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Guy Asks For Software Crack, Creator Provides Free App Instead
- DavidBishop 15y agoAwesome. The guy was a decent human being, but more than likely made 20, 30, 100 times back his purchase in goodwill. Brilliant.
- colinprince 15y agoThis is a common problem, people who are unable or unwilling to sign up to iTunes with a credit card. Potential service idea: hook these people up with gifted apps that they can pay for some other way? Maybe payment in kind?
- eli 15y agoYou don't need a credit/debit card. At least around me, iTunes gift cards can be purchased for cash at pretty much any supermarket or pharmacy or convenience store.
- albemuth 15y ago... in the US
- bauchidgw 15y ago... in Austria
- p4bl0 15y ago... in France and Netherland too.
- bmunro 15y agoAustralia too
- robotresearcher 15y agoand Canada
- tftfmacedo 15y agoand Spain
- JCB_K 15y agoor on the internets
- simonhamp 15y agoLesson here: be human. It seems the response capitalism (among other things) has taught us is a stance of defensiveness, even abusive. But this guy dug deep and figured what the heck! Lost a bit of money and made someone happy. And it's not even Christmas
- nagrom 15y agoAnd the point is he didn't lose money. Other people bought the app who wouldn't, it seems, off the back of his generous gesture. Note that this certainly would not work for a large company - it only works for a (very) small-scale outfit.
- mekoka 15y agoI believe it could and already does work for large companies, but differently. It works so well that we take a lot of it for granted. Look around you, do you know of any big company that came along, offered something with such seemingly good intentions that their offering made the competition look like crooks? I'm sure we could come up with a few examples. Off the top of my head: - I'm reminded of the days when hotmail would delete my emails without my consent, because I was going beyond the 2mb they were giving me. While they were trying to get me to pay for 200mb, gmail appeared out of nowhere with a red cape and saved me with a free 1Gig that quickly turned into 2Gigs. How could I not look at Google like a superhero and at Microsoft like the villain? - Similarly, while I visited France a few years ago, I saw that they had this system called the Freebox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_(ISP) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_(ISP), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebox), that literally revolutionized telecom in a country otherwise very conservative when it comes to technology. Free's offering was so compelling that it created a real disturbance that dramatically affected market pricing (tv, telephone, internet). Even now, in North America we have to look hard to find equivalent pricing and I'm not even sure we can come close. At the time it started the Freebox, Free came like a liberator and in the process racked up subscribers and made billions.
- nagrom 15y ago
- econner 15y agoThis is awesome. Especially because now his app is going to get tons of attention for his good attitude with this post being #2 on Hacker News. Being generous pays off in the end :-).
- Shengster 15y agoFine article, but what's up with the hate against Stella Artois?
- nagrom 15y agoIt depends where you hail from. Brits and Americans will drink it because they have a HUGE advertising budget. The Japanese won't drink it because imported beer is hellishly expensive and Asahi isn't that bad. The French won't drink it, because wine is much cheaper and much better almost everywhere. Germans won't drink it, because if you want something better then there's umpteen different domestic beers that are fresher, tastier or sharper. Especially Flensburger. The Czechs won't drink it because they more or less invented clean, refreshing beers and their domestic beers are the only foreign beers that Germans will admit to being fantastic. Especially Pilsner Urquell. Belgians won't drink it, because they only like beer that's made from raspberries, blueberries or pansies. I don't know why. Americans or Brits who don't drink it suffer from 'intensely educated beer drinker' syndrome - sort of a "now you've seen how big the world is, how can you make do with this?" aspect. American and British small breweries are fantastic, alas no huge marketing budget... This leaves the vast majority of the beer-drinking market to make Stella Artois money hand-over-fist and puzzled at the rest of the world's intolerance. Truth is, it's not that bad - it's just that there are things that taste so much better without the stigma of a huge multi-national faceless corporation ;-) TL;DR - Something like Windows vs. the rest of the world. The popular choice will always be sneered at by connoisseurs eager to distinguish themselves as educated.
- seabee 15y agoAs a very uneducated beer-drinker I hated Stella with a passion. (Later I discovered I just hate lagers in general.) I think your point is wrong in the general case, and that it is hated for its quality rather than its popularity. But there are two important issues: 1) If you are not a discerning consumer of beer, you will follow the path of least resistance. Stella is well-advertised, easy to buy and widespread, so you're more likely to choose it over other (probably unknown) beers. That's what makes it popular. 2) More people are aware of the popular choice (by definition), more will have tried it than a less-popular beer, it will be mentioned more often, and will be sneered at more often. The frequency at which it is sneered at is a consequence of its popularity rather than caused by it.
- veyron 15y agoI hate to make a comment like this, but it should be noted that this was a side project of his. I would speculate that he would have a different reaction if it were his bread and butter. Note: original forum post at http://xsellize.com/topic/137904-the-f-ing-word-of-the-day/ http://xsellize.com/topic/137904-the-f-ing-word-of-the-day/
- danielharan 15y agoIf this is your bread and butter, you might want to take note of the fact that his was an effective tactic. Freaking out probably wouldn't have helped.
