Freemium apps or games that follow the free-to-play model essentially provides users with the program for free, but in return users can expect to fork out money if they want extra features or they will have to deal with in-app advertisements. Apparently this is the sort of operating system that Apple had once envisioned and was reportedly pretty close at launching it too way back in 1999. This was revealed in Ken Segall’s recently released book, Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple’s Success.
“Rather than charge the normal upgrade price, which in those days was $99, he was thinking of shipping a second version of Mac OS 9 that would be given away for free—but would be supported instead by advertising […] The theory was that this would pull in a ton of people who didn’t normally upgrade because of the price, but Apple would still generate income through the advertising. And any time an owner of the free version wanted to get rid of the advertising, he or she could simply pay for the ad-free version.”
Safe to say the plan was scrapped, but what do you guys think? Would a freemium operating system be of interest to you, or would you rather just pay a flat fee and be done with it? [Image credit – Cult of Mac]
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