Where is the evidence to support the claim that the lack of purchases is due to piracy?
Closed for Business
21–30 of 57 posts
Re: Closed for Business
#22easy to pirate, extremely open and customizable, designed with 1000% nerd philosophy at every step, made the author millions: minecraft
Re: Closed for Business
#23> Piracy is a symptom of failure to find an effective business model.
I hate this assumption, it's grounded in nothing but unwarranted optimism about humanity.
Maybe people pirate because they're cheap, selfish, and don't like spending money on things they can get for free. As the article established, people were mass-pirating apps that were easier to install legitimately and cost less than a buck anyway. If you pirate that, odds that you just need a better business model to entice you to not pirate are slim to none.
That may not apply to everyone, but it does apply to a lot of people.
There is absolutely zero reason to believe that there is a perfect equilibrium where business maximizes its goals and users have no incentive to pirate. The two are constantly at conflict (money is pretty much a zero-sum game, and ultimately it all does come down to money in some way or another), and it's hard to compete with free. No matter what you offer, if it has a cost then it's hard to compete with that same offering minus the cost.
Re: Closed for Business
#24You search the internet for pirate copies of apps, then copy them onto your (regular, unrooted, non-“jailbroken”) device, and launch them. The system is designed for piracy from the ground up.
OK, I admit, I couldn't read past this sentence. This is so much complete and total bullshit that I closed the tab in disgust.
The ability to sideload apps on a non-rooted, non-jailbroken device is exactly what any and every device I own absolutely must support and this is non-negotiable. If I own a piece of computing hardware, I will have the freedom to install and run any software I want, regardless of where or how I obtained. Oh, and I don't use pirated software.
Given that people are already talking about a "war on general purpose computing"[1], it's downright shameful for this guy to run around promoting the idea that open devices are designed to enable piracy.
Re: Closed for Business
#25The entire premise is flawed. This developer didn't leave Android. They got rid of their entry fee to try to make more money via in-app purchase. Despite the publicity stunt, that is a run-of-the-mill business decision with little or no wider significance.
Re: Closed for Business
#26You search the internet for pirate copies of apps, then copy them onto your (regular, unrooted, non-“jailbroken”) device, and launch them. The system is designed for piracy from the ground up. OK, I admit, I couldn't read past this sentence. This is so much complete and total bullshit that I closed the tab in disgust. The ability to sideload apps on a non-rooted, non-jailbroken device is exactly what any and every de…
I felt exactly the same way upon reading that line. I'm a very tech-savvy guy, I could easily download and install any app I want on my Android device, but I don't. I'm very cheap, I almost never pay for software, I use mostly open source software. I would rather pay for an app I find to be of value then install some old busted version from the internet, with who knows what kind of malware included in it. I'm not paying for the software, per say, I'm paying for the continued support of the developer by way of updates. Most people I know who use Android phones either don't know or care about installing pirated versions of software, of they know enough to know better than to trust something they downloaded from a random website to run on their phones.
Re: Closed for Business
#27> here’s a tutorial on how to “sideload” Android apps (in practice, as with most articles that mention “backups” of software from nebulous sources, this is a tutorial about piracy) Uh... Sideloading is not about piracy. One of the nice things about Android is that you are not locked into getting your apps from a store. I've sideloaded apps my company is creating. I've sideloaded apps that friends have made. I've side…
Yeah, I've sideloaded a number of betas or prerelease applications and have never pirated an Android application. This article's making some pretty big assumptions.
Re: Closed for Business
#28easy to pirate, extremely open and customizable, designed with 1000% nerd philosophy at every step, made the author millions: minecraft
But that's one (immensely popular) example. It's the very most popular indie game in the world, or close to it.
Re: Closed for Business
#29People don't pirate phone apps because it's easy. People pirate phone apps because your dumb app is not worth paying for. Write software worth paying for.
Re: Closed for Business
#30You search the internet for pirate copies of apps, then copy them onto your (regular, unrooted, non-“jailbroken”) device, and launch them. The system is designed for piracy from the ground up. OK, I admit, I couldn't read past this sentence. This is so much complete and total bullshit that I closed the tab in disgust. The ability to sideload apps on a non-rooted, non-jailbroken device is exactly what any and every de…
So, to paraphrase:
"Guy doesn't agree with me on something fundamental. Shame on him."