71–80 of 225 posts
The Bill and Ted rule: Be excellent to one another. On the other hand, I have to wonder about the story of the police officer - how much is it going to cost that woman to deal with the misdemeanor?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
RE no homepage mention of it: I suspect there are those who would try to get it for free, regardless of how much it costs. It's probably more successful in converting those who wouldn't have paid in the first place - IE by reminding them that they've been "caught out". Having said that, no homepage mention may be turning away the honest users who might genuinely be unable to afford it. Only offering a discount to tho…
This - rewarding deviousness - troubled me about the system too. Perhaps, instead of explicitly mentioning the Scholarship accounts on the homepage, there could be text along lines of "Struggling to get by and can't afford it? Email us and we'll see what we can do."
I was actually wondering how to detection works. Just checking if all users have the same email domain name (with the exception of a white list such as gmail, hotmail, etc.)? Or flagging users that are using mailinator/5minutemail/whatever?
Abusers basically work as hill-climbing algorithms. If you catch them, many will just try again after tweaking something.
When in the past I've fought abusers my approach includes: minimizing opportunities to gain information; minimizing signs of progress; lengthening feedback loops as much as possible; increasing the cost of trying to get information; and, when you change things, changing several things at once, so that they have to figure out several things to get back in.
Interesting that the "scholarship" (free) plan isn't mentioned on the homepage. It seems you have to try and steal the product before being offered the free plan. I also like the subtle dig, "if you can't afford it." I've certainly pirated things myself. If iTunes asked me, "We noticed you've pirated The Walking Dead. If you can't afford $3, click here to get it for free." By reframing it as charity I might be shamed…
What if someone can afford it, but isn't willing to? To me that means the price is too high, so maybe also let them set their own price?
What about people who can afford but are unwilling to buy luxury items, like Louis Vuitton bags? Should they be able to set their own price?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If someone can afford a product, but isn't willing to, then they should look elsewhere for the value provided by the product, or live without it. That's embedded in the definition of a market--sellers get to choose the price, buyers get to choose whether or not to buy.
only in a "free-"market. Also there is a concept of "fair price" for a reason. You can't charge insane prices everywhere, especially for essential items.
Interesting that the "scholarship" (free) plan isn't mentioned on the homepage. It seems you have to try and steal the product before being offered the free plan. I also like the subtle dig, "if you can't afford it." I've certainly pirated things myself. If iTunes asked me, "We noticed you've pirated The Walking Dead. If you can't afford $3, click here to get it for free." By reframing it as charity I might be shamed…
What if someone can afford it, but isn't willing to? To me that means the price is too high, so maybe also let them set their own price?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
only in a "free-"market. Also there is a concept of "fair price" for a reason. You can't charge insane prices everywhere, especially for essential items.
It's a good thing a service to help individuals sell their music on a variety of online services isn't essential.