brad@looking.UUCP (05/06/87)
The recent discussion on Shareware reminded me of a survey I took last year, but never reported on. I asked net readers (supposedly many thousands of high-profile micro users with wide connections and good programming skills) to send me their shareware success stories. What did I get? Essentially none. Several stories of failure, and a few mentions of programs like PC-Write and ARC. Not one story of success by a netreader or close associate. Yes, a very few famous programs have made money for their authors. Perhaps in these cases the word got around that you were supposed to pay. But in general, if you put a program out in shareware you won't get the slightest fraction of your development costs back. Oddly enough, the less you charge to register, the fewer registrations you will get. (I guess people figure they won't get anything for a cheap registration, or that it isn't worth the time.) One program with a 25 cent registration made the author 50 cents. On the net, we see a $5 registration making $10. A program with a $10 registration made $310. A program with a $50 registration made $600. All these amounts less than 1 or 2 days consulting fees. Even the big boys of shareware are gnats compared to Bill Gates and Peter Norton and Dave Weiner etc. The conclusion -- Shareware is a hoax. Only a very, very few make money from it, and their programs would probably have sold far more as commercial products. (Has PC-Write gone commercial now?) It was a cute idea, but it just isn't real. -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
oyster@uwmacc.UUCP (Vicarious Oyster) (05/08/87)
In article <795@looking.UUCP> @looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes: >The conclusion -- Shareware is a hoax. Only a very, very few make money >from it, and their programs would probably have sold far more as >commercial products. (Has PC-Write gone commercial now?) >It was a cute idea, but it just isn't real. Shareware as a money-making prospect may be a hoax. Shareware as a way to have a lot of people use your software, and have at least *some* chance of having somebody express appreciation to you in a concrete way (i.e. $$$) stills sounds like a good idea to me. An example is Uniterm (for the ST); it's a very good PD terminal emulator/communications program which many ST users use. If it had come with a shareware-type request for a few dollars (like, $30), I would have paid already. I've already considered trying to drum up support for people contributing to a "color monitor for Simon" fund, just to encourage the author to expand his support for the program (and possibly others in the future).
upl@puff.WISC.EDU (Future Unix Gurus) (05/08/87)
In article <795@looking.UUCP> @looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes: >The recent discussion on Shareware reminded me of a survey I took >last year, but never reported on. > >I asked net readers (supposedly many thousands of high-profile micro >users with wide connections and good programming skills) to send me >their shareware success stories. (lines deleted) >Yes, a very few famous programs have made money for their authors. (lines deleted) >The conclusion -- Shareware is a hoax. Only a very, very few make money >from it, and their programs would probably have sold far more as >commercial products. (Has PC-Write gone commercial now?) >It was a cute idea, but it just isn't real. Wait a minute on this, how are you defining shareware? If you honestly expected to get rich of off shareware, than your naivete is showing. Obviously when you ask for vouluntary payment on something, only a fraction (and a tiny one at that) of the consumers are going to pay. Rule #1 of human behavior= people are greedy. (Rule #2 is, if someone doesn't seem to be greeedy, consult rule #1). I have always felt that shareware was a modified PD, NOT a modified commercial scheme. Shareware is nice in that it provides an organized way of saying thanks.If you expected any more than that, well, you give people ALOT more credit than I do. If you WANT to be commercial, then BE commercial! Take out ads, do the duplication and packaging your self, and charge for copies by the copy. If on the other hand, you are devloping things that for one reason or another you don't want to market, but do want to share and would like a little recognition, release it as SHAREWARE (note the derivation of the word, it aint called COMMERCIALWARE! :) ) If there is a hoax here, people have pulled it on themselves, thanx to rule #1 above! Jeff Kesselman upl@puff.cs.wisc.edu
mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (My watch has windows) Meyer) (05/10/87)
