Quality software deserves your hard‑earned cash

Also while I do like the software VMware and proxmox has, and I would donate to developers if I had spare money, I don't so I just keep a list for future me, and try to convey my thanks in the meantime.

On the other hand: broadcom can gargle my balls, I will not be paying them a single cent unless its my last option. They killed a good product, and are like the hug of death for acquired company's.

I would have less issue paying money if I knew the software wasn't being overinflated or money was actually going to the developers. Iv paid for solid works and other stuff cuz I see its value and use it, but it was also a good product I could as a student.

Now EDA software is insanely expensive and so my only option is openlane,so I can struggle trying to learn this hobby

Which is why funding the R&D part of any product of such nature has always been so annoying. Today it seems we've settled on Patreon and the like for the individual-scale projects.

Apple does sell a number of software products for high-ish prices: Final Cut Pro (as well as add-ons Motion and Compressor) and Logic Pro are paid-for software.

But the another thing (which is fascinating to me, given the audience of HN and the tone of the comments here) is that part of the purpose of the ecosystem lock-in is to get users to pay indy devs for software.

Now, yes, Apple does take a cut. But that aligns them with devs in terms of getting users to open their wallets. The iPad still has no calculator app. But there are plenty of paid ones in the App Store. Apple gets an extra $0.30 and the indy dev gets $0.70 because iPadOS lacks a built-in calculator[1]

I predict that the european experiment will ultimately prove to be a failure for paid apps. If you look at the commentary from users and developers about why they like the changes, the things they like are completely orthogonal, even if they sound the same. Developers like that they won't have to pay the "Apple Tax" because users can side-load. Whereas users like that they don't have to pay developers because they can side-load.

I hope I'm wrong.

[1] Except the one in spotlight.

Transcribe![1] - just a good app for doing music transcription. Pull in a local audio file, slow it down, loop it, etc. Works great, no fuss. I use this for all kinds of things when practicing guitar.

Neck Diagrams[2] - the best tool out there for making various kinds of string instrument diagrams (chord diagrams, scale diagrams on a fretboard, that kind of thing). I like the software a lot and it's pretty powerful - though I'll admit I've often thought about trying to eat their lunch, as there's a few things it doesn't do that I'd like to see.

[1]: https://www.seventhstring.com/xscribe/download_mac.html [2]: https://www.neckdiagrams.com/