[thomc]

That reminds me of a hack I did. In the fairly early days of Android I realised you could install an app to a device from the Play Store using the website on the PC, and have it auto-run when triggered by an event such as the charger being plugged in. Combined with the API to disable the lock screen (eg when receiving an incoming call so the user can answer) it was a way to remotely disable the lock screen.

I created my first ever Android app in one evening and released it for free. It was the first one of its kind and was quite popular, mainly for parents who let their kids play with their phone and accidently lock it, or for people who wanted access to their loved ones device after they died.

However I received loads of bizarre and abusive support requests from people who demanded I help them, and even call them personally. Eventually I got fed up and started to charge a nominal amount and the support requests suddenly became much more polite and intelligent, filtering out the toxic support requests.

I read a post on HN about how increasing price on something can result in higher sales because people value it more. I decided to increase the price as an experiment, and sure enough the sales went up!

For 3 hours of work one evening creating the app, it made a few £10ks over a few years.

Eventually Google prevented the ability to auto-run newly installed apps due to malware using the same vector, now you have to launch the app manually the first time. While it still worked on older devices I eventually removed it because it failed more than it worked.