Amazon will stop accepting apps to “Underground Actually Free” program, which offered paid Android apps for free, on May 31, shut it down at the end of 2019
Late on Friday, Amazon announced it will be shutting down its “Underground Actually Free” program …
Context & Ripple Effects
Underground Actually Free was the product of a two-year experiment: Amazon first floated a storefront called Unlocked to give away paid apps in March 2015, then launched Underground on the same sponsor-pays model. Its shutdown follows an earlier retreat from Appstore extras — Amazon killed TestDrive, the try-before-you-download feature, just weeks after Unlocked surfaced.
First-order effects
- Developers who listed paid Android apps in Underground lose a channel that paid them per download, and must decide by May 31 whether to keep distributing through Amazon's main Appstore instead.
- Android users who relied on Underground for sponsored free access to paid apps lose that catalog when the program closes at the end of 2019.
Second-order effects
- With the giveaway gone, Amazon's Appstore loses its clearest differentiator against Google Play, pushing price-sensitive users and developers back toward Google's store.
- The wind-down frees Amazon from subsidizing per-download payouts, consistent with its broader pullback from paying developers — seen later when it stopped paying for Alexa apps while leaving in-app purchases intact (Alexa developer incentives ended in 2024).
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Amazon's Android app business keeps shrinking toward irrelevance rather than reinvestment — a trajectory that ends with the company discontinuing the Appstore and Coins entirely in 2025 (the Appstore shutdown plan).
- Sponsor-subsidized 'actually free' app models fail as a category: without Amazon underwriting downloads, third-party Android stores are left competing on price alone against the default Play Store.
The trend: Amazon has spent a decade methodically dismantling its subsidized Android app ecosystem — TestDrive, Underground, Alexa developer payouts, and finally the Appstore itself.