# Ghan and the unlit road > You built something remarkable. Eleven people know. A story about why — and about a child with one lamp who did something very inconvenient about it. Source: https://ghan.io/the-road/ Published: 2026-09-24 · Updated: 2026-09-24 Publisher: GHAN — the audited cross-promotion network for desktop apps (https://ghan.io) --- Ghan and the unlit road # You built something extraordinary. Eleven people know. Four of whom are you, on different machines. Here is why that happens — and what a child with one lamp did about it. [Be the first door](/get-started/) [Skip to the rate card](/how-it-works/) macOS & Windows No subscription Paid on retained users Nothing inside your installer **€12–50** per cleared install **48h** before a penny moves **70%** to the app that pointed **0** networks left doing this One · the problem ## There is no road left to put your door on. Desktop software lost its distribution layer and nobody replaced it. This is where the installs of a good, small, unknown Mac app actually come from. People you already knowfriends, forums, your listmost One launch spikeProduct Hunt, Hacker Newsonce Search18 months of writingslow Paid ads€0.27 is your ceilingclosed Other desktop appsthe thing that does not existnone A €29 one-time app can afford about 27 cents a click. A €29-a-month product bidding on the same word can afford €3.18. You are not outbid on your advert. You are outbid on your business model. Two · the Peddler ## He was, everyone agreed, extremely reasonable. He did not lie. That is the part everyone gets wrong. He came up the road with a cart of identical lanterns and an offer so straightforward it was almost boring: *hang one of mine outside your door, and I will pay you for every traveller who follows it in.* He paid on the day. He never haggled. He remembered the names of your children. And he never once asked what was behind the door he was lighting — which is not dishonesty exactly, but it was the entire problem, walking about in a very good coat. TranslationInstaller bundling, roughly 2010 to 2016. Networks paid desktop developers to show a third-party offer **inside their installer**, and settled on the install event. Nobody had to intend any harm. The incentive did the work unsupervised. Same door, two arrangements ## When the money moves is the whole design. The Peddler's way 0h Paid the moment the door opens. What happens next is somebody else's problem, so the cheapest way to earn more is to be a little less clear. clears on: the install event Ghan's way 48h Paid only if they are still in there two mornings later. Recommend something to a person who did not want it and you have done all that work for nothing. clears on: still being used Three · what it cost everyone ## Being honest was not a defence. When it went wrong, the travellers did not stop trusting the Peddler. They stopped trusting **lanterns** — including yours, which you had made yourself and hung honestly. 2016OpenCandyClosed. Its SDK had been flagged as a potentially unwanted program by detectors that judge behaviour, not intent. 2015 onwardironSource installcoreFlagged worldwide. The detection attached to the SDK, so every careful integrator was flagged alongside the worst actor. 2023AdDuplexThe cleanest attempt anybody made, for Microsoft Store apps. Shut down quietly. The category did not shrink — it emptied. Four · the kid ## An eleven-year-old with one lamp and a great many rules. 01She goes inside firstShe will not light a lamp for a workshop she has not stood inside with the lantern up, asking the sort of questions that take an afternoon. It loses her most of the work. It is not negotiable.Notarised or Authenticode-signed binary · clean malware scan · domain ≥ 6 months · verified contact · download serves what it claims. Re-checked weekly. 02The price is carved into the milestoneAnyone may read what a lamp costs. She will not take more from a rich maker or less from a poor one, which both of them find irritating for opposite reasons.A published floor that never rises, identical for everyone, with 30% of every category reserved at it so nobody can be outbid out of the network. 