500k+ downloads on the Play store.
These affiliate links work differently though, the devs get a little bit of money IF a user books through that KAYAK link.
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Maybe true, but that still is an ad.
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This is definitely going out of control. They rejected Open source solution
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Do you think data grabbed by kayak is normal?
Look Organic Maps adding KAYAK referral links to mobile app - #20 by Yilin above
@Anonim well, this is what you get when you lie to your community. Well deserved hate. Backlash of community is, in cases like this one, substantial.
People feel betrayed and let developer know this. bsolutely normal thing. Developers seems not to acknowlege their wrongdoing so people react.
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While i understand people being upset (and I’m not thrilled about it myself), working full or part time on a project that doesn’t make any money at all is obviously unsustainable. DuckDuckGo has ads but ISN’T open source, but it doesn’t get anywhere close to the amount of anger that OM is getting in this case. It would be good if there was a toggle for it, but I can definitely see why the developers added it.
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Maybe (or may not) be true, depends on various business-like factors. But this is not excuse for lying.
Seem not to understand: what DDG have to do with OM?
Instead of debating wether or not add a toggle to this, why not abandon this idea as a whole? If thats what community wants…
Thats strange… Neither I, nor the majority of community cannot see reasons.
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Just came here from post on Lemmy after some “startpaging” (aka googling).
It is terrible that developers just don’t hear community. They only talk with irony and sarcasm like in this comment history (picture 1)
Or even in this PR (picture 2)
They just don’t respect their community. That’s it.
Maybe, but they can be toggled off and not grabbing so much data as kayak (picture 3)
To get data collected by kayak you have to click on it and then click past a notification that warns you that kayak collects data and only then will it let you go to the site. Again, not ideal, but alternatives to the money issue for the project have not been raised that I am aware of. The developers also need to be able to make a living after all, otherwise the app won’t be developed at such a rapid pace.
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See this. If something developers the same
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Haha, I get what you mean 
Its indeed terrible. In fact its begining of the end of the project. Say whatever, but look at many other projects that started ignoring communities; they are either abandoned, vegetative state, or closed down completely.
That’s truth. Whatever they do, the worst is lose community support. Moreover, if you are donation driven.
Open Source can make someone fork it. And everyone will abandon main project. F-Droid users (in most) experienced ones, so I don’t think switching will be a problem for them
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The distinction you make is an important distinction. But to be clear and fair, both are forms of advertising. Referral links are advertisements, they are just a less obvious and intrusive form of advertising. (Another term commonly used for marketing a product using referral links is affiliate marketing or affiliate advertising)
As much as I hate ads and consider the impacts of advertising a net-negative on the internet and on society, I don’t believe all advertising is objectively wrong, unethical, or privacy-invasive.
Personally I don’t consider this to be especially invasive or innapropriate. And some of the comments in this thread about what “the community wants” have come across as pretty entitled and unrealistic (also lacking evidence). Privacy-respecting orgs shouldn’t be prohibited from revenue streams if they aren’t privacy-invading. We shouldn’t excuse privacy-violating behavior, but we also shouldn’t treat tracking as black and white. The only thing you as a user needs to do to not be affected by this is to not click Kayak links.
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We definitely should. Tracking is evil. Data breaches, SCAMs, SPAMs… That all a consequences of tracking.
Why Proton, Tuta, Skiff, Addy etc can survive and be more and more stable and reliable without tracking, but others can’t? Answer is everyone can. But having “easy” money is more attractive for someone, unfortunately
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100% agree on this Tracking is tracking regardless how you call it.
Of course true.
Exactly this
I’m sorry for being blunt but this is an extremely unnuanced and technically unsophisticated statement to make.
Black and white thinking is not constructive with respect to privacy and security (or anything really)
Because they directly charge money for their services… Do you prefer organic maps to charge a monthly fee?
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What the hell are you talking about??!!
They also offer free tiers, so your statement is false.
You are trying to derail topic or you seriously have no idea what you are talking about.
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They have a free plans.
This is ridiculous.
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This:
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