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This is perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I wish Canonical would just charge a small amount to download Ubuntu. I don't pay money for Ubuntu, everyone I know do

This is perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I wish Canonical would just charge a small amount to download Ubuntu. I don't pay money for Ubuntu, everyone I know doesn't pay for Ubuntu. Nothing is free. Individuals and corporations need to make money. I just hate that adds are the default instead of charging me a few dollars for useful software.

john_alan 7y ago
Beyond the telemetry there isn’t a move to have OS wide ads is there? What’s your Linux of choice?
- tkuraku 7y ago
  Right now I am using vanilla Debian. They have tons of packages available and they aren't pretending to be anything other than free. I really like RHEL/Centos. Buying RHEL for personal use is a bit expensive and they are pretty sparse for available packages, EPEL helps but is still way behind Debian. Once EPEL fills out more for Centos 8 I will probably switch to that. RHEL/Centos are just bulletproof if they have the software you need/want. Fedora is nice, but the constant updates (including major kernel versions) just don't work for my use case. I need a stable kernel. I work a lot with hardware and need my drivers to keep working.
  - john_alan 7y ago
    Interesting thanks. Do you think we will see banner ads eventually in Ubuntu? I agree I’d rather pay 30usd or whatever.
    - tkuraku 7y ago
      I think jumping to the conclusion that there will be banner ads is a bit of an over reaction. Right now the adds are fairly innocuous, but it is still frustrating that adds are the default instead of just charging me a few dollars. I have no idea, but I would think $5 or $10 would be far more than they could get showing me a couple adds. Though if they decided to charge even $5 to download Ubuntu people would lose their minds more than they do with small adds like these, and so here we are.
userbinator 7y ago
I'm not sure if this data they're collecting (if they even are storing it long-term) is even being sold. Like the other commercial Linux distros, Canonical profits from support. Also, now it seems that even when you pay for the product you're not guaranteed to have something that doesn't include spyware. Windows 10 is a great example of this.
- tkuraku 7y ago
  I completely agree. It is even worse when you pay for a product and still get adds.
zarkov99 7y ago
Yes, I agree. I think there is going to be a move away from the free/spyware based model back to actually paying for the services/product. There is far too much corruption with the former.
l0b0 7y ago
Yeah, unfortunately there are some really big issues nobody has a workable solution to yet: - There is a vast income discrepancy across the world. For some people $1000 for an Ubuntu copy would be cheap and for others $10 would mean going hungry. Not to mention all the people who have no good way to pay online, such as people without a bank account. (And without a bank account, how do you even get started with cryptocurrency on a minimally powered machine?) - Ideally the price would be as much as it's worth to each user, but there's no way to determine what each user thinks it's worth (except in a utopia of perfectly honest customers, which presupposes perfectly honest businesses). - As much as I hate ads they are probably one of the easiest ways to get a relatively steady income stream no matter who the users are.

john_alan 7y ago

Beyond the telemetry there isn’t a move to have OS wide ads is there? What’s your Linux of choice?

tkuraku 7y ago
Right now I am using vanilla Debian. They have tons of packages available and they aren't pretending to be anything other than free. I really like RHEL/Centos. Buying RHEL for personal use is a bit expensive and they are pretty sparse for available packages, EPEL helps but is still way behind Debian. Once EPEL fills out more for Centos 8 I will probably switch to that. RHEL/Centos are just bulletproof if they have the software you need/want. Fedora is nice, but the constant updates (including major kernel versions) just don't work for my use case. I need a stable kernel. I work a lot with hardware and need my drivers to keep working.
- john_alan 7y ago
  Interesting thanks. Do you think we will see banner ads eventually in Ubuntu? I agree I’d rather pay 30usd or whatever.
  - tkuraku 7y ago
    I think jumping to the conclusion that there will be banner ads is a bit of an over reaction. Right now the adds are fairly innocuous, but it is still frustrating that adds are the default instead of just charging me a few dollars. I have no idea, but I would think $5 or $10 would be far more than they could get showing me a couple adds. Though if they decided to charge even $5 to download Ubuntu people would lose their minds more than they do with small adds like these, and so here we are.

userbinator 7y ago

I'm not sure if this data they're collecting (if they even are storing it long-term) is even being sold. Like the other commercial Linux distros, Canonical profits from support. Also, now it seems that even when you pay for the product you're not guaranteed to have something that doesn't include spyware. Windows 10 is a great example of this.

tkuraku 7y ago
I completely agree. It is even worse when you pay for a product and still get adds.

zarkov99 7y ago

Yes, I agree. I think there is going to be a move away from the free/spyware based model back to actually paying for the services/product. There is far too much corruption with the former.

l0b0 7y ago

Yeah, unfortunately there are some really big issues nobody has a workable solution to yet: - There is a vast income discrepancy across the world. For some people $1000 for an Ubuntu copy would be cheap and for others $10 would mean going hungry. Not to mention all the people who have no good way to pay online, such as people without a bank account. (And without a bank account, how do you even get started with cryptocurrency on a minimally powered machine?) - Ideally the price would be as much as it's worth to each user, but there's no way to determine what each user thinks it's worth (except in a utopia of perfectly honest customers, which presupposes perfectly honest businesses). - As much as I hate ads they are probably one of the easiest ways to get a relatively steady income stream no matter who the users are.