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But then you'll have people creating new accounts every time the trial ends, instead of paying! The sweet spot is probably 24 hours. Too long for a fraudster to

But then you'll have people creating new accounts every time the trial ends, instead of paying! The sweet spot is probably 24 hours. Too long for a fraudster to wait around, and too short for people to bother making an account every day for pro fuctionality.

munificent 11y ago
> But then you'll have people creating new accounts every time the trial ends, instead of paying! These would be malicious users. Both words are significant here. People using the service just to check credit cards are malicious, but not users. Free users are users but not malicious. I think for most services, the set of actual malicious users—people who do want to use the service for its intended purpose, but don't want to support it—is fairly small.
- Namrog84 11y ago
  Yeah and if heavy users want to constantly deal with changing email addresses and moving accounts just to get out of it. Like you said is few. Let them be? It's likely they generate word of mouth and other value being invested enough to go thru the hassle.
  - Paul-ish 11y ago
    >Like you said is few. Let them be? It's likely they generate word of mouth and other value being invested enough to go thru the hassle. This sounds a lot like the arguments piracy apologists use. A lot like the arguments people looking for free web design use. I am very skeptical whenever anyone asks for anything to them for free now because it will somehow (nebulously) come back to me later in a good way.
    - crazypyro 11y ago
      I think he's just thinking about it practically. Its potentially not worth your time and effort as a business owner to go after that tiny minority who abuse the free trials.
- cwilkes 11y ago
  Every single dev group I've worked with has been too cheap (as individuals) to pony up for things $50-100 for jet brains software (pycharm and rubymine) and instead waste hours thinking up ways to change a license file or register with a different email. I would never sell a product to devs. They don't know how to value their time. Which is odd considering we're in the business of automating other processes.

munificent 11y ago

> But then you'll have people creating new accounts every time the trial ends, instead of paying! These would be malicious users. Both words are significant here. People using the service just to check credit cards are malicious, but not users. Free users are users but not malicious. I think for most services, the set of actual malicious users—people who do want to use the service for its intended purpose, but don't want to support it—is fairly small.

Namrog84 11y ago
Yeah and if heavy users want to constantly deal with changing email addresses and moving accounts just to get out of it. Like you said is few. Let them be? It's likely they generate word of mouth and other value being invested enough to go thru the hassle.
- Paul-ish 11y ago
  >Like you said is few. Let them be? It's likely they generate word of mouth and other value being invested enough to go thru the hassle. This sounds a lot like the arguments piracy apologists use. A lot like the arguments people looking for free web design use. I am very skeptical whenever anyone asks for anything to them for free now because it will somehow (nebulously) come back to me later in a good way.
  - crazypyro 11y ago
    I think he's just thinking about it practically. Its potentially not worth your time and effort as a business owner to go after that tiny minority who abuse the free trials.
cwilkes 11y ago
Every single dev group I've worked with has been too cheap (as individuals) to pony up for things $50-100 for jet brains software (pycharm and rubymine) and instead waste hours thinking up ways to change a license file or register with a different email. I would never sell a product to devs. They don't know how to value their time. Which is odd considering we're in the business of automating other processes.