5 ms·

No, I'm saying a Michelin chef can complain about a 50x increase in the cost of truffles without negating the fact that a lot of people happily survive on ramen

No, I'm saying a Michelin chef can complain about a 50x increase in the cost of truffles without negating the fact that a lot of people happily survive on ramen.

gobengo 1y ago
op isn't saying you shouldn't complain. op is saying you shouldn't steal instead of complaining
- gkoberger 1y ago
  I think there's some confusion in who is responding to whom, then. I never said anything about piracy, but the person responding to me may have confused me with the top-level comment. All I have done is defend the importance of typography, and never mentioned piracy or stealing.
  - dcow 1y ago
    Typography is important. So important that we have really good looking fonts available for free. And a custom font isn’t going to be the deciding factor in whether your next AI powered social graph app sinks or floats. Guaranteed.
    - behringer 1y ago
      Then why are the fonts so expensive?
      - ghaff 1y ago
        Because designers fuss a lot about nearly undetectable differences in color, fonts, and many other things. Maybe they make a difference in the aggregate. But if you can’t identify the difference between Ariak and Helvetica (to pick a particularly glaring example) you’re probably not one of those designers.
        biercarsten 1y ago
        I agree. Many people can hardly tell the difference between Arial and Helvetica. There used to be a website where you could test how good you are at telling them apart. You won't notice many small differences between certain fonts. But that doesn't mean they're unnecessary. As you said, they make a difference when taken together. For screens, there are a number of adjustments and techniques that improve screen readability. Hinting, separate designs, contrast for low dpi and subpixel rendering compatibility, for example. At least some of the optimizations don't work out of the box, but have to be adjusted by designers. That's why it can happen that a font you bought for print media now requires an extra license for websites and apps. There are plenty of wonderfully readable fonts for the web and apps that are free and sufficient for most projects. If you want something special, I don't think it's wrong to pay for it. Personally, I would prefer more reasonable prices, though.
        mark-r 1y ago
        USED to be a website? Aww, I did pretty well there - going to miss it.
        ummonk 1y ago
        No idea which one it was but I found this one and got a perfect score. The difference is pretty obvious... https://www.ironicsans.com/helvarialquiz/index.php https://www.ironicsans.com/helvarialquiz/index.php
        imiric 1y ago
        Same, 18/20 for me. The all caps on MATTEL got me, and the STAPLES one as well, for some reason. But the differences on the lowercase "t" and "s", uppercase "g", the number 3, and both upper an lowercase "c", are obvious. Helvetica is much more refined. There are good reasons why well designed typography is expensive. A lot of thought and effort went into designing every line and curve. Even if most people can't consciously appreciate these details, they experience it subconsciously by how the design makes them feel. This is why brand designers are well paid. Anyone can design a logo, but to make a design that transmits a specific feeling, that requires a lot of skill. And typography is a core component of this.
      - immibis 1y ago
        Market segmentation
      - robertlagrant 1y ago
        > Then why are the fonts so expensive? Because they're considered important, and definitely take a long time to make. Try making one.
        mark-r 1y ago
        Not to mention that it's almost impossible to make a living designing fonts.
        pc86 1y ago
        Maybe "this font is offensively priced to the point where I immediately think the person selling it is a criminal using this for money laundering, or clinically insane" and "it's hard to sell enough fonts to live off of" are related? Maybe if charlatans didn't say with a straight face that a font should be sold on a subscription model they'd sell more? Maybe if it didn't cost as much as a car they'd sell more?
        robertlagrant 1y ago
        The people who make and sell fonts are probably the best people to be setting the price, and have tried lots of options.
        behringer 1y ago
        apparently not so important that "a custom font isn’t going to be the deciding factor in whether your next AI powered social graph app sinks or floats."
tptacek 1y ago
No, those things aren't comparable. Truffles have a functional role in a dish. A typeface does not have a meaningful functional role in a document, compared to the high-quality freely-available alternatives. This is like complaining about some kind of specially-carved or dyed truffle.
- gkoberger 1y ago
  I respect you a ton (genuinely, I think you're the most interesting writer in the tech space), but you have a profound misunderstanding of the importance of typography if you think the only reason you'd need a paid typeface is the same reason you'd need a Hermes bag. I know you're a curious person, so hopefully you take this as an opportunity to open your horizons on the importance of it.
  - tptacek 1y ago
    I'm a typeface nerd. Bringhurst is one of 3 books on the end-table next to me right now. I spend a stupid amount of money for Hoefler fonts for my dumb blog. This to me is like the Menswear Guy on Twitter, who will explain in very great detail to you why the Hermès product is significantly better than the generic alternative. He's right, but he also understands that you buy the Hermès product to make a statement. Spend money on that statement if you want --- I do --- but don't try to pretend you have a right to it. (i don't mean i own any hermes products; just stupidly expensive typefaces)
    - gkoberger 1y ago
      Then we aren't disagreeing. I never said anything about stealing or piracy; I agree with you that not being able to afford something doesn't give you the right to take it. I think we're responding to different things. You're upset the original person mentioned piracy, whereas I took their rant to be more about licensing changes being yet another way companies are creeping up prices from one-time-purchase to rent-forever. You used to be able to pay for a font and use it in a magazine, but now you have to pay per impression. And moreso, I'm annoyed by most of the comments saying that the free fonts on your computer should be enough.
mlx0x 1y ago
Where’s the car in this analogy?
- setopt 1y ago
  How would you get away with the stolen truffles?
bdelmas 1y ago
A high price in a font won't sink a business as a high price in truffle would for a Michelin chef... The price of a font for a business is extremely negligible... Or again you shouldn't buy it if your business is too small. And if it's that small you should be able to justify the value added by buying that font as truffle does for the chef. So we are back at what OP said.
- pc86 1y ago
  Well the analogy falls apart because (among many, many other reasons) the people eating at Michelin rated restaurants, especially 3-star, are completely insensitive to the price. It will cost whatever it costs and there will still be a long wait to get a table, if you even can. So rather than pretending we're talking about truffles, let's just talk about fonts directly without strained analogies. Fonts, which the majority of people don't even recognize. 90% of people don't even know what a foundry is. Your average person can't tell the difference between any two fonts if they're both sans-serif or serif.
  - bdelmas 1y ago
    It doesn't fall apart, you have examples that actually match it. Marketing boutiques of website creators match the 3-star Michelin analogy. High budgets from their customers (think LVMH) are the norm. And they will love and understand paying X for a font. In fact they will almost expect this type of thing in the design process. At the end of the day if people don't see the difference and the value between a free and a priced one, then they don't need to steal and can just use the free ones. There are plenty of amazing free fonts anyway some being the actual roots of many paying ones, and the gold standards.
- homebrewer 1y ago
  Maybe it won't sink the business, but prices were bad enough for IBM to cough up the money to grow their own truffles (of IBM Plex variety).

