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Here's how I deal with users who steal

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Re: Here's how I deal with users who steal

#121

Post by michaelstewart »

hahla wrote: post #25
danielpal wrote: post #13

This is the sort of thing that sounds reasonably nice and we all wish we could do. However it stops working really fast. I also have a web service and we used to let people get away with this sort of stuff. First year it worked. Second year, the amount of fraud was impacting bottom line and some of this users turned out to be the ones that used "support" the most. So we started banning bad users and blocking their su…

I like the way he approached the problem with the "scholarships" its really clever. But I want to agree with you, as word gets out that its easy to receive the product for free your going to have a large portion of your user base free riding off of the paying ones. Then it comes down to at what point do you continue providing the service when its not profitable to do so.

If that happens here they can easily remove the scholarships.

Re: Here's how I deal with users who steal

#122

Post by lysium »

I like that idea!

Remembers me of the German magazin 'brand eins' that offered a 'social' subscription where you won't pay for a year if you're struggling with making ends meet. You just had to tell them, no questions asked.

Re: Here's how I deal with users who steal

#123

Post by AhtiK »

I don't believe this will convert well. Converting to paying customer should include a positive reinforcement.

I would never be a customer of a service where the company tells me that I stole from them in the first place. For the DistroKid case I'd say stealing is a strong word for creating a few dummy user accounts. I'd guess many of us have asked friends to use Dropbox referral codes to sign up even when you know they might not continue to use the service.

If a legitimate person is caught stealing then one is ashamed and prefers other services.

Re: Here's how I deal with users who steal

#124

Post by theblackswan »

Nice..atleast you have given it a logical end. On facebook 20% or more accounts are fictitious made for games or other piety purposes. I have tried to bring in notice of FB but they wont delete account. Later I tried to do an experiment and created a fake account myself and post malicious pics. Again through my account when I brought this to notice, they won't delete it. I figured out how they are siphoning off advertisers money through these [atleast 100 million fake accounts].

I appreciate your purpose has a meaning to it and somehow this is a good attempt to bring thing to a logical end by providing it as a service. This scholarship will indeed help a lot of struggling music artists.

Re: Here's how I deal with users who steal

#125

Post by jacalata »

laureny wrote: post #103
ars wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Perceived price certainly varies greatly depending on the buyer. A professional musician will not think twice about paying $50 for an awesome tab software, but to me, a hobbyist guitar player, paying more than $20 would be a stretch. This has nothing to do with the quality of the product. The Humble Bundle pricing model has shown that such an approach can be extraordinarily successful, but I'm not sure how well it ca…

The market is not someone who plays guitar for fun, but someone who intends to sell their music for others to listen to. If you have ever looked into selling your music, then you should know that the costs of doing so are generally insane and this is a bargain. If you've never looked into it, then you probably aren't a serious consumer for the service anyway.

Re: Here's how I deal with users who steal

#126

Post by jacalata »

e12e wrote: post #119
hackerboos wrote: post #46

Maybe I don't understand your business model correctly but why not just take the first $20 of royalties from users that steal?

There could be legal issues with that. Might be fine as an option (either pay up-front, or buy "on credit") -- but it complicates the legal relationship somewhat -- did someone pay you for a service? Are they your customer? What happens when they demand a refund, but have only had 10$ paid out? I can understand wanting to keep hands off the royalties and sell the service as a separate product. I agree it might be an…

Maybe not actually take it automatically, but pop up another little reminder once they get $20 out of it - "you've now made enough through our service to pay our regular fee! Would you like to pay us now? Upgrade to paid | Sorry, still can't afford it"

Re: Here's how I deal with users who steal

#127

Post by fijal »

chm wrote: post #102
bemmu wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A company I used to work for made bible software. You could browse different bible versions side-by-side, collect verses etc., designed for people seriously into it (like priests composing their sermon). But some of these people would still copy the software instead of ordering the disk from us. We didn't really detect that, but the boss added a screen that just randomly pops up reminding the user that if you are run…

My little finger tells me you would have received less calls if the company sold video games, or pornography, for example.

I for one would like to see a study that shows that people who read bible are more moral than people who don't read bible (or people who play video games). In my anecdotal evidence, there is no real correlation, but hey, science.

Re: Here's how I deal with users who steal

#128

Post by meric »

fijal wrote: post #127
chm wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My little finger tells me you would have received less calls if the company sold video games, or pornography, for example.

I for one would like to see a study that shows that people who read bible are more moral than people who don't read bible (or people who play video games). In my anecdotal evidence, there is no real correlation, but hey, science.

The key I think is people reading the bible have their minds engaged in the thoughts of morality.

Re: Here's how I deal with users who steal

#129

Post by ars »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #79
ars wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

+1 point for making the most entitled statement I've heard this week

He's offering it for free (in certain cases). I was suggesting also let people pay him a small amount instead.

Re: Here's how I deal with users who steal

#130

Post by ars »

kyro wrote: post #74
ars wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That doesn't mean the product is priced too high. It simply means that the value gained from the product is not perceived by a someone to be higher than the value of the currency amount being requested. That's how we make purchasing decisions. It's about perceived value and the trade-offs we make. Letting consumers set their own prices on products they subjectively perceive to be overpriced would run down prices as i…

> Should they be able to set their own price?

He's offering it for free (for some users). I was simply suggesting he also allow those users to pick a price and pay him something.

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