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The answer is usually "They'll upsell me for business/commercial/corporate use". Similar to what happened with Postman (they started nagging you to sign in and

The answer is usually "They'll upsell me for business/commercial/corporate use". Similar to what happened with Postman (they started nagging you to sign in and sync your accounts). IMO that's totally OK. I'm glad people are building stuff like this and if it requires an account to sign up, I am happy to do that. > why I'm not allowed to use it without signing up? I want to politely raise this question – is it not rude to have expectations for something you didn't build and be entitled that it to be offered to you for free? You're more than welcome to ignore it and find dozens of terminal emulators out there.

stanpinte 5y ago
+1
mrtksn 5y ago
> is it not rude to have expectations for something you didn't build and be entitled that it to be offered to you for free Well, Fig or any other free to use software wasn't commissioned upon my request therefore I don't think that I owe anyone anything. Engagement is worth quite a lot thise days, they earned my engagement by offering me something but did not disclose the requirements to use their product upfront so I ended up not benefiting from the product. Think of this, you are walking down the street and someone really nice offers you a free meal. You accept, sit on the table and the food arrives but to let you eat the food they ask you for your contact details and a copy of you key for your home. You say, no thanks, would rather pay and they say no, it's only free meal in this restaurant. I'm not sure I will accept it and assume that they will upsell me a boiler. Okay, there's probably nothing nefarious but they stole my time and attention without giving me anything back. The restaurant shouldn't have advertised free meals but meals for key and contact details. I would have had gladly skip the offer, so they can concentrate on those who really need the meal and are willing to fulfil the request of the restaurant.
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  > You accept, sit on the table and the food arrives but to let you eat the food they ask you for your contact details address and a copy of you key for your home. You say, no thanks, would rather pay and they say no, it's only free meal in this restaurant. The correct analogy would be if you ate the meal for free but didn't want to provide your contact information so they can upsell their catering services to your business in the future. All they want is a contact information to sell you stuff in the future for not paying today. You can use a anonymous email address and hide your identity. But, since this is a Terminal emulator, there is always a risk of privacy. This is all pretty obvious. The argument really is "I want to have this thing for free, but I don't want to give anything back including contact details to further contact me". Well, then how do you suggest a good business plan for building a commercial product if not having some ability to contact your users?
  - mrtksn 5y ago
    I hadn't any meals. The autocomplete app doesn't work without my e-mail. The contact details requirements are mentioned for the first time after install and just before start using the software, this creates a pressure to give my details. Probably that's the idea anyway(a dark pattern). This makes me trust them even less.
    - systemvoltage 5y ago
      Ehh, I guess if this is a launch, give them a benefit of the doubt, hope they read your feedback.
      - mrtksn 5y ago
        See, we are no longer in the age of nerds making great software and giving it away for free. We are in the age of high profit software, be it through sales of product(x$ to use y), sales of extra features (x is free but this specific feature is y$), sales of services(x is free and your life can get easier if you use it with y for only z$/month), land grab(x is free for you because it's paid by y, who hopes to make money later somehow), data grab(x is free for you because we use the data collected here to build y), sales of access to people(x is free but we let other people reach you) or straight up criminals(you pay us x$ or y happens to you). We can no longer talk about thankless customers of free products. There's even no longer free text on the internet, people write stuff only to show ads or influence your decisions(political or consumerist). The customer must understand how they are paying for it. To give someone the benefit of doubt, they need an explanation for it. Clearly, contact details are irrelevant for the apps' primary function. They can ask for a license after a trail, I guess(free license obtained by signing up). They can let you use the app and offer you extra functionality(like syncing history between devices) through an online account. It is not O.K. to make people install your app and only then require this one thing, irrelevant to apps functionality, to let you use the app. That's a known dark pattern.

stanpinte 5y ago

mrtksn 5y ago

> is it not rude to have expectations for something you didn't build and be entitled that it to be offered to you for free Well, Fig or any other free to use software wasn't commissioned upon my request therefore I don't think that I owe anyone anything. Engagement is worth quite a lot thise days, they earned my engagement by offering me something but did not disclose the requirements to use their product upfront so I ended up not benefiting from the product. Think of this, you are walking down the street and someone really nice offers you a free meal. You accept, sit on the table and the food arrives but to let you eat the food they ask you for your contact details and a copy of you key for your home. You say, no thanks, would rather pay and they say no, it's only free meal in this restaurant. I'm not sure I will accept it and assume that they will upsell me a boiler. Okay, there's probably nothing nefarious but they stole my time and attention without giving me anything back. The restaurant shouldn't have advertised free meals but meals for key and contact details. I would have had gladly skip the offer, so they can concentrate on those who really need the meal and are willing to fulfil the request of the restaurant.

systemvoltage 5y ago
> You accept, sit on the table and the food arrives but to let you eat the food they ask you for your contact details address and a copy of you key for your home. You say, no thanks, would rather pay and they say no, it's only free meal in this restaurant. The correct analogy would be if you ate the meal for free but didn't want to provide your contact information so they can upsell their catering services to your business in the future. All they want is a contact information to sell you stuff in the future for not paying today. You can use a anonymous email address and hide your identity. But, since this is a Terminal emulator, there is always a risk of privacy. This is all pretty obvious. The argument really is "I want to have this thing for free, but I don't want to give anything back including contact details to further contact me". Well, then how do you suggest a good business plan for building a commercial product if not having some ability to contact your users?
- mrtksn 5y ago
  I hadn't any meals. The autocomplete app doesn't work without my e-mail. The contact details requirements are mentioned for the first time after install and just before start using the software, this creates a pressure to give my details. Probably that's the idea anyway(a dark pattern). This makes me trust them even less.
  - systemvoltage 5y ago
    Ehh, I guess if this is a launch, give them a benefit of the doubt, hope they read your feedback.
    - mrtksn 5y ago
      See, we are no longer in the age of nerds making great software and giving it away for free. We are in the age of high profit software, be it through sales of product(x$ to use y), sales of extra features (x is free but this specific feature is y$), sales of services(x is free and your life can get easier if you use it with y for only z$/month), land grab(x is free for you because it's paid by y, who hopes to make money later somehow), data grab(x is free for you because we use the data collected here to build y), sales of access to people(x is free but we let other people reach you) or straight up criminals(you pay us x$ or y happens to you). We can no longer talk about thankless customers of free products. There's even no longer free text on the internet, people write stuff only to show ads or influence your decisions(political or consumerist). The customer must understand how they are paying for it. To give someone the benefit of doubt, they need an explanation for it. Clearly, contact details are irrelevant for the apps' primary function. They can ask for a license after a trail, I guess(free license obtained by signing up). They can let you use the app and offer you extra functionality(like syncing history between devices) through an online account. It is not O.K. to make people install your app and only then require this one thing, irrelevant to apps functionality, to let you use the app. That's a known dark pattern.