dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt) (04/13/90)
In article <49b9d37b.15840@valley.UUCP> pfluegerm@valley.UUCP (Mike Pflueger) writes: > Second, from my experience, don't bother. It gets distributed quite widely, > and VERY few people pay. True. I doubt that there are more than a handful of people who have made a substantial amount of money from their shareware products... Scott Watson (Red Ryder), Don Brown / CE Software (DiskTop), Jeff Shulman (VirusDetective), and perhaps David Alverson (ZTerm) are among the few I can think of. Most people don't seem to feel an obligation to pay the author for shareware... especially if they've received the shareware via a channel which costs them money (e.g. a PD/shareware reseller, Compu$erve, etc). > These people then have the nerve to expect > support for the software. Nerve? Well, I dunno. If you're asking somebody to pay you for the right to use your software, then (in my humble opinion) it's not surprising at all if they expect you to provide support of some degree... e.g. the same degree of support that they would expect from a commercial software vendor selling a similar product for a similar price. If you're asking them to pay you money for the software "as is", with no assurance of support, I'd suggest making this clear in the documentation. It's probably significant that the few people who have made money from their shareware products seem to be those who DO provide some degree of support for their users. Jeff Shulman, for example, has done a really superb job of supporting people who have paid the registration fee for VirusDetective... his virus-alert and update-notice postcards are more professional than many similar things I've received from vendors of expensive commercial products. His artwork is better, too! > Worst of all, you get companies like Educorp who get copies and distribute > them FOR PROFIT without a) contacting you or asking permission in any manner, > b) giving you any share of the profits, or c) verifying that what they're > distributing is even functional. I saw several of my programs just pop up > one day in their catalog and went through a lot of hassle trying to either > be compensated or have them removed (one of the main things that bothered > me was they had never contacted me and were distributing an incomplete and > modified - non-functional - version of one of my programs and I got many > calls from people who wanted support and believed they'd paid for the > product). Yeah, Educorp has a bad reputation for doing just this. They seem to be getting a bit better lately... at least, I did receive a letter from them asking for permission to distribute one of my freeware products. The letter wasn't wonderful... it was a "sign here to give us permission, mail us your latest version, and we'll distribute it for you." They didn't explain who they are, or give much information about the conditions of the distribution. I turned 'em down, based on what I sensed of their attitude. I checked EduCorp's "show special" catalog at MacWorld yesterday. According to what I saw, their "antivirals" disk is horribly out of date... it seems to contain nothing capable of coping with WDEF, and listed Interferon as a "thumbs-up" (primo, recommended) utility. Interferon is obsolete; its author recommended quite some time ago that people stop using it and switch to Disinfectant or Virex. On the other hand, there are PD/shareware distributors who do a better job. I've been reasonably impressed by Somak Software... they seem to be committed to releasing only well-researched, functional software. They have fewer disks than EduCorp, but the disks seem to be a far better value. When they wrote to me for permission to distribute MandelZot, they explained their philosophy and terms quite clearly and politely. Somak's catalog has a very clear and prominent writeup on "This is shareware, and here's why you should pay the requested fee to the author if you use it." They seem to get the message across to people... I've received several shareware payments from people who got copies of MandelZot through Somak, even though I don't ask for any such payment! Somak called recently and asked for permission to distribute my Eradicat'em antiviral INIT. I gave permission, on the condition that the disk be distributed for a charge of no more than $4 (about half what they usually charge, and on a par with what non-profit user-groups usually charge for their PD/shareware library disks). Somak followed up with a phone call asking for my reasons; I explained that I felt that freeware antiviral utilities should be distributed "pro bono" (for the public good). On reflection, the folks at Somak agreed, and will be releasing a bargain-priced sampler/antiviral disk in their spring catalog. BMUG, also, politely phoned and asked for permission to distribute MandelZot on their PD-ROM. I have no hesitation in granting any such group permission to put my freeware/shareware in their libraries. If you don't want your shareware or freeware distributed by folks who are making money by doing so, you should