Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.