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> This is what these guys are doing. And it's a good thing. To say "this is wrong and it should stop" is incredibly selfish - This is done en-masse to my entir

> This is what these guys are doing. And it's a good thing. To say "this is wrong and it should stop" is incredibly selfish - This is done en-masse to my entire country, Australia. We call it "The Australia Tax". And yeah, it pisses us off. In some cases it has been cheaper to fly economy from Sydney to LA to purchase sofware, than the local price. Even for downloadable products. It's not an exchange rate thing, nor a local tax issue, and it's not the tyranny of distance either. It's more to do with the fact that we are perceived as a rich country. Using VPNs and also mail forwarding services to get around some of the more outrageous markups is becoming more popular. Australia Post even launched their own US address forwarding service this week to get in on the action.

kefka 12y ago
With software goods, the best downward force with regards to price is piracy. We have seen this force in effect in the movies and music. Movies used to take two years to go from box office to rental. Now movies only take 6 weeks to go from big screen to DVD. The big change here is that piracy was the downward force. And it served as a great effect to bring materials to market quicker. Admittedly piracy is illegal, but also very effective. Considering the small amount of bandwidth needed to pirate software, it would be negligabe to get at will. The best plan, though, it is to use open source software. But in cases of market capture, one must use the de facto software.
lorddoig 12y ago
Yeah I get that. It's worth pointing out that I'm talking largely from an academic stance and what I'm saying doesn't really apply to shitty implementations. The theory is compelling and the reality is always different, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be tried.