No, I'm saying a Michelin chef can complain about a 50x increase in the cost of truffles without negating the fact that a lot of people happily survive on ramen.

gobengo 1y ago

op isn't saying you shouldn't complain. op is saying you shouldn't steal instead of complaining

gkoberger 1y ago
I think there's some confusion in who is responding to whom, then. I never said anything about piracy, but the person responding to me may have confused me with the top-level comment. All I have done is defend the importance of typography, and never mentioned piracy or stealing.
- dcow 1y ago
  Typography is important. So important that we have really good looking fonts available for free. And a custom font isn’t going to be the deciding factor in whether your next AI powered social graph app sinks or floats. Guaranteed.
  - behringer 1y ago
    Then why are the fonts so expensive?
    - ghaff 1y ago
      Because designers fuss a lot about nearly undetectable differences in color, fonts, and many other things. Maybe they make a difference in the aggregate. But if you can’t identify the difference between Ariak and Helvetica (to pick a particularly glaring example) you’re probably not one of those designers.
      - biercarsten 1y ago
        I agree. Many people can hardly tell the difference between Arial and Helvetica. There used to be a website where you could test how good you are at telling them apart. You won't notice many small differences between certain fonts. But that doesn't mean they're unnecessary. As you said, they make a difference when taken together. For screens, there are a number of adjustments and techniques that improve screen readability. Hinting, separate designs, contrast for low dpi and subpixel rendering compatibility, for example. At least some of the optimizations don't work out of the box, but have to be adjusted by designers. That's why it can happen that a font you bought for print media now requires an extra license for websites and apps. There are plenty of wonderfully readable fonts for the web and apps that are free and sufficient for most projects. If you want something special, I don't think it's wrong to pay for it. Personally, I would prefer more reasonable prices, though.
        mark-r 1y ago
        USED to be a website? Aww, I did pretty well there - going to miss it.
        ummonk 1y ago
        No idea which one it was but I found this one and got a perfect score. The difference is pretty obvious... https://www.ironicsans.com/helvarialquiz/index.php https://www.ironicsans.com/helvarialquiz/index.php
        imiric 1y ago
        Same, 18/20 for me. The all caps on MATTEL got me, and the STAPLES one as well, for some reason. But the differences on the lowercase "t" and "s", uppercase "g", the number 3, and both upper an lowercase "c", are obvious. Helvetica is much more refined. There are good reasons why well designed typography is expensive. A lot of thought and effort went into designing every line and curve. Even if most people can't consciously appreciate these details, they experience it subconsciously by how the design makes them feel. This is why brand designers are well paid. Anyone can design a logo, but to make a design that transmits a specific feeling, that requires a lot of skill. And typography is a core component of this.
    - immibis 1y ago
      Market segmentation
    - robertlagrant 1y ago
      > Then why are the fonts so expensive? Because they're considered important, and definitely take a long time to make. Try making one.
      - mark-r 1y ago
        Not to mention that it's almost impossible to make a living designing fonts.
        pc86 1y ago
        Maybe "this font is offensively priced to the point where I immediately think the person selling it is a criminal using this for money laundering, or clinically insane" and "it's hard to sell enough fonts to live off of" are related? Maybe if charlatans didn't say with a straight face that a font should be sold on a subscription model they'd sell more? Maybe if it didn't cost as much as a car they'd sell more?
        robertlagrant 1y ago
        The people who make and sell fonts are probably the best people to be setting the price, and have tried lots of options.
      - behringer 1y ago
        apparently not so important that "a custom font isn’t going to be the deciding factor in whether your next AI powered social graph app sinks or floats."

