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Many of us probably actually discovered what we wanted to do for a living by being able to use all sorts of software that was way more expensive than we could a

by cronix 3y ago

Many of us probably actually discovered what we wanted to do for a living by being able to use all sorts of software that was way more expensive than we could afford as a teen, which eventually led to buying the software. I am thoroughly against pirating things you are making money off of, but more lenient on personal use/exploration/learning. If there was something akin to a public library full of the worlds commercial software for people to discover, explore and play with, I would have done that as that's where I was getting most of the books from that I was using to learn all of this complex software, like the $18,000 Alias|Wavefront 3D software, back then.

cjbgkagh 3y ago
I totally get it, it’s a market segmentation problem where pirated software serves the bottom end of the market. If companies officially offered such discount prices then they’d be pressured by their regular customers for the same price. Segmenting based on willing to risk pirate software is a convenient workaround. Personally I’m still clinging on to old versions of perpetually licensed software. It makes little sense for me to pay a yearly subscription for something I use a few days a year. I’d much rather a day rate or hourly as I do a wide variety of things but only one thing at a time.
FormFollowsFunc 3y ago
Some companies provide free non-commercial versions for learning e.g. Houdini and Nuke. I wish more companies would do it.
- zamnos 3y ago
  Hell, Davinci gives away their video editor application Resolve Free for commercial use. They're able to do that because they money off of hardware sales and getting editors into their ecosystem is worth more than a software license would be. (They do also sell a pro/Studio version of their software.) A lot of high end software does have an education discount version if you're affiliated with a local college or university.

by cronix 3y ago

cjbgkagh 3y ago

I totally get it, it’s a market segmentation problem where pirated software serves the bottom end of the market. If companies officially offered such discount prices then they’d be pressured by their regular customers for the same price. Segmenting based on willing to risk pirate software is a convenient workaround. Personally I’m still clinging on to old versions of perpetually licensed software. It makes little sense for me to pay a yearly subscription for something I use a few days a year. I’d much rather a day rate or hourly as I do a wide variety of things but only one thing at a time.

FormFollowsFunc 3y ago

Some companies provide free non-commercial versions for learning e.g. Houdini and Nuke. I wish more companies would do it.

zamnos 3y ago
Hell, Davinci gives away their video editor application Resolve Free for commercial use. They're able to do that because they money off of hardware sales and getting editors into their ecosystem is worth more than a software license would be. (They do also sell a pro/Studio version of their software.) A lot of high end software does have an education discount version if you're affiliated with a local college or university.