4 ms·

> You'll be spending upwards of 40 minutes of your life watching this thing I view it as investing 40 minutes of my life on top of the $2. There's so much of t

by praptak 13y ago

> You'll be spending upwards of 40 minutes of your life watching this thing I view it as investing 40 minutes of my life on top of the $2. There's so much of the free "hilarious, must watch" links to click that I won't even spend 1 cent unless I'm damn sure it's worth it. Not that I'm defending $10 lattes anyway but they are at least 99% predictable.

nijk 13y ago
Interesting that you spend your hard-capped time freely, but are thrifty with your uncapped money. Maybe you should be more careful about how you invest your time, and choose the best content for your maximal enjoyment.
Cthulhu_ 13y ago
You know, that is a similar argument used by people to justify piracy; "I don't know if it's good, so why should I pay for it?" And still they pirate it, watch or play it for free, and are entertained for X period of time. Or not, but even so, their time has been spent, and their money hasn't. Even so, $2 isn't a huge loss if what you bought turns out to not have been worth it. And if you worry about the 40 minutes lost, then you need to learn to relax. Time wastage is not a bad thing per se.
- bpatrianakos 13y ago
  I wouldn't call it an argument to justify piracy but rather an excuse. The idea a lot of times is "I don't want to pay so I'll justify my behavior by telling people it's a political/ideological statement". Furthermore, the predictability of coffee versus entertainment is not a good comparison. When you buy a movie or book or video game or something you're not guaranteed to like the product. But no one is forcing you to buy it either. So to take it free and then say "oh, didn't like it, not paying" is the lamest thing in the world and I'd be willing to bet that if you could drink coffee before you bought it (so you can decide whether it's "worth paying for") there'd be rampant coffee piracy. You're really not guaranteed to like anything you buy but if it comes in the form of a digital file suddenly people feel like it's alright to "try before you (maybe never) buy". The reason why movie trailers, singles that get played on the radio, 30 second song/video clip previews, and game demos exist is so you can see if what you're thinking of buying fits your taste. Needing the entire thing to decide sounds like such an excuse to justify not paying. People do need to relax like you said. Have we shoved our heads so far up our asses that 40 minutes spent watching a bad TV show is a sin? I can get on board with the whole being efficient thing but there comes a point where worrying about whether consuming some media for 40 minutes will waste your time is actually worse than wasting the 40 minutes itself. (And can't we tell if we don't like something long before the 40 minute mark? I mean, we can quit watching/listening/whatever when we figure out we don't like something)
- lukeschlather 13y ago
  40 minutes watching TV may be less relaxing than 40 minutes of doing nothing at all. So you've spent $2 to decrease the amount of relaxation you could have accomplished in those 40 minutes. "Learn to relax" is a valid suggestion. "Learn to relax by watching TV" is not.
mtrimpe 13y ago
I also believe that it's about the lack of predictability much more than anything else, which is why I still believe we'll end up with a form of try-before-you-buy with variable pricing eventually. Perhaps we should replace the "Please rate us on the AppStore" notifications with something like: Did you get more enjoyment out of this app so far than: * a latte ($1.95) * a pizza ($4.95) * a movie ($9.95) or * a season box ($29.95)?
- thenomad 13y ago
  That's a damn good idea. I'd pay money to get that sort of feedback on something I create.
- guard-of-terra 13y ago
  You have pretty cheap consumables whereever you live! This would be amazingly hard to translate and adapt for various places where AppStore is present (the whole world).
  - jeffasinger 13y ago
    I bet it would be pretty quick to crowdsource that info.
Udo 13y ago
That's exactly the point. I think the $2 are an investment into the quality of the thing I'm about to consume, and if I'm going to invest the 40 minutes anyway I'd like to make this little extra investment to support the makers. Of course that's no guarantee I will like it, but you take that kind of risk with every new thing you buy.
gyom 13y ago
Thank you for pointing that out. Sometimes I feel as though movies should have a negative cost because they're generally not worth the time required to watch them. And then that quickly turns into a argument supporting piracy.
___1___ 13y ago
This is pretty much why I don't watch TV or films anymore really. I invest time and all to often it's utter crap.

by praptak 13y ago

nijk 13y ago

Interesting that you spend your hard-capped time freely, but are thrifty with your uncapped money. Maybe you should be more careful about how you invest your time, and choose the best content for your maximal enjoyment.

