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Write some software, give it away for free

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Re: Write some software, give it away for free

#211

Post by sandbach »

globular-toast wrote: post #174
jaapz wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A TV-presenter of a fairly popular TV-show with an audience in my country once told an anecdote that they wanted the admission for the audience to be free. But when the tickets were free, a lot less people showed up. When they changed the ticket to be the quite arbitrary amount of 7 EUR, suddenly the theater was full every time.

We naturally go for scarce things first. A few examples of this: - I'm not particularly into castles, but I've visited a fair few while travelling. I lived in Norwich for 10 years, home to one of the finest Norman castles in the country. Did I visit? Did I heck. - When your favourite film was on TV you'd watch it every time. Then when you got it on DVD you'd never watch it again. - Give a dog some miscellaneous lefto…

They've recently done up Norwich castle and it's better than ever. It's in the running for Museum of the Year!

Re: Write some software, give it away for free

#213

Post by predkambrij »

carlosjobim wrote: post #200
latexr wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve also done both, and I found both kinds of users in both situations. There have been cases on the commercial front where I just felt like giving customers their money back, even after years of having used the software, and told them to not come back. There’s a lot of entitlement and craziness from paying users too, and those are harder to ignore. With open-source it’s much simpler to drive a hard line. My “favour…

> There’s a lot of entitlement and craziness from paying users too, and those are harder to ignore. Somebody paying for your product is very strong signal. You know that such a person represents real world use cases for your product, and that their issues and feature requests are based on real world problems. Otherwise the chances are low that they would be paying for the software. So helping them with what they want…

My favourite is the advice I read from personal MBA. You send them to your competition :)

Re: Write some software, give it away for free

#214

Post by predkambrij »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #209
jaapz wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A TV-presenter of a fairly popular TV-show with an audience in my country once told an anecdote that they wanted the admission for the audience to be free. But when the tickets were free, a lot less people showed up. When they changed the ticket to be the quite arbitrary amount of 7 EUR, suddenly the theater was full every time.

Anecdote: A long time ago I was helping a friend with her hand-made candles stall at a craft fair. A particular thpe of candle wasn't selling - so we talked about it and she reduced the price of each candle. But they still weren't selling. So we talked about it some more, and she priced them at 3x the original price. They all sold.

Yeah. If it's free or cheap, people don't value the thing. It's something called "price sensitivity". Some things are expensive (luxury brands), and people want it for that reason alone (status symbol).

Re: Write some software, give it away for free

#215

Post by carlosjobim »

gchamonlive wrote: post #24
cortesoft wrote: post #21

I don't think this debate has an easy answer. Yes, not everything should be about money, but yes, we all need to make money to survive. I think we all agree the answer isn't, "No one should make any money writing software." I also think we can agree that the answer isn't, "you should charge money for every bit of software you write." So how do we decide which is which? I don't want to stop being a professional softwa…

There is also a big difference between making money to live comfortably and make money to get filthy rich. Lots of people come to tech aiming for the second, so they won't make software so you can buy them a beer. They want to hit it big, and I think this is what smuggles perverse incentives in software development.

Why the hell would it be perverse to want to get rich from something you created?

Do you have some kind of right to other people's creative output now? This greed after what other people have seems to be completely boundless.

Re: Write some software, give it away for free

#216

Post by predkambrij »

nohell wrote: post #27
cortesoft wrote: post #21

I don't think this debate has an easy answer. Yes, not everything should be about money, but yes, we all need to make money to survive. I think we all agree the answer isn't, "No one should make any money writing software." I also think we can agree that the answer isn't, "you should charge money for every bit of software you write." So how do we decide which is which? I don't want to stop being a professional softwa…

It's not horrible to make money from good software, but nowadays lots of the things people do to attract VCs are plain stupid. It's an attack on that, the ones who "ship startups in an afternoon" and seek to build a moat around basic features in the hope that some corpo will buy in and get trapped.

Highly appreciate to raise the issue.

Re: Write some software, give it away for free

#217

Post by latexr »

carlosjobim wrote: post #200
latexr wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve also done both, and I found both kinds of users in both situations. There have been cases on the commercial front where I just felt like giving customers their money back, even after years of having used the software, and told them to not come back. There’s a lot of entitlement and craziness from paying users too, and those are harder to ignore. With open-source it’s much simpler to drive a hard line. My “favour…

> There’s a lot of entitlement and craziness from paying users too, and those are harder to ignore. Somebody paying for your product is very strong signal. You know that such a person represents real world use cases for your product, and that their issues and feature requests are based on real world problems. Otherwise the chances are low that they would be paying for the software. So helping them with what they want…

> So helping them with what they want could mean that you've just tipped the scale enough for hundreds or thousands of people to become new customers.

Sure, if the request is reasonable and sensical. I entertain those and even help them formulate the request better if needed. That’s true of both commercial and open-source.

But I’m more talking about the users who demand features. Those who say the tool needs to have whatever idea they just thought of 2 minutes ago, despite no one else ever having asked for it and it not really making sense. Those users who only think of themselves and suggest features which require fundamental changes which would modify the behaviour for everyone, or the feature is in itself contradictory and there’s no way it could work.

Re: Write some software, give it away for free

#218

Post by Findecanor »

I've had quite a few constructive hobbies. I have built from metal and sold some parts, sculpt in clay or plastic and cast, and sold casts.

The point was not to sell them, but the community around the hobby. I usually asked for only a little more than the cost of materials.

And that is also how I've approached open source software: It's a community first. In my first decade of using Linux, it was a movement. I got in it to build us a better future of computing, together.

Re: Write some software, give it away for free

#219

Post by carlosjobim »

criticalfault wrote: post #34
cortesoft wrote: post #21

I don't think this debate has an easy answer. Yes, not everything should be about money, but yes, we all need to make money to survive. I think we all agree the answer isn't, "No one should make any money writing software." I also think we can agree that the answer isn't, "you should charge money for every bit of software you write." So how do we decide which is which? I don't want to stop being a professional softwa…

wouldn't this apply everywhere? let's say agriculture. if you make one tone of tomatoes, one family cannot consume this in a year without becoming red. so should farmers also give it for free? what about artists? it's not that their work even has a utility function...

Of course farmers should give away everything they produce to local cadets, who gather everything and transport it to central warehouses in the city. There the produce is distributed among the population according to party rank. The farmers eat in the local village canteen and are grateful for whatever they receive or not receive in their tins. Anybody who doesn't deliver all he produces to the common good will be swiftly dealt with by young pioneers.

It's just the superior FOSS way.

Re: Write some software, give it away for free

#220

Post by SirMaster »

I just put a donate button in my free apps and make a little every now and again from the kind souls who decide to send money.

I was always afraid of some sort of implied level of support or quality from something that I charge money for, but maybe I'm overthinking it.

I feel like if I release it for free then there can be no expectations.

My hobby projects were created mainly to serve a need for myself or a close friend, or to create an opportunity to develop my skills, hopefully both at once.

I am speaking about this all from a pre-LLM world and mind, so I realize that LLMs can change this somewhat.

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