4 ms·

It's a lot better than most, that's for sure. But I still don't understand why they have all these arbitrary usage rules like the maximum of three websites. I l

It's a lot better than most, that's for sure. But I still don't understand why they have all these arbitrary usage rules like the maximum of three websites. I look at fonts like tools. As a dev who also does design I should be able to buy it once and have it available as a tool at my disposal.

mytailorisrich 4y ago
It's classic market segmentation. They'll be happy to let use the fonts for whatever you want but you'll have to pay more.
- chihuahua 4y ago
  Market segmentation makes sense in principle. If Joes Bait & Tackle shop wants to use your font, it makes sense that Joe should pay less than Google. Unfortunately, for an intangible digital thing like a web font, coming up with a payment scheme leads to all kinds of absurdities. That said, I think once you get to pre-paid expiring page views, that's a sign that we've entered the realm of insanity.
jacobr1 4y ago
For any use case? You join a F500 company and now they can use it? What if you leave the company. It makes sense if you are freelancer and can use it with an arbitrary number of clients. But then does it transfer when those clients sites are bought/sold/merged/rebuilt ? The problem is that the use isn't restricted to you as a designer, but is distributed by your clients. That makes it different than a hammer, or an IDE.
- manuelmoreale 4y ago
  I think yours are good points and I'd be happy to figure out ways to work around those but honestly, those sound more sensible problems to solve than what we have now where we have sites like MyFonts that sell you fonts with pre-paid page views that expire after a certain date. Like, what the hell...
pwinnski 4y ago
I suspect, and I'm just guessing here, that they're fine with people like us using their fonts and maybe tip-toeing over whatever lines they've set, but they don't want, say, Coca-Cola using their typeface everywhere without forking over big bucks. Were I a typeface designer, I'd like to think I'd say to myself, Self, what are the odds? Just charge $20 and rely on human decency. But I'm not a typeface designer, and my guess is that people who have tried that have found that human decency is thin on the ground among the subset of people who care about using typefaces on websites. But I'm just guessing.
- bruce511 4y ago
  Human decency is not a legal construct. Licensing terms say you pay this, you get that. If you sell a font for $20 then you se it for $20,regardless of who or what buys it. Companies are under no obligation to pay more than what you are asking for. If you want more, then license it the way you want.
  - pwinnski 4y ago
    Right, so, this is why we can't have nice things. For a more gracious understanding of my comment, consider that I meant human decency might compel someone to honor the terms of the license, rather than abuse or ignore them. Relying solely on human decency would mean no auditing, no installed spyware, etc. That so few companies go this route suggests that despite having clear licenses, the humans involved aren't practicing decency enough to pay the bills.
    - bruce511 4y ago
      In that context, yes, I agree, you can't rely on human decency, you (often) need mechanisms in place to restrict use. Apologies for misunderstanding your post. I read it in the context of "companies should offed to pay more because they can afford it." Which is not what you said. Of course this isn't a company thing. (companies are often very pro-active about licensing.) Humans on the other hand are very good at ignoring the rules - just read pretty much any thread on Netflix.
bluescrn 4y ago
They do it because they can. There's not a lot of people creating high-quality fonts. If you've ever tried looking for free fonts, it quickly becomes clear that the quality is often lacking (inconsistency, missing glyphs, poor spacing/kerning). And then you find that it's not even free anyway, just 'free for non-commercial use'. We'd see similar restrictions on licensing for other 'tools' (compilers, maybe?!), if there wasn't so much competition including open-source options.

mytailorisrich 4y ago

It's classic market segmentation. They'll be happy to let use the fonts for whatever you want but you'll have to pay more.

chihuahua 4y ago
Market segmentation makes sense in principle. If Joes Bait & Tackle shop wants to use your font, it makes sense that Joe should pay less than Google. Unfortunately, for an intangible digital thing like a web font, coming up with a payment scheme leads to all kinds of absurdities. That said, I think once you get to pre-paid expiring page views, that's a sign that we've entered the realm of insanity.

jacobr1 4y ago

For any use case? You join a F500 company and now they can use it? What if you leave the company. It makes sense if you are freelancer and can use it with an arbitrary number of clients. But then does it transfer when those clients sites are bought/sold/merged/rebuilt ? The problem is that the use isn't restricted to you as a designer, but is distributed by your clients. That makes it different than a hammer, or an IDE.

manuelmoreale 4y ago
I think yours are good points and I'd be happy to figure out ways to work around those but honestly, those sound more sensible problems to solve than what we have now where we have sites like MyFonts that sell you fonts with pre-paid page views that expire after a certain date. Like, what the hell...

pwinnski 4y ago

I suspect, and I'm just guessing here, that they're fine with people like us using their fonts and maybe tip-toeing over whatever lines they've set, but they don't want, say, Coca-Cola using their typeface everywhere without forking over big bucks. Were I a typeface designer, I'd like to think I'd say to myself, Self, what are the odds? Just charge $20 and rely on human decency. But I'm not a typeface designer, and my guess is that people who have tried that have found that human decency is thin on the ground among the subset of people who care about using typefaces on websites. But I'm just guessing.

bruce511 4y ago
Human decency is not a legal construct. Licensing terms say you pay this, you get that. If you sell a font for $20 then you se it for $20,regardless of who or what buys it. Companies are under no obligation to pay more than what you are asking for. If you want more, then license it the way you want.
- pwinnski 4y ago
  Right, so, this is why we can't have nice things. For a more gracious understanding of my comment, consider that I meant human decency might compel someone to honor the terms of the license, rather than abuse or ignore them. Relying solely on human decency would mean no auditing, no installed spyware, etc. That so few companies go this route suggests that despite having clear licenses, the humans involved aren't practicing decency enough to pay the bills.
  - bruce511 4y ago
    In that context, yes, I agree, you can't rely on human decency, you (often) need mechanisms in place to restrict use. Apologies for misunderstanding your post. I read it in the context of "companies should offed to pay more because they can afford it." Which is not what you said. Of course this isn't a company thing. (companies are often very pro-active about licensing.) Humans on the other hand are very good at ignoring the rules - just read pretty much any thread on Netflix.

bluescrn 4y ago

They do it because they can. There's not a lot of people creating high-quality fonts. If you've ever tried looking for free fonts, it quickly becomes clear that the quality is often lacking (inconsistency, missing glyphs, poor spacing/kerning). And then you find that it's not even free anyway, just 'free for non-commercial use'. We'd see similar restrictions on licensing for other 'tools' (compilers, maybe?!), if there wasn't so much competition including open-source options.