Can advertising save MyGate?

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Editor's note: MyGate users are exasperated. In recent months, the apartment society management app has been sending advertisements as push notifications to its users. “Start your child’s learning journey with KLAY Schools!!” or “8 hours left! Get vitamin tests at Rs 199” or “Get groceries in 15-30 minutes with Swiggy”. Users, however, don’t want to be bombarded with advertisements. What makes their experience using MyGate worse is that there is no real option to turn the notifications off. If they do, it would render the fundamental purpose of the app—managing the entry and exit of visitors—useless. Such has been the barrage of complaints that co-founder Abhishek Kumar took to LinkedIn to respond to users. He said users can’t have it both ways. Either they pay up to stop seeing advertisements or use the app for free and be served advertisements. This didn’t go down well. People don’t like being told they are cheap. Kumar edited his post later with takeaways, after loads of people criticized the move and suggested changes in the comments. His main point—pay a fee for an ad-free experience—remains …