5 ms·

I'm so glad they wrote about piracy and made the points about how Not all software should be free. Honestly, I'll never understand that sense of entitlement peo

I'm so glad they wrote about piracy and made the points about how Not all software should be free. Honestly, I'll never understand that sense of entitlement people have. I was once in the same boat as the author, pirating everything under the sun. Then I got a job writing code too and I haven't pirated a single thing since. I don't sell software but I appreciate the work that goes into it and understand that these guys lose out even if I didn't have money to pay to begin with. The no money argument and the free marketing arguments are bunk. The poor will save to buy if there's no pirate copy and the majority of marketing you get from a pirated app is marketing that links to the pirate download, not the legit one! Excellent post!

wuster 15y ago
I've been wondering if independent software vendors might benefit from some humanizing of the sales effort. Instead of charging $2 for an app, how about framing it as "buy the developer a taco", or for $4 "buy the developer a grande latte". The amazing $10 app could be "buy the developer a roll of sushi". You get the idea. Psychologically, I find it much more satisfying to be rewarding friends & associates with more tangible things than some dollar amount. Does anyone know if this model has been attempted before?
- roel_v 15y ago
  Personally, I find it quite humiliating to have to (almost literally) beg for food just to be paid for work done, which in every single other aspect of life is considered perfectly normal. Plus, how much does it really help? There are so many people with 'donate' buttons on their website who don't get enough 'donations' each year to even eat a single meal.
- patio11 15y ago
  This is exactly the opposite of the pricing psychology ISVs benefit from. Good anchors for pricing are not cheap, disposable items but rather expensive, valuable economic inputs like "your fully loaded cost for $TIME." I know a dev or two with "buy me a beer" buttons. Anecdotally, one of those buttons plus $5 will buy you a beer.
- brc 15y ago
  It flips it around to begging and belittling the time spent. A far better proposition is just charging what you think it is worth and advertising the benefits to the buyer. Telling the buyer you're going to get a sushi roll doesn't assist them. Telling them they save x hours a week, or avoid situation y - now that's better marketing.
  - wuster 15y ago
    Thanks. I should have thought about the other angle of this. Mostly I was fascinated with the fun possibilities.
hxa7241 15y ago
Because the item is a copy, and (digital) copies actually do cost nothing. That is just the physical fact, and people will always have some underlying sense of it -- as they should. The idea that you should not be allowed to make copies, but must pay for them, is very unnatural. Humans are evolved to copy and share information -- that is the most effective behaviour. The problem is not people's inclinations, the problem is copyright/IP. You possibly can make some case that IP is a net positive system (although no-one seems to have found any evidence), but nevertheless, its essential structure/mechanism is intrinsically problematic.
- mattgreenrocks 15y ago
  Lots of ideas, and yet you completely miss the point. You're not even talking about the same thing: the parent talks about piracy from an ethical point of view. Meanwhile, you reply with the physical point of view, saying the item is an exact duplicate that cost nothing to produce. Representation doesn't mean a damn thing. It doesn't justify behavior.
  - dbingham 15y ago
    Anything digital is inherently valueless. There is no cost to copy it. In a perfectly free market, it would be completely valueless. It is only given value by our legal system of copyright laws. I say this as a software developer and one who is not libertarian in the least.
    - Aqua_Geek 15y ago
      > Anything digital is inherently valueless. There is no cost to copy it. Wouldn't books, then, only be "worth" the cost of the paper on which they're printed? How does making something digital automatically destroy any inherent value?
      - dbingham 15y ago
        Sorry, I meant price where I said value and now can't edit it. But look at it this way, for anything digital the supply is infinite. We currently have legal methods of restricting the supply and some attempts at software or digital methods of restricting it. But even so, the difficulty we've had stamping out illegal piracy is a testament to how artificial and fragile these methods are. With truly infinite supply, the price will always be zero. Why should I pay for something I can create copies of with 'cntrl+c' and 'cntrl+v' ? The only thing that leads me to pay for basically anything is that I can't simply recreate it on my own. The day 3D printers reach the versatility of Star Trek replicators is the day a price based market economy will collapse completely. With infinite supply, there's no need to pay for anything.

wuster 15y ago

I've been wondering if independent software vendors might benefit from some humanizing of the sales effort. Instead of charging $2 for an app, how about framing it as "buy the developer a taco", or for $4 "buy the developer a grande latte". The amazing $10 app could be "buy the developer a roll of sushi". You get the idea. Psychologically, I find it much more satisfying to be rewarding friends & associates with more tangible things than some dollar amount. Does anyone know if this model has been attempted before?

roel_v 15y ago
Personally, I find it quite humiliating to have to (almost literally) beg for food just to be paid for work done, which in every single other aspect of life is considered perfectly normal. Plus, how much does it really help? There are so many people with 'donate' buttons on their website who don't get enough 'donations' each year to even eat a single meal.
patio11 15y ago
This is exactly the opposite of the pricing psychology ISVs benefit from. Good anchors for pricing are not cheap, disposable items but rather expensive, valuable economic inputs like "your fully loaded cost for $TIME." I know a dev or two with "buy me a beer" buttons. Anecdotally, one of those buttons plus $5 will buy you a beer.
brc 15y ago
It flips it around to begging and belittling the time spent. A far better proposition is just charging what you think it is worth and advertising the benefits to the buyer. Telling the buyer you're going to get a sushi roll doesn't assist them. Telling them they save x hours a week, or avoid situation y - now that's better marketing.
- wuster 15y ago
  Thanks. I should have thought about the other angle of this. Mostly I was fascinated with the fun possibilities.

hxa7241 15y ago

Because the item is a copy, and (digital) copies actually do cost nothing. That is just the physical fact, and people will always have some underlying sense of it -- as they should. The idea that you should not be allowed to make copies, but must pay for them, is very unnatural. Humans are evolved to copy and share information -- that is the most effective behaviour. The problem is not people's inclinations, the problem is copyright/IP. You possibly can make some case that IP is a net positive system (although no-one seems to have found any evidence), but nevertheless, its essential structure/mechanism is intrinsically problematic.

mattgreenrocks 15y ago
Lots of ideas, and yet you completely miss the point. You're not even talking about the same thing: the parent talks about piracy from an ethical point of view. Meanwhile, you reply with the physical point of view, saying the item is an exact duplicate that cost nothing to produce. Representation doesn't mean a damn thing. It doesn't justify behavior.
- dbingham 15y ago
  Anything digital is inherently valueless. There is no cost to copy it. In a perfectly free market, it would be completely valueless. It is only given value by our legal system of copyright laws. I say this as a software developer and one who is not libertarian in the least.
  - Aqua_Geek 15y ago
    > Anything digital is inherently valueless. There is no cost to copy it. Wouldn't books, then, only be "worth" the cost of the paper on which they're printed? How does making something digital automatically destroy any inherent value?
    - dbingham 15y ago
      Sorry, I meant price where I said value and now can't edit it. But look at it this way, for anything digital the supply is infinite. We currently have legal methods of restricting the supply and some attempts at software or digital methods of restricting it. But even so, the difficulty we've had stamping out illegal piracy is a testament to how artificial and fragile these methods are. With truly infinite supply, the price will always be zero. Why should I pay for something I can create copies of with 'cntrl+c' and 'cntrl+v' ? The only thing that leads me to pay for basically anything is that I can't simply recreate it on my own. The day 3D printers reach the versatility of Star Trek replicators is the day a price based market economy will collapse completely. With infinite supply, there's no need to pay for anything.