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Unrestricted vs. Limited Shareware, In Dollars
mklopez writes "There is a belief in the online world that people will be more willing to compensate an author for a downloaded program that has full functionality, versus paying to unlock features in a shareware version. Someone actually put this idea to a test with surprising results."
I don't find the result surprising at all. In the real world, there are more people who will pay up if it's directly in their interests than will pay up simply out of respect/gratitude/charity/whatever, not least because one set is likely to be almost entirely contained within the other.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Sure, but everyone says "I'd rather donate money to a worthy Open Source project than pay for crippleware," but how many of those people actually do? I'm guessing that a very small fraction of the people that claim to be willing to monetarily support Open Source software actually do so. Most people will download and use the software, and maybe post something to the effect of "I'd have no problem paying for this." But along with that statement is the implied "...but I don't have to, so I won't."
I don't find the results very surprising. While he's trying to prove to Slashdotters the reasons for his methods he only responds with the financial ones. The reason developers on /. are generally against crippling software is because it just feels wrong to do it. If we can write software to perform a task then want to do it and give it to those who want it. The method of profit becomes secondary to the functionality of the software. Therefore we feel slightly better offering a trial period because the user gets to really use the software in all its glory. But we'd prefer to pass out our software fully functional and hope some who like it offer us something back.
I think figuring out the way to profit is a difficult problem. Not because it's hard to pick between trial periods and crippling. But because we want to feel good about the software we write and at the same time make a living from it.
Developers: We can use your help.
If you want to actually make money, the best is probably a combination. When first downloaded you get full functionality, for a time. This gets you hooked on all the features. Then the trial period runs out and the features are limited. You know the features are there, and you can still use the program, but to reactivate all the features you need to pay.
Simply shutting down the program at the end of the trial period, for me at least, means I will stop running the program and thinking about it. I'll probably check to see if there is another way to do what I need, without using your program. If you want me to pay, you need to keep me using it, but disable enough that I think paying is worth it.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
I prefer time limits that actually time how long you use the program, rather than how long it's been since you first ran it.
If I install something with a 30 day trial, have a quick fiddle, and then get distracted by Real Life[tm], those 30 days could have run out by the time I find the program in /Applications and remember that I hadn't finished trying it out. Now what?
A program that lets you run it on 10 separate occasions would have been much more useful, because I'd still have 9 shots left at evaluating it. Even better would be changing the 30 day limit to a 10 day limit, but only counting days that you run the program - that way, if you accidentally hit Quit and immediately restart, you don't get dinged for it.
Never mind Spamassassin. When's Spammerassassin coming out?