06-16-2007
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Secretary of State
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Member Since: Jan 2006
Location: Binghamton, NY
Posts: 5,523
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Re: Cost of Software and Death of Innovation
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Originally Posted by goober
I didn't duck your question, I said they should produce a product that people will pay for.
At outdoor concerts you can buy a ticket and sit close to the stage, or bring a blanket and have a picnic just outside the fence for free. But they still have concerts, they still make money.
The Grateful Dead allowed fans to record at their concerts, (heck, they even would put up a board they could jack into to get a quality recording.)
They only asked that they not sell the recordings, they could trade them, copy them give them away.
The Dead were one of the top money makers for over 20 years.
Because their fan base was so loyal, they didn't have to advertise concerts, and the money at a concert doesn't go through a middleman.
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The fact that a particular business model works for one producer does not mean it will work for all. Your citation of grateful dead only applies to live musical presentations and not to the many other digital products being stolen.
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There would be only a small fraction of the pirate activity that abounds today, if the products were properly priced.
But when the supplier decides to extract monopoly profits from the legal market, the market will almost always respond with a black market workaround.
It's all in the convenience, some people pay full price for software, others download it. The cheaper the software, the less people download it. So it's a pricing decision, sell a smaller number of legal versions, but soak the people who buy those, or sell at a price that will discourage the black market.
Microsoft extracts the most money they can from those who buy in the legal market, because they know that paying for OS and desktop software is a short term situation, and they are getting as much as they can before it evaporates.
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Properly priced? The "proper" price is determined by the producer - not the thief.
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There will come a time when nearly free, open source software dominates the market. It's a much more robust business model.
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Future business models do not justify current theft.
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The most important political office is that of the private citizen.
Justice Louis D Brandeis
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