Cthulhu_ 13y ago

You know, that is a similar argument used by people to justify piracy; "I don't know if it's good, so why should I pay for it?" And still they pirate it, watch or play it for free, and are entertained for X period of time. Or not, but even so, their time has been spent, and their money hasn't. Even so, $2 isn't a huge loss if what you bought turns out to not have been worth it. And if you worry about the 40 minutes lost, then you need to learn to relax. Time wastage is not a bad thing per se.

bpatrianakos 13y ago
I wouldn't call it an argument to justify piracy but rather an excuse. The idea a lot of times is "I don't want to pay so I'll justify my behavior by telling people it's a political/ideological statement". Furthermore, the predictability of coffee versus entertainment is not a good comparison. When you buy a movie or book or video game or something you're not guaranteed to like the product. But no one is forcing you to buy it either. So to take it free and then say "oh, didn't like it, not paying" is the lamest thing in the world and I'd be willing to bet that if you could drink coffee before you bought it (so you can decide whether it's "worth paying for") there'd be rampant coffee piracy. You're really not guaranteed to like anything you buy but if it comes in the form of a digital file suddenly people feel like it's alright to "try before you (maybe never) buy". The reason why movie trailers, singles that get played on the radio, 30 second song/video clip previews, and game demos exist is so you can see if what you're thinking of buying fits your taste. Needing the entire thing to decide sounds like such an excuse to justify not paying. People do need to relax like you said. Have we shoved our heads so far up our asses that 40 minutes spent watching a bad TV show is a sin? I can get on board with the whole being efficient thing but there comes a point where worrying about whether consuming some media for 40 minutes will waste your time is actually worse than wasting the 40 minutes itself. (And can't we tell if we don't like something long before the 40 minute mark? I mean, we can quit watching/listening/whatever when we figure out we don't like something)
lukeschlather 13y ago
40 minutes watching TV may be less relaxing than 40 minutes of doing nothing at all. So you've spent $2 to decrease the amount of relaxation you could have accomplished in those 40 minutes. "Learn to relax" is a valid suggestion. "Learn to relax by watching TV" is not.

mtrimpe 13y ago

I also believe that it's about the lack of predictability much more than anything else, which is why I still believe we'll end up with a form of try-before-you-buy with variable pricing eventually. Perhaps we should replace the "Please rate us on the AppStore" notifications with something like: Did you get more enjoyment out of this app so far than: * a latte ($1.95) * a pizza ($4.95) * a movie ($9.95) or * a season box ($29.95)?

thenomad 13y ago
That's a damn good idea. I'd pay money to get that sort of feedback on something I create.
guard-of-terra 13y ago
You have pretty cheap consumables whereever you live! This would be amazingly hard to translate and adapt for various places where AppStore is present (the whole world).
- jeffasinger 13y ago
  I bet it would be pretty quick to crowdsource that info.

Udo 13y ago

That's exactly the point. I think the $2 are an investment into the quality of the thing I'm about to consume, and if I'm going to invest the 40 minutes anyway I'd like to make this little extra investment to support the makers. Of course that's no guarantee I will like it, but you take that kind of risk with every new thing you buy.

gyom 13y ago

Thank you for pointing that out. Sometimes I feel as though movies should have a negative cost because they're generally not worth the time required to watch them. And then that quickly turns into a argument supporting piracy.

___1___ 13y ago

This is pretty much why I don't watch TV or films anymore really. I invest time and all to often it's utter crap.