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I’ve worked to prevent piracy of a SaaS software for a niche industry. When we put the first anti piracy solution in place during the winter of 2020 they tripl
by godzillabrennus 4y ago
I’ve worked to prevent piracy of a SaaS software for a niche industry.
When we put the first anti piracy solution in place during the winter of 2020 they tripled the number of subscribers within a week.
Some might argue this was due to Covid lockdowns but this was months after most businesses had already been locked down and the timing directly coincided with the implementation. Support was inundated with requests to disable the new feature that had prevented piracy.
Subscriptions have kept growing nicely.
On the other hand, I got started in software development as a kid by learning about how to use hex editors to implement hacks in games. The warez scene was big in those days.
Not sure what the right answer is to addressing piracy. I’m sure it helps kids and those in developing countries get into the industry but if people don’t pay for something it’ll no longer be offered.
- renewiltord 4y agoHow was the SaaS product pirated? I've always used that to refer to a delivery model where the software is centrally hosted. Was it that people were sharing their logins?
- hultner 4y agoI’ve seen my fair share of web-apps where the subscription check is entirely client side JS and a simple self MITM is enough to bypass payments. Not saying this is the case in this particular instance but it’s definitely something I’ve seen more then once. I’ve brought it up as an issue with some companies but I’m usually met with a shrug and a response in the realms of “our users wouldn’t know how to do that”. I’ve even seen car charging poles with entirely client side JS to validate account/login to charge for the electricity. I too have grown up, playing games with a hex editor in one hand and tcpdump in another so I have a habit of poking around to see how stuffs made.
- skrebbel 4y agoI assume it was locally hosted with some register/licensing thing. Eg Photoshop and IntelliJ are effectively SaaS but run on your computer.
- account42 3y agoOnly if you twist the definition of SaaS into meaninglessness.
- matheusmoreira 4y agoI thought the same thing. If it's a client-side solution, it's only a matter of time before it's cracked again.
- galaxytachyon 4y agoAn argument is that those who would pirate aren't going to pay regardless. I think a software for a niche industry has a lot less flexibility for the customer to do that than a piece of entertainment like game or movie. Piracy definitely has a negative effect on sale. But whether that effect is worth the effort to implement DRM solutions or not is a different issue.
- wwweston 4y agoSome of those who would pirate aren't going to pay regardless. This is unremarkable economically -- we're all used to the ideas of price points and elasticity. Every market for a good or service will segment into people whose demand is inelastic, people who register at somewhat elastic levels of demand / substitutability, and people whose demand is very elastic and substitutable. Piracy & other forms of uncompensated acquisition just invite us to think about segments where the price point is vanishing. DRM probably works best in situations where it's also paired with convenience and there are modest to high levels of inelastic demand (and in the realm of low-to-modest levels of inelasticity, convenience might be enough even w/o DRM) The other fact about piracy that's probably worth considering is that in some cases it can produce future sales. Not all people have an agreeable desire to contribute economically and understand that piracy means they haven't compensated the provider, which threatens their incentive/ability to provide more, but some do, and will eventually buy in when they're less price sensitive or more convinced of the value in a work by experience with it. (This last point, incidentally, is one reason why I think Spotify's narrative of having saved the industry from piracy is self-serving and wrong to the point it may even have done more damage than the piracy it replaced via convenience for many. Someone engaging in music piracy knows they aren't contributing to a musician economically but may well decide to make legit purchases once they're a fan with a relationship to the artist's work. Someone using Spotify is encouraged to believe they're engaged in a legitimate economic exchange with the artist and is less likely to feel a need for later fan buy-in... when in fact the economics of platforms are practically indistinguishable from piracy for many artists.)
- causality0 4y agoSaaS software is not the same type of product as entertainment media.
- amanaplanacanal 4y agoI would guess that a lot of the folks who suddenly needed licenses might not have ever used your software if they hadn’t pirated it first. In other words the piracy acted as marketing that eventually converted to sales. Hard to know for sure.
- LorenPechtel 4y agoNiche industry I'm not surprised. The cost per seat is generally quite high and thus a strong incentive for businesses to use more seats than they have licenses for.
- mensetmanusman 4y agoMaybe the answer is free versions that are fully featured and then become disabled after a few months (human usage hours) depending on utilization.