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> And nobody (read: very, very small percentage) is willing to type the credit car number on some unknown site to pay for some utility. So shareware died, and s
by huhtenberg 12y ago
> And nobody (read: very, very small percentage) is willing to type the credit car number on some unknown site to pay for some utility. So shareware died, and shareware authors went to the dark side.
HAHAHA. Oh, jeez... /wipes a tear. You clearly have no idea how the shareware model actually works.
Shareware is very very far from being dead. Yes, some of the devs take the lazy path of bundling crap, but it is an absolutely common knowledge in shareware circles that doing so will essentially kill your product, the goodwill and any hopes for any natural growth. It will also create problems with Google ranking and a headache with antivirus positives. With few exceptions only very desperate devs do that and typically only with throw away projects.
There are, of course, companies whose entire business model is based on scamming and scaremongering people, and generally treating them like a gray mass of idiots that always click on Next. But this has very little to do with the validity of the shareware model, and much more with simple "get rich quick" appeal of the bundleware.
The matter is not whether or not shareware model is dead. The matter here is that CNET traded its past reputation and ethics for the affiliate fees from the scamware vendors. Don't over-extrapolate, it just looks ... ridiculous.
- sireat 12y agoSerious question, is there shareware which is not dead today? Where are the shareware success stories? Where is PC-Write, PKZip or Commander Keen of 2015? I'd even settle for WinRAR of today.
- huhtenberg 12y agoShareware today is basically a trialware from smaller/indie developers. As such, there's a plenty if you look beyond the company facades. Just go to Softpedia, pull up a Windows app section and filter in Paid apps. The vast majority of what you see is shareware. NetBalancer, Syncovery, AX64, various PDF viewers, drive emulators for cloud storage services, etc. - all of these are made either by a single person or smaller teams. There are TONS of them; you just didn't realize it :) Then if you extend the definition to just "trialware" and include larger companies, then pretty much all commercial Windows software is now shareware. You try it and then you buy it. Kaspersky, Acronis, Norton bloatware. Microsoft Office is offered under this model. Heck, even Windows itself is.
- sireat 12y agoThanks for the pointers! You are right, even Windows itself qualifies as trialware these days.
- T-hawk 12y agoShareware involved two different ideas: the method of distribution, and the trial to paid purchase model. Shareware was genius in encouraging users to copy programs around to each other in the primitive days of computer connectivity. But that's just no longer needed with distribution on the Internet. The trial to paid purchase model is alive and well everywhere. Freemium games, time limited trialware, in-app purchases. It's not even noticeable as a success story any more, since so much of the entire software industry works that way. The Commander Keen of 2015 is League of Legends.