it’s not exactly ransomeware but similar, and taking advantage of the current “terrorist software” people fear, specially adopting a similar tactic, is morally low.
It’s expenses and People already do, by the millions probably, the reason Avast is mostly free on the 3 important protection layers, is because people bypass security software and uses it as full versions if they want to, software companies become the enemy to “defeat” to get the protection, and pirates do, and spreads all over the planet in a matter of a few hours and stays there; OTOH freeware full protection is very attractive, software companies become allies and it gets even more popular than distributing shareware or time-limited full versions or the pirated version combined, people that use pirated “free” antivirus become potential buyers and you can deliver practically 0-cost, instant, directly to the user advertisement through the freeware client, through Internet, Avast publishes that they have 100,000,000+ users worldwide, pretty sure people gives up to advertisement eventually, plus people have a heart mostly and will support if they can afford it, so they get easily 100,000,000+ €/$us a year, so it’s not really free, nothing really is, but it’s a great altruistic model that works really well because people recognizes it; so no, I don’t need to pay for the expenses, get a clue before posting OK?