include a valid copyright notice in the program and documentation, and a "Commercial distribution restricted, written authorization from the author is required" clause. > If you have a good enough product or fill a market niche, and want to > make money, by all means go commercial. Don't bother with shareware > if you want money, unless you make the program auto-disable or only > semi-functional. People just won't pay. In general, I agree. I'd suggest three categories, though: - Simple stuff which you don't care to support... freeware. - Good stuff which you're willing to support to some degree, but which you prefer to distribute via nontraditional channels... shareware. - Good stuff which you're willing to advertise and support... commercial. If you aren't willing to support it, and/or if it isn't something which people will find to be very useful in their day-to-day work, don't send it out as shareware... you'll be disappointed. > My estimate is that out of 100 people who use the program, you'll only > see money from about 1. If it's a really solid product, and if you provide an incentive for paying the shareware fee (i.e. support), I think you you can do significantly better than this. If you've written a simple little hack, aren't supporting it, and are simply "casting it upon the waters" in the hope of making money, then you may not even receive payment from 1 in 100. > I keep all my goodies to myself these days. I'm sorry to hear that, Mike. I hope that you'll rethink your expectations, and reconsider your decision. I've released a couple of goodies over the past few years. I've chosen to keep them as freeware rather than shareware... I'd rather have 100 people using them with clean consciences, than have 50 people use them guiltily ("I really _should_ send him the money"), 2 people use them and pay, and another 50 refuse to use them because they can't justify sending money for a nonessential. The good vibes I get from happy or grateful users are worth more to me than the few $$ I'd get by demanding a shareware payment. I have, however, created a commercial version of one of these products... with substantial value added. The freeware and commercial version will exist in parallel... it'll be interesting to see how the market treats this combination. -- Dave Platt VOICE: (415) 493-8805 UUCP: ...!{ames,apple,uunet}!coherent!dplatt DOMAIN: dplatt@coherent.com INTERNET: coherent!dplatt@ames.arpa, ...@uunet.uu.net USNAIL: Coherent Thought Inc. 3350 West Bayshore #205 Palo Alto CA 94303
chuq@Apple.COM (The Bounty Hunter) (04/13/90)
dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt) writes: >> Second, from my experience, don't bother. It gets distributed quite widely, >> and VERY few people pay. I feel like someone should pop in and point out the difference between 'distribute' and 'use' here. I take a look at a fair number of shareware programs over a period of time. The number I use is rather small. Just because I downloaded it from GEnie and didn't pay for it doesn't mean I'm an idiot. It may mean I decided it wasn't useful to me, so comparisons like "It got 500 downloads and 4 checks" aren't necessarily valid. (which is not to imply those 496 people all threw it out, just that some percentage did. The rest didn't pay). >True. I doubt that there are more than a handful of people who have >made a substantial amount of money from their shareware products... >Scott Watson (Red Ryder), Who decided he had to take his product commercial >Don Brown / CE Software (DiskTop), Who decided he had to go commercial to survive, and only distributes freeware stuff (like Vaccine) now as promotional material for his commercial products. >Jeff >Shulman (VirusDetective), Who still has shareware stuff out there (thanks, Jeff!) but also has crippleware/demoware as well. I point this out only to remind folks that the 'successes' of shareware are, at best, marginal successes. It's more or less a no-win situation for the author. >> These people then have the nerve to expect >> support for the software. >Nerve? Well, I dunno. If you're asking somebody to pay you for the >right to use your software, then (in my humble opinion) it's not >surprising at all if they expect you to provide support of some >degree.. Damn straight. And they should. The idea of shareware was to allow people a chance to buy something of commercial quality without the markups involved in a commercial endeavor -- distributor and retailer markups, advertising, packaging overhead, et al. That doesn't mean the author doesn't have the responsibility to deal with the product like a real, commercial product -- just to get the middlemen who like to stand in between author and customer with their palms sweaty out of the loop. There are authors who do a good job of support: Dave Dunham, Jeff again, the author of Boomerang (with his billions of bug-fixes and his refusal to accept money until boomerang stopped being betaware) come to mind offhand. But you're still shipping a commercial product, and that means that you have a responsibility to your customers to support it (your *paid* customers, I'll