- erikb 15y agoI absolutely agree. It's just that I think he meant that normally, when someone feels threatened about something that might really hurt him, it will be quite hard for him to react smartly and calmly and much more likely that he would freak out.
- gotham 15y agoI met this guy at Startup Weekend in Manhattan last fall. His "Sausage Status" pitch was hilarious. He started off by running and jumping onto the stage. A very spontaneous individual.
- cmb320 15y agoI can't believe this simple, kind of stupid thing I did has gotten so much attention. I also can't believe so many people hate Stella. It's not the greatest beer I've ever had, but it's no bud light.
- mcrider 15y agoEuropeans think its sewer water, and you have to wear (or be) a wife beater to drink it. North American's think its gold -- At least here in Vancouver, its usually the most expensive thing at the bar and people only buy it if they're really treating themselves. I think it tastes fine (not great, but definitely not bad).
- eru 15y agoI never had it. But I wonder why someone would want a filtered beer, when there's extra-cloudy stuff available.
- redthrowaway 15y agoWhen you say "extra-cloudy", I picture Hefeweizen, and I think that answers your question quite nicely.
- eru 15y agoI've only seen the clouds in Hefeweizen. But you can leave the yeast in in any beer.
- run4yourlives 15y agoI'm in Vancouver too... Stella is the beer that people who drank Corona when they were 19 drink when they are 25. In other words, it isn't beer. (Especially here in Vancouver where there are so many outstanding small breweries that everyone should recognize good beer)
- masklinn 15y ago> Europeans think its sewer water That's not completely true, that would be the 1667 ("the kro") and other similar french non-beers. Stella is simply the base beer in Flanders (the base beer in Wallonia being Jupiler). Not good by any means, but still drinkable.
- chrislomax 15y agoAlthough I find this fantastic, I also find it quite odd? I think his attitude is fantastic for someone who is having their apps ripped off, I find it strangely odd that in the comments people think this is the attitude that developers are meant to take when their work is ripped off, humbled. I purchase all apps from the app store, I had Cydia but I took the jail break off my phone. I think the 59p - £3 for an app is nothing for all the hard work that has gone in and I am more than happy to make the purchase. I think the whole episode has been strangely rewarding for him but again I think it makes people think that all developers should have this attitude. I think it's funny that in the comments that someone said that developers should treat all consumers with positive and constructive humbleness. I'm sorry but the meaning of "Consumer" is "A person who purchases goods and services for personal use". There is a keyword here, "Purchase". Kudos to the guy for some great PR but I really hope that all "consumers" don't get this mentality when trying to rip off apps
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- Xuzz 15y agoI know this isn't the main point, but Cydia does not offe r pirated apps. Most of the things available in Cydia are independant modifications to the system or a set of standard *nix utilities. Sure, a jailbreak makes piracy possible, but it's not about that. Cydia can't prevent piracy on a jailbroken device, but it does provide strong warnings against it (and, from the best statistics we have, people listen: less than half of the jailbreak users have pirated an app.)
- britta 15y agoI'd note that jailbreaking and Cydia are not about piracy or encouraging piracy (they're about much more - tons of people even buy jailbreak-only tweaks/themes/etc. from the Cydia Store). Some percentage of people do find ways to get pirated apps after jailbreaking, but those people have to go out and install additional sources/tools beyond the default Cydia install. The Cydia founder talked about app piracy in a talk a while ago: http://www.tuaw.com/2010/04/13/360idev-saurik-on-the-mobile-application-market/ http://www.tuaw.com/2010/04/13/360idev-saurik-on-the-mobile-... - it fits in: "Saurik said that many of the pirates he's dealt with are just kids, no more than teenagers, very smart but with not much solid life experience to speak of. And he said that like children, they were both vengeful (they will give bad reviews and attack developers who attack them), and easily won over -- sometimes, by just sending a nice email, he was able to get a former pirate to cooperate with him or even '...come over to the light side.'" "The best solution to piracy, he said, was to convert the pirates -- don't disable their app or attack them (because likely, they will simply blame the app rather than learn a lesson), but instead inform them that they're breaking the rules, and give them an easy way to do things right. One app Saurik described simply put a one-time notice in the app that the user was using a pirated version, and saw sales spike when the notice went out."
- cmb320 15y agoThis is the google alert that started it all: http://imgur.com/wovz3 http://imgur.com/wovz3
- EGreg 15y agoFor a second, I thought that meant the author made the app open source :)
- leon_ 15y agoNah, that would be too much for such a small PR stunt.
- antihero 15y ago$8 for a Stella? Ouch. That said, I paid £4.30 for a Carlsberg Export the other day. Goddamnit Islington Academy :/ And don't knock Stella, it's one of the best of the "mainstream" lagers.
- veyron 15y agoitd be more like 5.60 (after apple takes its cut)
- omouse 15y agoAlternative: release the source under the GNU GPL or some other open source license. No such thing as piracy then ;)
- allwein 15y agoI'd argue that violating the GPL is a form of piracy.
- skrebbel 15y agothread tl;dr: boring post, let's discuss beer instead.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]