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In a not so good news for customers, Amazon has announced that it will be shutting down its “Underground Actually Free” program, which offers customers free versions of paid Android apps. This also includes applications that require users to make in-app purchases. Amazon says that the program will be fully discontinued by 2019.
"We have decided to discontinue the Underground Actually Free program. All support for the program will end in 2019. Until then, current Fire tablet customers can continue to enjoy previously installed Underground apps and access the Underground Actually Free store. As of May 31st, 2017, Amazon will no longer accept the new app and game submissions for the Underground Actually Free program. If you’re an existing Amazon Underground developer, you will continue to get paid for every minute customers spend in your Amazon Underground app as provided in our developer agreement," the company said in a blog post.
The program that debuted in August 2015, began with several well-known gaming titles, like Frozen Free Fall, Star Wars Rebels: Recon Missions, Angry Birds Slingshot Stella, Looney Tunes Dash and others. There are now more than 20,000 apps and games in Underground, the website now claims. These apps usually cost you money everywhere else but, were available for free via Amazon Underground.
The reason was to lure consumers over to Amazon’s own hardware, the Kindle Fire HD and Fire HDX tablets, where the Underground apps were available through Amazon’s built-in Android app store. Besides the company also made its Underground apps available to other Android devices through a separate download of an Underground mobile app.
The developers got paid of course, but instead of users, Amazon paid them based upon how long they used a particular application for.
Though at the time of the initial launch, Amazon said the “Actually Free” program wasn’t a “one-off” promotion, and the company was committed to the program “long-term” but looks like all the mathematics didn't fall into place and the service will completely shut down by 2019.