| I admit, I'm a bit of a hypocrite too, but subtle interpretations of the law and morality aside, it IS stealing. Somebody made something and you didn't, And that person expects to get paid for it, simple as that.
A lot of this I believe is a simple misunderstanding of marketing (for this, I'm not including Microsoft, as I think they're just greedy) Do you know that $700 sofa you just bought is made from about 50 bucks worth of wood, cloth and metal and take less than an hour to make by minimum wage laborers? So how can they justify the cost? Because the merchants and manufaturers know that once you buy one they may never sell anything to you again. I believe the music and software industries feel the same way. Why would you buy TWO copies of Photoshop or 2 identical music CDs? They want to get you for as much as they can because they may have only one shot at you buying anything.
I like that way some shareware makers do it. Say I create a terrific digital photo program. I give it out free...but if you want the red-eye remover add-on you have to give me 10 bucks. If you can live without that feature, fine. Like the Greatful Dead. They didn't just allow recording at their concerts, they ENCOURAGED it. You used to see loads of people with microphones on poles at their shows, and these same people STILL went out and bought the albums.
Not a day goes by that I don't see something that reinforces my belief that people are idiots. |