🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1990Jan8.043811.23794@robohack.UUCP> woods@robohack.UUCP (Greg A. Woods) writes:
>
>There are only two reasons which will entice me to pay for shareware.
>One is if the money I spend is going towards providing me service and
>support.  Ongoing development, and/or supporting your hacking habit, :-)
>is only part of service and support.  The other reason is if I am
>making a *direct* profit from the use of your shareware, then I'll
>gladly share that profit.

Well, just to give you an example of what happens, Greg:  one of my DOS
products is an anti-virus product called FLU_SHOT+.  It has to be updated
on a regular basis to provide protection against some of the viruses that,
alas, are making the circuit.  I have to provide support to people who
can't quite get it working for some reason or another, or have a virus
and don;t know what the heck to do with it.  I came out with the product
for a total of $10 (plus shipping and handling).  That is, alas, not enough
to pay for some of my costs, including a full time support person.  She
costs me about $400/wk.  Telephone, overhead, electricity, the works, well,
they cost me a lot, too.

From my commercial products, I know, roughly, how many people will call for
support based on a percentage of total sales.  Applying that to shareware
allowed me to come up with the low price I have:  I assume that 90% of
the registered users out there only want upgrade support, and not the
type of support that costs me real bucks.  Unfortuneately this is not
true.  A much higher of my registered users seek support than i had expected.

Yet, this is a simplier product, conceptually, than my commercial offerings.
How can this be?

Well, ther eare a bunch of potential reasons, but one of them is that only
those requiring support opt to register.  That those who need no support
do not register.  That gives me a substantially smaller cash pool.

And, alas, means that I must raise my prices shortly:  Laura, my assistant,
needs a raise, my telephone costs just went up, etc.  If more people
registered their usage of the product, as I could reasonably expect, then
I could keep my prices lower.  For two years I've been battling the attitude
that "Hey! I'll forget that shareware is 'try before you buy' and use it as
'try before you steal'.", hoping that the economics of the situation would
somehow work things out.

Attitudes such as the one that prompted me to post have caused two things:
one, a price increase in the shareware version.  And, that the super-deluxe
version of the code will only be available commercially -- and only for
a much higher price (actually, I end up making more on the shareware version,
per sale, than on the 10x priced commercial version, but software publishing
is a really weird field!).

As for what Mr. Stallman has to say, well, let's not get started on FSF. I
make my living, everyday, my selling my intellectual property.  Stallman
does not propose a reasonable alternative for that.

-- 
Ross M. Greenberg, Technology Editor, UNIX Today!   greenber@utoday.UUCP
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