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Consider it free training, education, and marketing rather than a lost sale. It's literally the same reason most companies give students essentially fire sale
by horsawlarway 4y ago
Consider it free training, education, and marketing rather than a lost sale.
It's literally the same reason most companies give students essentially fire sale discounts (often just free) versions of their software.
They're probably pirating it because they aren't deriving much if any revenue from using it yet (it's either for personal use, they're learning a new tool, or they have no money). But having that person familiar with your software and trained on it means that if they reach a spot where they're using it profitably for business - it's basically a guaranteed sale.
- lb1lf 4y agoThis was how I got a licence for the Protel (Now Altium) PCB design software when back in university; the cracked version doing the rounds on campus was rather prone to crashing, so eventually I figured I had nothing to lose, called up the distributor and asked them if they did student discounts, as buying a full licence was definitely out of the question, but so was using the, uh, evaluation version with its stability issues. "Sure thing, how many do you need?" When I hesitantly reminded him we hadn't discussed prices yet, I was told it was free as they really wanted to snare us in as users before we wound up in paid work where we'd need to be productive employees fast. I have since had three employers buy full licenses and support deals. Good call by Protel back then.