🚀 go-pugleaf

From: rang@cs.wisc.edu (Anton Rang)
>  The cost of developing software is *NOT* related to the cost of a
>disk.  Really.  Truly.  I could spend a year developing a software
>package, and if I were lucky sell 1,000 copies of it.  What if I'm
>charging, say, $10.  That's low enough that piracy probably won't be a
>major problem (though it's hard to say).

I didn't say it was, I was only talking about the perception of
consumers (subjective reality), to a lot of them they simply see that
they're being charged, say, $395 for a couple of floppies and a manual
(book.)

That's not an outrageous comment, haven't *you* ever complained about
a book that cost, say, $75? Ever been tempted to just share one with a
friend or take it out of the library instead (or even, gasp, xerox the
few pages you needed from a borrowed copy?) Did you, at that moment,
fret about some poor authors/publishers behind it? Nah, you just
needed the info in the book and figured you were being a clever
consumer, thrifty, whatever.

C'mon, we've all had that reaction to something or other. And although
it may be true that there was an author, production costs etc behind
that price we still felt like it was a rip-off. Consumers aren't
rational, so what? That's capitalism, everyone drives their best
bargain and slipping thru the cracks is usually considered fair play.

(In fact, and risking soap-boxing political philosophy, it's the very
existence of a zillion little laws and rules which makes slipping thru
the cracks seem morally justifiable since we've reduced morality to
external influences, ie, have you followed the letter of the law,
rather than any internal sense of justice, consider the tax codes,
only a naive fool would hesitate to take a deduction because the govt
needs the money. The parallels might not be obvious, but they're
there.)

The main reason it doesn't plague the music industry more (it does) is
that a pre-recorded cassette tape usually costs under $10 and the same
quality blank tape is about $5 so it's usually not worth the trouble
unless you have a lot of time on your hands. What do you think would
happen if they cost $50? As much as they bellyache (they do) it's
largely been made liveable by sheer economics.

My point is (what *is* your point, Barry?) that there is a level at
which duplication becomes so much cheaper than buying the original
that you create a situation where about the only thing which can save
your business is massive government intervention and subsidy, and that
is not a healthy situation (and it's the current situation in the
software biz for a lot of companies.)

>  Assuming no distribution costs, disk costs, advertising costs, etc.,
>I will have a return of $10,000 on my year of work.  I'm not going to
>write too much software at that rate.  And selling 1,000 copies of
>many software packages is actually not bad at all.

Boo-hoo. Capitalism doesn't give flying leap, so die, so what? There's
plenty of jobs at McDonalds if the economics of your business doesn't
cut it.

Ok, that was harsh, but the fact that it costs you a lot doesn't
justify creating government monopolies to ensure your profits. And
that's what this is all about (I realize you aren't arguing with that
exactly, but you should be, or at least acknowledging what
conversation you are in the middle of!)

>>But there's also no doubt that I was a fool and deserve only minimal
>>sympathy from the authorities (ie. the public's tax dollars) in
>>recovering my property. Even if it drove me out of business.
>
>  All right, let's think about this...if I wrote a program and sold it
>without a near-perfect form of copy-protection, and somebody pirated
>it, there's no doubt they were a thief.  But I was a fool to sell it
>without the copy-protection.  Therefore, I should sell software only
>with copy-protection, even though this may make it less usable.  A lot
>of companies used to do this, but luckily many have given up on it.
>
>  This analogy is flawed, anyway...we haven't got copiers for gold
>jewelry (yet).  Quite a difference....

In the first place, I didn't say a word about copy-protection, you
just introduced that. I hate copy-protection and strenuously resist
buying such software.

In the second place, it's *THEIR* argument that COPYING == THEFT, not
mine! That's what forces the analogy. The flaws are inherent, it's
possible you were on the verge of understanding the other side of this
argument right there but you probably resisted the thought.
-- 
        -Barry Shein

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