03Everything goes in the bookLeft open on the road where anybody may read it. Both makers sign the line, and she has no way to go back and alter a page.Append-only ledger — UPDATE, DELETE and TRUNCATE blocked at the database level — with two independent signatures on every line involving money. Your app — export complete Exported **interview-final.mp4** in 41s. **Sweep**Reclaim disk space after big exportsInstall one card per week · your slot · dismissible This is the whole surface area. A partner supplies an icon, a name and one line — never markup, never a script, never anything inside your installer. Five · the second morning ## And then she walks all the way back. Two mornings after she sends a traveller through a door, Ghan walks the entire road again to see whether they are still in there. If they took one look and went home, she puts her lamp out and takes no coin for it. Every maker she explains this to says the same thing, which is that it sounds like an enormous amount of walking. It is. It is also the only arrangement anybody has found that makes it completely pointless to recommend something to a person who did not want it. TranslationMoney moves into **escrow** when an install is claimed and only leaves it if the app is still in use **48 hours later**. Anything else is refunded automatically, with no dispute process, because none should be needed. Impressions and clicks are never billed at all. Six · what it pays ## Point as often as you are pointed at, and you never spend a coin. One cleared install, creator tools €16.80 to the app that pointed Or **€20.16** of spending power taken as network credits. From a €24 floor price. GHAN keeps €7.20. Impressions & clicksNever billedNot at any volume, not ever. You are charged for retained users or you are charged nothing. Your slot, your rulesOne card a weekYou set the cap, you exclude whole categories, and it is enforced in the build you signed — not on our server. If it does not surviveRefunded, silentlyNo dispute process, because none should be needed. The escrow hold reverses and nobody is billed. Seven · and then the makers did it to each other ## Which was always the point. A maker whose traveller leaves happy is standing right next to the best recommendation in the valley and has no idea. And every one of those travellers has just demonstrated the only thing that matters about a person: *they are the sort who opens doors.* So you light a lamp for the workshop across the way, she lights one for you, neither of you pays anybody anything, and the road fills back up. A note on the extravagance of this page We are a company with no customers, and we have just commissioned a cast of original characters for a landing page. We are entirely aware of how that looks. It is, however, the only honest signal available to us. **Anyone can type the word "trustworthy" onto a website for nothing** — which is precisely why nobody should believe it when they do. This cost us money and several weeks, and a company intending to behave like the Peddler would have spent neither. That is the whole argument. The version without the lamps is at [how it works](/how-it-works/). Where we actually are ## Nobody has walked it yet. The lamp is lit, the book is open, and not one traveller has been through a single door. There are no numbers on this site because there is nothing yet to count — and we would rather that be conspicuous than quietly filled in with something plausible. [Be the first door](/get-started/) [What actually exists](/status/) ## Questions people ask about this ### Who is Ghan? The kid with the lamp, and the name of the network. We named it after the character because the character is the product argument: somebody who goes inside a workshop before recommending it, writes every recommendation in a book anyone may read, and walks back two mornings later to check whether it actually helped. That is a vetting gate, an append-only ledger and a 48-hour clearing rule, which is a considerably duller sentence. ### Is this just a cute way of saying "ad network"? It is an ad network in the way a referee is a footballer. Desktop apps show each other's install cards inside their own app, at a moment their own code chooses, and settle through one ledger both parties cryptographically sign. The three things that make it not the thing that died in 2016 - no placement inside an installer, no payment on the install event, no partner-supplied creative - are implementation facts you can check in the SDK rather than promises. ### What is the second morning rule? An app is paid for a referred install only if that install is still there and being used forty-eight hours later. Not installed - used. If the person opened it once and deleted it, the money goes back to whoever spent it, automatically, and the app that recommended it earns nothing. ### What does it cost? A published floor price per cleared install: EUR 12-18 for utilities and consumer apps, EUR 20-30 for creator tools, EUR 35-50 for prosumer and B2B. The floor never rises and anyone can always buy at it. GHAN keeps 30 percent; the app that showed the card earns 70, or 84 percent of the value taken as credits. ### Do I have to buy installs to earn them? No. Serving and buying are independent. An app can show cards, accumulate credits and cash them out through Stripe Connect without ever running a campaign of its own.