4 ms·

I think his point is that the software probably wouldn't cost $600 if they weren't figuring in theft. Things in retail brick & morter stores also cost more due

by jbjohns 18y ago

I think his point is that the software probably wouldn't cost $600 if they weren't figuring in theft. Things in retail brick & morter stores also cost more due to "shrinkage". Stealing has a price whether we chose to "logic" it away or not. Think of it this way: if everyone just did as you suggested and took all games for free, wouldn't most companies just stop producing games?

ajkirwin 18y ago
Stealing does NOT always have a price. And using shrinkage is a fallacious argument. Physical goods in store have an actual production cost. What's the cost of dragging and dropping a file to make a copy of it? A few cents for your time, maybe fifty cents to a dollar for storage costs? It's not equivalent to a an actual physical good which could have a material cost of anywhere from a few cents, to hundreds (thousands) of dollars.
- jbjohns 18y ago
  Of course it does. Shrinkage isn't fallacious, companies look at how much they lost to theft and adjust their prices accordingly. What do you think companies do when they see that their product has an 82% piracy rate? They think "we only made 18% of what we should have on this!!!". What they do after that depends on a lot of things, but some people stop making things, some jack up the price to their real customers and some implement ridiculous things like DRM that even terrorize their customers. But all these things have a price and most of us pay it one way or another.
  - tome 18y ago
    This is rubbish. Companies set their prices to maximise their returns. If they could make more money out of you by raising their prices they would, piracy or not.
    - jbjohns 18y ago
      Sure, companies are in business to make money. But do you truly believe that piracy has no cost? It should be an extremely simple logical exercise to prove it does: just imagine if everyone always did it in every situation.
      - tome 18y ago
        I don't think it causes an increase in the price of goods, although I don't doubt that an increase in piracy leads to a decreasing number of products being developed.
        jbjohns 18y ago
        You don't see how it could increase the price? Think about all the money (e.g. developer/researcher time) being spent on trying to stop piracy. These are costs that are passed directly onto the customers.
        brl 18y ago
        That's complete nonsense. A software company will always choose the price they believe will generate the most revenue. If they are acting rationally they would choose exactly the same price regardless of whether the software cost $100 to produce or $100 million. You are suggesting that there is some other consideration involved, which necessarily means that the company will act against their own interests and price their software irrationally.
        tptacek 18y ago
        If 3x as many people will buy your product at 1/2 the price, it's rational to cut your price in half. However, if the 1/2 price targets a market segment 90% populated by software pirates, everyone gets to pay 2x as much, including the 10% of honest people downmarket.
    - tptacek 18y ago
      Nobody is saying companies would lower their prices just to be nice; they're saying that if the market for a piece of software was broader, because it included the people pirating it, prices would come down naturally as the vendor addressed the market to maximize their return. As it stands, there is no point to making Photoshop cheaper, because even if it cost $200 instead of $500, a huge portion of home users would still just steal it.
- tptacek 18y ago
  So what you advocate is the ajkirwin planned economy, where things cost what ajkirwin thinks they should cost. Games: fifty cents to maybe a dollar of storage costs. Can I lobby you on prescription drugs? The marginal cost of a pill is like $0.05.
  - Retric 18y ago
    I spend money on movies and games and don't pirate software, but... There is a finite patent of prescription drugs so over time they go to their marginal cost. Anyway, I see little advantage to extending copy write on games over 7 years. The idea that you can make money selling copy's of something who's author died 65 years ago seems stupid. Society decided to extended copy write protection to promote people making things, pretending it has value beyond that is silly. PS: I hereby copy write every number from 1 to (12345 ^ 12345)^ 12345 converted to binary, which covers every software that is ever going to be produced until the end of time. Now pay me money.
    - tptacek 18y ago
      Copyright doesn't preclude independent invention, so your evil scheme is neither effective nor particularly persuasive.
      - Retric 18y ago
        Copyright give the copyright holder the right to prevent others from copying their ideas even if they have independent origin. Just like patents. PS: Having already listed your above comment I clam copyright over it and insist that you delete it. (kidding.)

by jbjohns 18y ago

ajkirwin 18y ago

Stealing does NOT always have a price. And using shrinkage is a fallacious argument. Physical goods in store have an actual production cost. What's the cost of dragging and dropping a file to make a copy of it? A few cents for your time, maybe fifty cents to a dollar for storage costs? It's not equivalent to a an actual physical good which could have a material cost of anywhere from a few cents, to hundreds (thousands) of dollars.

jbjohns 18y ago
Of course it does. Shrinkage isn't fallacious, companies look at how much they lost to theft and adjust their prices accordingly. What do you think companies do when they see that their product has an 82% piracy rate? They think "we only made 18% of what we should have on this!!!". What they do after that depends on a lot of things, but some people stop making things, some jack up the price to their real customers and some implement ridiculous things like DRM that even terrorize their customers. But all these things have a price and most of us pay it one way or another.
- tome 18y ago
  This is rubbish. Companies set their prices to maximise their returns. If they could make more money out of you by raising their prices they would, piracy or not.
  - jbjohns 18y ago
    Sure, companies are in business to make money. But do you truly believe that piracy has no cost? It should be an extremely simple logical exercise to prove it does: just imagine if everyone always did it in every situation.
    - tome 18y ago
      I don't think it causes an increase in the price of goods, although I don't doubt that an increase in piracy leads to a decreasing number of products being developed.
      - jbjohns 18y ago
        You don't see how it could increase the price? Think about all the money (e.g. developer/researcher time) being spent on trying to stop piracy. These are costs that are passed directly onto the customers.
        brl 18y ago
        That's complete nonsense. A software company will always choose the price they believe will generate the most revenue. If they are acting rationally they would choose exactly the same price regardless of whether the software cost $100 to produce or $100 million. You are suggesting that there is some other consideration involved, which necessarily means that the company will act against their own interests and price their software irrationally.
        tptacek 18y ago
        If 3x as many people will buy your product at 1/2 the price, it's rational to cut your price in half. However, if the 1/2 price targets a market segment 90% populated by software pirates, everyone gets to pay 2x as much, including the 10% of honest people downmarket.
  - tptacek 18y ago
    Nobody is saying companies would lower their prices just to be nice; they're saying that if the market for a piece of software was broader, because it included the people pirating it, prices would come down naturally as the vendor addressed the market to maximize their return. As it stands, there is no point to making Photoshop cheaper, because even if it cost $200 instead of $500, a huge portion of home users would still just steal it.
tptacek 18y ago
So what you advocate is the ajkirwin planned economy, where things cost what ajkirwin thinks they should cost. Games: fifty cents to maybe a dollar of storage costs. Can I lobby you on prescription drugs? The marginal cost of a pill is like $0.05.
- Retric 18y ago
  I spend money on movies and games and don't pirate software, but... There is a finite patent of prescription drugs so over time they go to their marginal cost. Anyway, I see little advantage to extending copy write on games over 7 years. The idea that you can make money selling copy's of something who's author died 65 years ago seems stupid. Society decided to extended copy write protection to promote people making things, pretending it has value beyond that is silly. PS: I hereby copy write every number from 1 to (12345 ^ 12345)^ 12345 converted to binary, which covers every software that is ever going to be produced until the end of time. Now pay me money.
  - tptacek 18y ago
    Copyright doesn't preclude independent invention, so your evil scheme is neither effective nor particularly persuasive.
    - Retric 18y ago
      Copyright give the copyright holder the right to prevent others from copying their ideas even if they have independent origin. Just like patents. PS: Having already listed your above comment I clam copyright over it and insist that you delete it. (kidding.)