emphasize. If they're supposed to pay and don't, they got no room to complain). The number of shareware authors who have cashed checks and disappeared, only to have the program break on new machines or new releases of system software are legion, and one of the reasons why I think many people are wary of shareware in general. >It's probably significant that the few people who have made money from >their shareware products seem to be those who DO provide some degree of >support for their users. Agreed. I'm more likely to send in a shareware check to someone that shows he cares about his users than a generic about box with a plea for money. It's called building a relationship -- there are so many random (and trivial or useless) pieces of software clamoring for my shareware money that something has to make themselves stick out above the noise. -- Chuq Von Rospach <+> chuq@apple.com <+> [This is myself speaking] I regret to announce that--though, as I said, eleventy-one years is far too short a time to spend among you--this is the end. I am going. Good-bye. -- Bilbo
escher@Apple.COM (Michael Crawford) (04/13/90)
In article <40230@apple.Apple.COM> chuq@Apple.COM (The Bounty Hunter) writes: > >Damn straight. And they should. The idea of shareware was to allow people a >chance to buy something of commercial quality without the markups involved >in a commercial endeavor -- distributor and retailer markups, advertising, >packaging overhead, et al. That doesn't mean the author doesn't have the >responsibility to deal with the product like a real, commercial product -- >just to get the middlemen who like to stand in between author and customer >with their palms sweaty out of the loop. I read in the MicroTimes, or maybe Bay Area Computer Currents, that the manufacturers of PC-Write, which charges I think $99 for shareware fees, estimates 30% of their users actually pay, and gross $2 000 000 per year. I understand they also provide excellent support for registered users, and have actually a full range of products for the IBM PC market. One other reason I might want to do shareware is so I can just write it and send it, and maybe do support via e-mail; the PC-Write people are a real company, with a real support staff; they just have low distribution overhead. They do advertise in magazines. I suppose you get what you invest for. If yer lucky. The point has been made here before that there are many high-quality shareware programs for the PC, and only a few for the Mac. I want to write shareware, but sure won't write it on a PC! Still, you ain't seen any from me yet... someday. I think if you want to make lots of money on a shareware product, you should aim to get it purchased by a large company. Lots of them have not even heard of shareware, and only know about virus-ware from what they read in the scandal sheets. If you can get a shareware program into a company, they are likely to pay for every copy, so they can be assured support. Many large companies make their purchasing decisions more on the basis of support than what it can do or what it costs. Downtime is much more expensive than even commercial software fees. -- Michael D. Crawford Oddball Enterprises 606 Modesto Avenue Santa Cruz, CA 95060 oddball!mike@ucscc.ucsc.edu Consulting for Apple Computer Inc. escher@apple.com Applelink: escher@apple.com@INTERNET# The opinions expressed here are solely my own.
es2q+@andrew.cmu.edu (Erik Warren Selberg) (04/13/90)
well, from all the discussion here, I'd like to voice my views. I'll agree that most shareware authors will only succeed marginally -- shareware is more of a "getting started" endeavor to raise capital/notice before going commercial. With my semi-mindless online games I'm more or less forced to be shareware as it's such a niche product (albeit I could go completely commercial with some policy wording changed). I personally do the "crippleware"thing (a self-destruct after 14 days without a 2K file), and find it works rather well. However, I would like to mention one thing: a shareware author shouldn't expect to make fortunes from shareware. There are exceptions, there are good authors out there (for those on Fido, Pete Johnson really comes to mind), but for the most part most shareware authors I've known usually created some program for fun/something to do for them, decided it would be neat to show it off, and attached a "shareware" label. I'm not saying that they don't deserve some compensation for using it, I'm just pointing out that many products tend to be classified as "goodies" or semi-cusom software with minimal support, which is a good reason shareware tends not to work. #========##========##========##========*========##========##========##========# # MegaloErik: Loosing contact with VICE 10... Welcome to Andrew! # # ARPA: es2q+@andrew.cmu.edu Fido: 129/107 BBS: Mac @ Night (412) 268-8974 # # GEnie: E.SELBERG Delphi: LORDERIK CIS: 71470,2127 MacList: 6009/1 # #========##========##========##========*========##========##========##========# ...48 hours of continuous study have proven that Elvis is alive and teaching math at CMU.