tptacek 1y ago

No, those things aren't comparable. Truffles have a functional role in a dish. A typeface does not have a meaningful functional role in a document, compared to the high-quality freely-available alternatives. This is like complaining about some kind of specially-carved or dyed truffle.

gkoberger 1y ago
I respect you a ton (genuinely, I think you're the most interesting writer in the tech space), but you have a profound misunderstanding of the importance of typography if you think the only reason you'd need a paid typeface is the same reason you'd need a Hermes bag. I know you're a curious person, so hopefully you take this as an opportunity to open your horizons on the importance of it.
- tptacek 1y ago
  I'm a typeface nerd. Bringhurst is one of 3 books on the end-table next to me right now. I spend a stupid amount of money for Hoefler fonts for my dumb blog. This to me is like the Menswear Guy on Twitter, who will explain in very great detail to you why the Hermès product is significantly better than the generic alternative. He's right, but he also understands that you buy the Hermès product to make a statement. Spend money on that statement if you want --- I do --- but don't try to pretend you have a right to it. (i don't mean i own any hermes products; just stupidly expensive typefaces)
  - gkoberger 1y ago
    Then we aren't disagreeing. I never said anything about stealing or piracy; I agree with you that not being able to afford something doesn't give you the right to take it. I think we're responding to different things. You're upset the original person mentioned piracy, whereas I took their rant to be more about licensing changes being yet another way companies are creeping up prices from one-time-purchase to rent-forever. You used to be able to pay for a font and use it in a magazine, but now you have to pay per impression. And moreso, I'm annoyed by most of the comments saying that the free fonts on your computer should be enough.

mlx0x 1y ago

Where’s the car in this analogy?

setopt 1y ago
How would you get away with the stolen truffles?

bdelmas 1y ago

A high price in a font won't sink a business as a high price in truffle would for a Michelin chef... The price of a font for a business is extremely negligible... Or again you shouldn't buy it if your business is too small. And if it's that small you should be able to justify the value added by buying that font as truffle does for the chef. So we are back at what OP said.

pc86 1y ago
Well the analogy falls apart because (among many, many other reasons) the people eating at Michelin rated restaurants, especially 3-star, are completely insensitive to the price. It will cost whatever it costs and there will still be a long wait to get a table, if you even can. So rather than pretending we're talking about truffles, let's just talk about fonts directly without strained analogies. Fonts, which the majority of people don't even recognize. 90% of people don't even know what a foundry is. Your average person can't tell the difference between any two fonts if they're both sans-serif or serif.
- bdelmas 1y ago
  It doesn't fall apart, you have examples that actually match it. Marketing boutiques of website creators match the 3-star Michelin analogy. High budgets from their customers (think LVMH) are the norm. And they will love and understand paying X for a font. In fact they will almost expect this type of thing in the design process. At the end of the day if people don't see the difference and the value between a free and a priced one, then they don't need to steal and can just use the free ones. There are plenty of amazing free fonts anyway some being the actual roots of many paying ones, and the gold standards.
homebrewer 1y ago
Maybe it won't sink the business, but prices were bad enough for IBM to cough up the money to grow their own truffles (of IBM Plex variety).