QR Codes Last Forever, But the Services Behind Them May Not

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A printed QR code has no expiration date, but the hosted services, redirects, and accounts it depends on can disappear or change. A developer and nonprofit founder reviewed 14 digital business card and QR services, examining their free plan limits, permanence claims, and terms of service. The resulting dataset — publicly available on GitHub and archived on Zenodo — found that terms like 'free forever' and 'permanent' vary widely across providers. Key questions before printing a QR code include whether the destination address is long-term, what happens if a subscription lapses, and whether data can be exported. The author disclosed that their own service, GetQRcard, is included in the comparison and was subject to the same evaluation criteria as all other services reviewed.

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