I guess let them. But give me the choice to avoid it please.

I’m so sick of having these disgusting encounters with Google apps and WordPress plugins which claim to be free and end up being scams.

I’m waiting for something to succeed both Android and WordPress because my loyalty to both of these right now is seriously waning.

If, for example, Mozilla comes out with their Firefox mobile OS and it really is much more based on the model of free, Open Source Linux distributions with their repository models, I think a lot of people are going to bail on Android.

Another thing that kind of makes me sick is that Google, when it set up Android and its Marketplace (not called Play Store, woohoo) just copied the model of repositories from Linux distros but added a payment system to it. But by doing that they really destroyed something and I think the damage is way more pervasive than they are probably capable of seeing, being so bedazzled by greed as they are.