4 ms·
My mistake 32k was the first I'd used and I downloaded a great deal of shareware at that time. I didn't realise it was dead by then.
by cmdrfred 10y ago
My mistake 32k was the first I'd used and I downloaded a great deal of shareware at that time. I didn't realise it was dead by then.
- mst 10y agoI started off with a 36k and then a 56k modem and remember shareware being significantly involved in my early uses of it (also napster). I think the problem is that, for us, we arrived in the age of shareware via said modems so that was normal to us ... and then those on here older than us started enough earlier that our entire experience was the tail end of theirs when it already "wasn't like it used to be" for them. (I'm 33, maybe that fact will shed some light)
- ghaff 10y agoShareware was originally very much part of BBS culture (or at least hobbyist PC culture) and was largely set against expensive retail box software that mostly let you, at best, try out limited demo versions. As the Internet/Web and open source merged into the PC world from the Unix world--and it became easier to legitimately trial retail software--shareware largely morphed into just another category of retail software that was sold online.