Re: [little OT] Licensing/Implementing in Cocoa/Obj-C
Re: [little OT] Licensing/Implementing in Cocoa/Obj-C
- Subject: Re: [little OT] Licensing/Implementing in Cocoa/Obj-C
- From: Glen Simmons <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 10:22:23 -0500
On 20 Apr, 2004, at 5:46 AM, Greg Hurrell wrote:
El 20/04/2004, a las 11:38, Andreas Mayer escribis:
I think product activation is absolutely unacceptable.
If the activation server goes out of business you might lose the app.
No way I would buy anything like that.
The beauty of the free market is that no one forces you to buy
anything if you don't want to.
Personally, I'm prepared to accept the risks of product activation,
just like I accept the risk on every single shareware (or commercial)
product that I license, knowing that the company could go out of
business and I'll never get any support or updates, even though their
product could cease to work the next time Apple updates their OS.
Sometimes the company doesn't even go out of business, but it still
withdraws support (even big companies like Adobe; look at the apps for
which they have ceased to do Mac development, like Framemaker).
But like I said, it's a totally free choice. Those who object to the
activation can shop elsewhere. And the economics of the question mean
that I would rather lose 100 sales to honest customers who don't like
activation, than have 10,000 copies pirated.
I have to ask - do you think that, by preventing those 10,000 copies
from being pirated, you'll gain 10,000 sales? Or is it just the
principle of the thing? What if, by making piracy practically
impossible, you eliminate those 10,000 illegal copies, but only 10 of
those people purchase your app? You've traded 100 customers whose first
thought was to buy your app for 10 customers whose first thought was to
illegally copy it, but when that failed, resigned themselves to
purchasing it. I have no idea if these numbers are realistic, but I
would think it's something to consider.
If it's the principle of the thing, might I suggest that you're
focusing on the wrong people. I'd recommend worrying about taking care
of paying customers and forgetting about people who might not pay you
even if piracy were impossible.
This is a problem I have with all of the anti-piracy hoopla. The
unstated, but implied notion, is that every copy pirated is a lost
sale. I would be quite surprised if even 1% are actually lost sales.
But maybe that's just me.
Glen
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