4 ms·

Honestly, with the exception of a few things work pays for (and I don't need outside of work -- looking at you outlook calendar), I have no need for any softwar

Honestly, with the exception of a few things work pays for (and I don't need outside of work -- looking at you outlook calendar), I have no need for any software that isn't (legally) freely available. If I owned a mac myself, I would consider buying a copy of omnigraffle, but, again, I don't ever have use cases for it outside of work... In fact, when I have bought software in the past, I have ended up pretty disappointed with it. Most recently, I was having hard drive issues (fat fingered a partition delete on the wrong drive). At a friends suggestion I bought eazeus to recover it. This $50 purchase was a giant waste of money, and did nothing to fix it. Later another friend pointed me at a free tool (testdisk) that did fix it. This seems to be the common experience for me -- pay software is way over hyped and under performing. Does this ring true for anyone else? Is there some magic software out there that is worth the money in personal life any more? Aside: exception to all of the above is video games. I have no problem buying the occasional game.

shin_lao 16y ago
There's a couple of software I'm happy to pay for, sound software, utilities, etc. If I see a software I like, I pay for it if I have to. I find that perfectly acceptable (eg to pay for software I use). Software is expensive to make.
- sophacles 16y ago
  I too have no problem paying for software I use. I just prefer to use no-charge software, as I rarely find for-money software that is better than the no-charge equivalent. If it is not better, why would I pay for no-benefit?
yozhik 16y ago
I have felt this way for a long time: In general, the more you pay for software, the worse it is (this is why anything with the word 'Enterprise' in the title frightens me). Note: I don't play many games, so this may not apply to them.
- bphogan 16y ago
  I know I'm in the minority here, but Photoshop is worth every penny to me. I don't upgrade to every version (I usually skip every other one) but I don't steal it, and I certainly don't find GIMP to be an honest substitute. If you dabble in graphics, or are making things for the web, it's fine. If you do some of the things I do, GIMP just doesn't have the workflow or the features yet. I really don't want to turn this into a holy war, but I have found Photoshop to be an exception to the "the more you pay the worse it is" argument. As a general rule, though, I agree - most everything I use is open-source.
  - sliverstorm 16y ago
    Non-linear video editing is even more so, I feel. I do not do a whole lot of it, but I've discovered that there really is no halfway decent free option (besides iMovie, but that's only 'free' if you bought a mac, and it's incredibly weak)
    - _delirium 16y ago
      I don't really do video editing myself, but depending on what level of complexity you need, some of my friends/acquaintances use one or more of: PiTiVi, Kdenlive, LiVES, and Cinerella. Of those, Cinerella is probably the most 'serious' (and also has the highest learning curve).
sliverstorm 16y ago
It is true, there is a lot of throwaway software out there. Things are complicated even more when the free stuff is better than the paid stuff (Imgburn anyone?) Just about the only miscellaneous 3rd party software I have paid for in recent memory was mIRC, because no other IRC client for Windows ever satisfied me and I found a discount worth $10. Essentially, there is no little 'killer app' I have found that just magically fills my computer world with unicorns and rainbows, or frankly was even worth using. The real pillars of software though- Photoshop, Matlab, Orcad, and so on- accept no substitutes (well, except for possibly their direct competitors). Maybe it's a result of the sky-high pricing, but they generally really are good (and even if they aren't perfect, they are still the best)
- mirkules 16y ago
  You are right about Photoshop, but I would argue that Octave is an acceptable, free, and Matlab-compatible substitute for Matlab. I did my entire Masters degree in Octave -- it was good enough for me. (The one thing I know Matlab supports that Octave doesn't is a Matlab-to-C compiler)

shin_lao 16y ago

There's a couple of software I'm happy to pay for, sound software, utilities, etc. If I see a software I like, I pay for it if I have to. I find that perfectly acceptable (eg to pay for software I use). Software is expensive to make.

sophacles 16y ago
I too have no problem paying for software I use. I just prefer to use no-charge software, as I rarely find for-money software that is better than the no-charge equivalent. If it is not better, why would I pay for no-benefit?

yozhik 16y ago

I have felt this way for a long time: In general, the more you pay for software, the worse it is (this is why anything with the word 'Enterprise' in the title frightens me). Note: I don't play many games, so this may not apply to them.

bphogan 16y ago
I know I'm in the minority here, but Photoshop is worth every penny to me. I don't upgrade to every version (I usually skip every other one) but I don't steal it, and I certainly don't find GIMP to be an honest substitute. If you dabble in graphics, or are making things for the web, it's fine. If you do some of the things I do, GIMP just doesn't have the workflow or the features yet. I really don't want to turn this into a holy war, but I have found Photoshop to be an exception to the "the more you pay the worse it is" argument. As a general rule, though, I agree - most everything I use is open-source.
- sliverstorm 16y ago
  Non-linear video editing is even more so, I feel. I do not do a whole lot of it, but I've discovered that there really is no halfway decent free option (besides iMovie, but that's only 'free' if you bought a mac, and it's incredibly weak)
  - _delirium 16y ago
    I don't really do video editing myself, but depending on what level of complexity you need, some of my friends/acquaintances use one or more of: PiTiVi, Kdenlive, LiVES, and Cinerella. Of those, Cinerella is probably the most 'serious' (and also has the highest learning curve).

sliverstorm 16y ago

It is true, there is a lot of throwaway software out there. Things are complicated even more when the free stuff is better than the paid stuff (Imgburn anyone?) Just about the only miscellaneous 3rd party software I have paid for in recent memory was mIRC, because no other IRC client for Windows ever satisfied me and I found a discount worth $10. Essentially, there is no little 'killer app' I have found that just magically fills my computer world with unicorns and rainbows, or frankly was even worth using. The real pillars of software though- Photoshop, Matlab, Orcad, and so on- accept no substitutes (well, except for possibly their direct competitors). Maybe it's a result of the sky-high pricing, but they generally really are good (and even if they aren't perfect, they are still the best)

mirkules 16y ago
You are right about Photoshop, but I would argue that Octave is an acceptable, free, and Matlab-compatible substitute for Matlab. I did my entire Masters degree in Octave -- it was good enough for me. (The one thing I know Matlab supports that Octave doesn't is a Matlab-to-C compiler)