Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How I converted a software thief into a customer

blurity.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 87 posts

Re: How I converted a software thief into a customer

#71

Post by TomGullen »

I don't like this approach.

Earlier this year saw some referrals from a hacking forum from a young gentleman petitioning the cracking community to crack our software for him: http://www.hackforums.net//showthread.php?tid=2148782 (You may have to register to view the thread)

I engaged in conversation with that community briefly and told them a little about us, and asked them what was unfair about our pricing and if they had any better ideas for us.

The response was extremely positive and supportive, and we received some emails with helpful advice about how to protect our program from crackers like themselves.

I've no idea if we got any more sales than we would of otherwise, but we engaged with a community in a respectful manner and it's likely we delayed cracked versions of our software being made freely available.

The problem I see with the OP's method is firstly I would be peeved if I was a legitimate customer and interpreted this post as rewarding bad behaviour.

Secondly as OP has publicly posted this he might actually lose revenue from future customers purposefully entering wrong keys to gain access to the coupon code. If OP redacts this now, customers might be annoyed by this and ask for discounts, or even find alternatives. So it's quite short sighted to post this in my opinion.

Thirdly and possibly most importantly is that it's boiling the company-customer relationship down into a purely financial one. A relationship with a potential customer (no matter what their software ethics are) should be more than that, and it can have unexpected rewards like we experienced.

The message in the OP is disrespectful as well, it's highly accusing (is there any risk legitimate customers could see this?). It's my opinion that these sorts of tactics don't do your company and favours in the long term, although in the short term you might collect a handful more dollars.

Re: How I converted a software thief into a customer

#72

Post by tghw »

gradstudent wrote: post #62
tghw wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make this assertion also makes it clear that you probably haven't worked on much desktop software distributed to a large number of users. There are so many different configurations that the only real way to figure out why it isn't working for a particular user is to have it phone home with a stack trace and basic system info. Otherwise, pretty much every bug would not be reproducible. If you don't like your softwa…

Let me see if I have this right: instead of asking nicely for permission to send your errors and crash reports you want your users to setup a firewall and prevent your program from phoning home. What a dick move. It shows you care not a whit for your customers' privacy or consent; only the data on their computers which, for some bizarre reason, you feel entitled to.

I've stated elsewhere in this thread, I don't write Blurity. It seems that you so want someone to attack for perceived violations of user privacy that you haven't even stopped to consider who you're attacking.

As I said before, most desktop software phones home. In fact, by necessity, any software that auto updates and most software that requires registration phones home. Thinking otherwise is just naive.

Re: How I converted a software thief into a customer

#73

Post by tghw »

TomGullen wrote: post #71

I don't like this approach. Earlier this year saw some referrals from a hacking forum from a young gentleman petitioning the cracking community to crack our software for him: http://www.hackforums.net//showthread.php?tid=2148782 (You may have to register to view the thread) I engaged in conversation with that community briefly and told them a little about us, and asked them what was unfair about our pricing and if th…

See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4258035 for the way this is activated. It only shows it if someone has already made it clear they're trying to not pay for the software.

Re: How I converted a software thief into a customer

#74

Post by TomGullen »

tghw wrote: post #73
TomGullen wrote: post #71

I don't like this approach. Earlier this year saw some referrals from a hacking forum from a young gentleman petitioning the cracking community to crack our software for him: http://www.hackforums.net//showthread.php?tid=2148782 (You may have to register to view the thread) I engaged in conversation with that community briefly and told them a little about us, and asked them what was unfair about our pricing and if th…

See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4258035 for the way this is activated. It only shows it if someone has already made it clear they're trying to not pay for the software.

Assuming there's no risk legitimate customers will see this message, it's still a short sighted tactic in my opinion.

For an extra $29 in the bank, you've risked alienating your other customers, and could even lose revenue going into the future - mainly because you posted it on your company blog which I'm sure is read by a lot of your legitimate customers.

It's a precarious position because the $29 isn't much upside at all and can easily be negated by one single customer who reads this post and finds an alternative.

I understand that you feel celebratory about this, but it would be fair to assume that some of your customers will not feel the same way about it.

