🚀 go-pugleaf

Writes alberg@netlan.jpr.com (Al Berg):

> Nag screens seem to be a necessary evil.  

Absolutely no, they are not!  Nearly every person with whom I have
discussed the matter said to me that they quickly get rid of 
programs that have anything more than very unobtrusive nags. I do
the same.  I think the nag screens are the result of a poor 
understanding of marketing principles on the part of the authors,
some sort of "fashionable" thing among shareware publishers.  But 
they =antagonize= people, they don't help registrations. The only 
thing an obnoxious nag screen triggers is a desire to bypass it by
whatever means - and those always become available! 

> The way I see it, you are doing two things during the evaluation 
> period of a piece of shareware: deciding if you wish to use the 
> program (and pay the fee) and hopefully getting some use out of 
> it.  

The evaluation period is very useful, and definitely an improvement
over the "buy first, try later" technique used at first by many
of the larger publishers.  But don't kid yourself: I wasn't getting
any special use out of Telix while testing it - it doesn't do
anything that Qmodem, for example, won't do. Its Host Mode script
is nice, but the Wildcat! Test Drive is much nicer, if that's the
sort of software you are looking for.  In other words: there's
plenty of MS DOS software out there, and nobody has the exclusivity
to anything anymore. That being the case, your suggestion that one
gets some kind of special "use" out of a given package during testing 
it, elicits only my lukewarm response, tending towards cold...

> I think that it is well within the author's rights to include 
> advertising.

Certainly. And it is within my rights to get rid of it in the same
way I turn the television sound off when the commercials start.
Or are you saying that I MUST listen to all the commercials ??????

I have to say something else to you: there are ways and ways to 
advertise. Nag screens are among the most obnoxious and least 
user-sensitive. If those shareware authors had half a brain between 
their ears, they would have dreamed up more effective and less 
offensive ways of accomplishing their goal.

> Finally, put it in perspective - if the software were 
> administering low voltage electric shocks during the eval, 
> I could understand being outraged.  A couple of nag screens 
> that take a second or two to bypass just aren't that big of 
> a deal (to me at least).

Boy, have I got news for you! What do you think those nag screens 
do, using visual stimuli?  Why, they send unwelcome low-voltage 
electric currents to the brain via the nervous system!  That's 
=exactly= what they do.