Whenever a new app asks for my location, or phone number when it is not needed, “just to improve my experience,” I instantly feel my blood pressure rise. Because we all know what comes next — mystery calls, irrelevant ads, and that sinking feeling that your personal details are now wandering around the internet without supervision.
Now imagine that happening inside a housing society app.
The one place where your phone number, home address, family details, and even your vehicle information live together like one big happy (and extremely sensitive) family.
That’s exactly why ADDA chose a very different path, long before the world started worrying about privacy.
Let’s talk about it.
Table of Contents
Why We Said No to Ads — Even When It Was the Easier Business Model
When ADDA started back in 2009, the trend was clear.
Most digital platforms made money by running ads, collecting user behaviour, or “sharing” data with partners. It was the era of “If it’s free, you’re the product.” And well everybody was doing it…Be it facebook, or google, or instagram!
But once you look deeper, you will understand that you cannot compare community apps with likes of facebook, etc. More on this later in the blog.
As a team, ADDA was very clear about this aspect – A community App is not a place for Ads!
We were building a global software for homes, communities, families — not a social media app. And homes are private spaces. The digital extension of your home should be private too.
So we made a decision that still shocks many people today:
ADDA will make money only through software subscriptions.
No ads. No data resale. No third-party monetization.
There is something uniquely sensitive about the data that sits inside ADDA. It’s not “browsing behaviour” or “shopping preferences.” It’s real-world, deeply personal, identity-linked information:
- Your full name
- Your address (down to the apartment/villa number)
- Your phone number and email
- Your family members
- Your domestic staff
- Your vehicles
- Your maintenance payments
- Community conversations
- Complaint history, facility usage and more
This goes far beyond what regular apps handle. You wouldn’t share this much information with even your favourite e-commerce app.
This is also why the ADDA has no partnerships with third parties for “promotions,” no selling or renting data, no hidden tracking layers.
Why Community Apps Cannot Be Compared With Instagram, Facebook or Google
The comparison itself is flawed because the purpose of these platforms is completely different.
You open Instagram to pass time.
You open Facebook to scroll.
You open YouTube to relax.
Ads don’t interrupt these experiences. Ads are simply part of the furniture there.
But when it comes to a community app, noise is harmful.
You are not there to browse.
You are there to pay attention.
Imagine trying to read a water-shutdown alert with an ad for home loans sitting right below it. Your brain will automatically categorize both as “things to scroll past.” The moment ads enter, the line between urgent and irrelevant blurs.
A community app is a utility. It cannot behave like an entertainment feed.
Read Full Article here>> Why Community Apps Should Be Ad-Free
Why Ads Will Always Lead to Data Sharing (Even When Companies Promise Otherwise)
This is a crucial point people don’t think about deeply enough.
Platforms may promise, “We will show ads, but we won’t share personal data.” It sounds comforting, but advertising simply does not work like that. Advertisers don’t pay for vague impressions. They pay for targeting, performance, and optimized results.
And when they don’t get the results they expect, they start asking questions like:
- “Who saw the ad?”
- “Can you tell us which buildings clicked more?”
- “What type of residents responded?”
- “Can we get more segmentation?”
This begins the slippery slope.
Internal teams feel pressure.
Small compromises start: “Just this one field… just this one category… just this one behaviour pattern.”
Before anyone realizes it, the community’s data begins to move — because the business model demands it.
Think of this like you have entered a train in Mumbai, once you have entered it, you cannot stay in one place. The whole train is moving, so your data will also move along with it.
This train is a one way train – constantly moving between 2 destinations, your RWA to Advertisers, carrying RWAs data along with it, constantly, everyday, every moment.
Ads require data, and data sharing is inevitable.
Which is why ADDA never touches that business model at all.
Read full Article Here>> Why RWAs Should Never Work With Ad Based
Why Community Data Is Too Sensitive to Ever Sit Near Advertising Systems
The kind of information stored inside ADDA is not ordinary app data. It is deeply personal, physical-world data tied to your home and identity:
- Full address
- Mobile number and email
- Family details
- Domestic staff
- Vehicles
- Visitor logs
- Maintenance history
- Conversations within the community
- Payment behaviour
- Facility usage patterns
No advertiser should ever have access to this world — not directly, not indirectly, not even in “anonymized” formats that can be reverse-engineered.
This is why ADDA encrypts sensitive fields, restricts backend access, logs every data touchpoint, uses 256-bit SSL everywhere, and is hosted on AWS with strict controls and VAPT cycles.
This entire security architecture collapses the moment the platform introduces ads.
Why ADDA Chose the Harder Path: A Pure Subscription Model
ADDA’s revenue model is simple: communities pay for software.
No advertisers in the background.
No third-party sponsors.
No hidden monetisation.
This model keeps the app aligned to one purpose: serve the community.
- Data stays inside the platform
- No one demands behaviour insights
- No one needs resident profiling
- No one negotiates “ad performance metrics”
- No one pressures teams to leak patterns
- Communities remain the only customer
This clarity is what protects resident privacy.
The Experience That Privacy Creates: A Peaceful, Clean App
It’s funny but true – privacy is invisible when done well. You don’t actively notice that ADDA has no ads. You just feel that the app is “clean” and “calm.”
There’s no clutter. No promotions. No irrelevant nudges. No suspicious banners sitting between your water-shutdown notice and your complaint update.
It feels like a well-maintained lobby. No noise. No chaos. Just information that matters.
That’s exactly how a community app should feel.