In article <765@puff.WISC.EDU> upl@puff.WISC.EDU (Future Unix Gurus) writes: >If you WANT to be commercial, then BE commercial! Take out ads, do the >duplication and packaging your self, and charge for copies by the copy. Well said! On the other hand: >If on the other hand, you are devloping things that for one reason or another >you don't want to market, but do want to share and would like a little >recognition, release it as SHAREWARE (note the derivation of the word, it >aint called COMMERCIALWARE! :) ) Since you said "recognition," not "dollars," you can take the route I took. Copyright the thing, and put in notices saying "you can redist so long as all copyright notices stay in place, and you give away source." Also add restrictions that bug reports and enhancements be sent back to the author, and explicit instructions on how to get them there. I did this with a text formatter for CP/M about 5 years ago. Result: A 6" stack of mail, most being short things of the form "small tex is great! Is there a new version?" from all over the world (have to check, but I think I've got mail from every continent but Antartica). Some of them are enhancements. A listing of a port to OS/9-6809. A few requests for new features. One request for permission to explicitly mention my name in an article printed with small tex, so that those who read the article know where to go to get a copy, along with a copy of the article. [High point: no bug reports! I found one minor bug, even though I used small tex steadily for three years.] And an offer of $15/copy if I do an IBM-PC port, with a projected sales of at least 1000 copies/year. Sure looks like recognition to me. And it's sure worth more than the hundred dollars or so I'd have gotten if I'd asked for money. I suspect I wouldn't have gotten most of that mail if I'd asked for money, so I think I won. <mike -- Take a magic carpet to the olden days Mike Meyer To a mythical land where everybody lays ucbvax!mwm Around in the clouds in a happy daze mwm@berkeley.edu In Kizmiaz ... Kizmiaz mwm@ucbjade.BITNET
scotty@l5comp.UUCP (Scott Turner) (05/10/87)
In article <795@looking.UUCP> @looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes: >Oddly enough, the less you charge to register, the fewer registrations you >will get. (I guess people figure they won't get anything for a cheap >registration, or that it isn't worth the time.) > >One program with a 25 cent registration made the author 50 cents. >On the net, we see a $5 registration making $10. >A program with a $10 registration made $310. >A program with a $50 registration made $600. I know of a programmer who asked $15 and got >$2000 for his Amiga program. He even got a commercial firm to pay into 3 digits to distribute his program with their product. From observing shareware it seems to me that there are three paths to making it work: 1. Know the right people. The only way that programmer got included with the commercial product was through a contact with the commercial programmer. 2. Being in the right place at the right time with the right product. I call this "luck" as it takes a pile of it. 3. Giving people something for their money. As the commies will tell you, human nature is such that MOST people will not do Y to get X if they can get X without doing Y. Our "buddies" (Hey Gorbachev wants us to think they're our buddies right? :-)) in the USSR solved this delima by introducing the D factor. Do Y and you get X, don't do Y and you get D (usually D := Dead;). PC Write fills in D with user support. Most shareware authors though don't supply a D factor and hence get very little for their effort. They decide to be like Lenin and depend on the D factor not being needed, maybe in another universe fellas. Do also note that a D factor of "Send me your HARD earned money and I'll register you as a user and let you know about future updates" don't hack it. After all, they got the original some how. Most people are smart enough to make the connection that if they hang around the same place they'll get the updates too :). >All these amounts less than 1 or 2 days consulting fees. Quite frankly most shareware authors would be doing good to get THAT much in consulting fees. If they could they'd be consulting! >The conclusion -- Shareware is a hoax. Only a very, very few make money >from it, and their programs would probably have sold far more as Shareware isn't a hoax. It's just that most people treat it as "Money for nothing" by providing no D factor or a rather limp wristed one. Scott Turner L5 Computing, the home of Merlin, Arthur, Excalibur and the CRAM. GEnie: JST | UUCP: stride!l5comp!scotty | 12311 Maplewood Ave; Edmonds WA 98020 If Motorola had wanted us to use BPTR's they'd have built in shifts on A regs [ BCL? Just say *NO*! ] (I don't smoke, send flames to /dev/null)