The first time I ever used Shazam, the application that identifies music with the click of a button, it felt like magic. To this day, it's probably my favorite app. Wherever I go, if I hear a new song that I'm vibing to or one from my past that I totally forgot the name of, I'll shamelessly hold my phone in the air and let Shazam do its thing. It's amazing that the service is still free for users. Of course, Shazam makes its revenue from ads and commissions from referrals to music and streaming platforms. But for the user, it feels like a gift.
There are lots of amazing apps and software that feel like they shouldn't be free, and a bunch of redditors recently got together to discuss some of their favorites.
"Important to remember that this is free because of your library service. Shout out to libraries for being f-cking awesome!" —u/the-zero-st
"This sounds too good to be real damn" —u/DimlyWhispered
"Shazam is what convinced my boomer father to get a smartphone. He had always had a cellphone from way back when they first came out but insisted smartphones were pointless. We were having breakfast in a hotel and some song from his youth started playing and he was wracking his brain trying to remember what it was called. I pulled out my iphone and Shazam told us the artist and song title in a few seconds. He upgraded to a smartphone the next day." —u/GisingGising
"The VLC creator is a French guy and a redditor (forgot his pseudo or I'd ping him, he is very active here and I think he did an AMA recently). He explained that he always was a big opensource advocate, and he's been denying dozens of millions of euros/dollars, again and again and again over the last 20 years, from companies who either wanted to buy VLC or to put adds on it. True god." —u/axilane
"Offline Google Maps is, like, a cool human achievement." —u/NutellaGood