Re: How I converted a software thief into a customer

#75

Post by randomdrake »

iamdann wrote: post #18

The popup you wrote had a humanizing effect. It's not just a faceless piece of software anymore. It's a a genuinely nice guy who built a cool product and wants to get paid. As a concept, people know that there's a real person behind every application. But it's not until moments like these when they're actually confronted with that person. Much less offered a deal for trying to rip them off.

I think that the early shareware game days did a good job of this and I miss it. Instead of a "Click this link to purchase" you got a message from, usually, the sole developer or small team of developers. It was very humanizing and it was great.

The message would thank you for trying out the game. It would usually talk about how the game was awesome and what you were missing out on. It was clearly genuine. You didn't feel like you were purchasing something from some giant company trying to sell something. You felt like you were supporting some people who were passionate about the art they created.

I miss this about games and think it may be the reason that I've sort of stopped playing the big titles after 25 years of non-stop gaming. I find myself much more drawn to independent developers on the mobile platform or the wonderfully simple and innovative games from small teams.

Re: How I converted a software thief into a customer

#76

Post by ralfn »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #57
Karunamon wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Just because something doesn't scale into the macro doesn't mean it can't be true and relevant in the micro. Call me extremist but, I don't agree with this. There's no deprivation happening. It's a crappy thing to do, no doubt, but I can't see any analogy to the 'lost sale' meme tossed around by the various *AA groups that doesn't break down immediately upon any kind of scrutiny. On another note, I pretty much wince…

The hand-wringing over 'steal' that crops up in these threads is hilarious. If the whole piracy thing was as logically tight as the armchair economists would like you to believe, then the misappropriation of terms would not be so offensive. It'd be merely annoying. Instead, we often find vast treatises on semantics. I'm not saying you pirate (that's your business), more observing the disconnect between the argument (…

I like the word "pirate". Everybody understands its meaning. Its not confused with the unlawfull appropiation of somebody's property ( stealing ), but it does have a negative connotation.

Re: How I converted a software thief into a customer

#77

Post by pbhjpbhj »

ralfn wrote: post #76
mattgreenrocks wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hand-wringing over 'steal' that crops up in these threads is hilarious. If the whole piracy thing was as logically tight as the armchair economists would like you to believe, then the misappropriation of terms would not be so offensive. It'd be merely annoying. Instead, we often find vast treatises on semantics. I'm not saying you pirate (that's your business), more observing the disconnect between the argument (…

I like the word "pirate". Everybody understands its meaning. Its not confused with the unlawfull appropiation of somebody's property ( stealing ), but it does have a negative connotation.

Was that supposed to be a joke? Piracy is robbery at sea - ie stealing by force using a boat.

It's like calling bullying 'murder'.

Re: How I converted a software thief into a customer

#79

Post by gte910h »

gradstudent wrote: post #54
aiham wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It asks the user for a registration code. It obviously needs to communicate with a server to verify the code. When someone enters an invalid code, it will clearly be logged and the OP notified. It is not doing anything like "phone home" in secret (From what I can tell after reading the article).

I have two issues with this argument: 1. The user is not ever made aware that their registration attempt will involve sending out information over the Internet. The application is therefore surreptitiously phoning home. 2. There is no reason to keep logs such as the OP currently has -- the kind that enables him to segregate people into buckets like "honest", "pirate", "converted" and then crow about it online.

I don't know what you're talking about: Registration is telling a company you have their product.

Registration of a toaster is sending in a card. Registration of a phone is sometimes done by clicking the eula, sometimes by sending a post card.

Registration of software downloaded over the internet is almost always done by...telling the company you have their product over the internet. Windows still lets you print out something I believe.

I think you missed the definition of registration if you're surprised by the fact information is sent when you register.

That's like being surprised information is sent when you email something.

Re: How I converted a software thief into a customer

#80

Post by Karunamon »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #77
ralfn wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the word "pirate". Everybody understands its meaning. Its not confused with the unlawfull appropiation of somebody's property ( stealing ), but it does have a negative connotation.

Was that supposed to be a joke? Piracy is robbery at sea - ie stealing by force using a boat. It's like calling bullying 'murder'.

Check a recent dictionary. Take it up with Princeton if you don't like the definition:

* (pirate) copy illegally; of published material

* (pirate) someone who robs at sea or plunders the land from the sea without having a commission from any sovereign nation

* (pirate) commandeer: take arbitrarily or by force; "The Cubans commandeered the plane and flew it to Miami"

Post reply on HN