Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room
Found on the Web: Short Rant Against Users of Free Web Apps
superboyac:
The only really "free" software out there is that which comes for "free" as in "no money" AND has a GPL-type license (or BSD or whatever -- you know what I mean there).
-Renegade link=topic=29521.msg273891#msg273891
--- End quote ---
I do, being involved with the FOSS yahoos. ;D
But one problem is they're as guilty as the next guy with their "free as in beer" spiel. While it's a clever argument, it just causes more confusion for most people. That's why I was hoping a term like "Libre" would catch on for the FOSS world. But I'm not holding my breath.
And in all fairness, calling it "free open-source software" wouldn't have become the source of confusion it has - if pretenders and commercial interests didn't adopt the exact same terminology for things that are very different from what the FOSS movement originators meant (and almost everybody understood it to mean) - when they first started using the terms "free" and "open-source."
Of course, one of the best ways to dilute an opponent's argument is to try to "ambiguate" it by calling its opposite by the same name. That's why some of the most brutal and oppressive dictatorships took to prefixing the names of their nations with: The Democratic Republic of...
:-\
-40hz (January 06, 2012, 07:29 AM)
--- End quote ---
So true.
superboyac:
Okay, here's we go:
Freemium from the start is just fine. Freemium is different from CrippleWare. For some definitions: Crippleware is that really irritating business where they offer a trial version say of a music converter, then it pops up "sorry, the 'free' version only processes 15 seconds of your song. To process a whole song, pay $29.95". Into the trash it goes. That feels 90's to me, and remember *every* one of these widgets is 29.95 or something. Nag screens also suk.
Good Freemium (according to a book at home) is "80-20" etc. (I think the book even put it at 90-10). 80% of basic usability is there, and even some nice tweaks. The Paid version has a few complicated but powerful features aimed at power users. 80-20 also describes the user base - 80% would use it to convert 7 songs for that mix and forget about it.
Forget Google and Facebook - they're one shot deals "not likely to happen again" for years.
You can't make a living writing fun little apps. It's the same thing the media companies are whining about - they can't make money with cheap copied 200 word rehashes of AP releases, or maybe comics.
It's an educational process. It really is the Information Superthruway, which includes techniques to do things such as with software widgets. The Old Timers are sad that low hanging fruit isn't cutting it anymore. Then again, neither is door to door lint brush cases. In this educational process, it's a GOOD thing that people can do the basics now. That means in general we're not seeing those "support call jokes" about people who can't find the on switch. Society as a whole improves when the support calls change to "How do I downsample (is that the right word - I don't know) an MP3 into a MIDI format for my keyboard?"
Edit: I meant to add that you can't (easily! Hello Angry Birds!) make a *living* at writing small apps. Hoping I'm not being obvious, a good living is at least $1000 gross a month and that's assuming you're in an area with cheap rent. (After all, Apps are mostly location-agnostic.) What I do see is that someone has the "rent paying" job and then a side venture with apps brings maybe $200 a month for Entertainment.
-TaoPhoenix (January 06, 2012, 10:30 AM)
--- End quote ---
So how can people who are good at programming make a living now? Let's say you thought you could do it by making a couple of cool shareware things, but now you realize you can't make a living doing that. What else can these developers do? Because the skillset is there, and it's not obsolete...so somehow they should be able to make a living with it. But what is the way?
wraith808:
But what is the way?
-superboyac (January 06, 2012, 01:37 PM)
--- End quote ---
*sigh* Work for the man. *sigh*
And I say this from heartbreaking experience.
40hz:
Because the skillset is there, and it's not obsolete...so somehow they should be able to make a living with it. But what is the way?
-superboyac (January 06, 2012, 01:37 PM)
--- End quote ---
I think what you're seeing is a natural consequence of a maturing market and technology. The same thing happened with automobiles and radio. There used to be dozens of car companies and probably several dozen radio manufacturers.
In the early days there was a big opportunity to make your mark on the industry because best practices and industry standards don't yet exist. Those that got in early got the opportunity to shape the technologies and industries into what their own personal vision of the Age of Wireless was. Those that followed (in most cases) either had to have a breakthrough idea (and successfully market it) - or fall into line with where the trends were going.
The advantage is this brings standards to an industry - which frequently benefits the consumer. The downside is it creates barriers to entry for innovation - and tends to favor the biggest players.
In places where there isn't a universally agreed upon set of industry standards (eg: tablet PCs, smartphones, ebook readers) there a great deal of confusion and infighting as each player tries to impose their vision on the rest of the world. And coincidentally pocket all the money in the process.
There was a time when business competition was confined to marketing and technical innovation. Nowadays, it's legal subterfuge and chicanery - with (often groundless) patent litigation being the tool of choice for fighting the battle - all with the intent of eliminating competition in the courtroom before the customer gets a chance to weigh in on it.
So what's the future look like for an indy software developer? I think wraith hit it on the head with his comment above. And as the lion's share of market is gradually moved into various licensing silos, proprietary formats, and walled-garden distribution mechanisms by the likes of Microsoft and Apple, it's only a matter of time before most developers are either forced to go with them - or quit the field.
This won't happen overnight. But right now, it looks like the die is cast and the Golden Age of Open Standards and Personal Computing is heading into the realm of history and legend. Major tech businesses, after befitting from the huge market created by open standards, are now flagrantly opposed to 'open' anything. And they are spending their legal and political influence money to make sure whatever openness there is comes to an end as quickly as possible.
And the politicians and governments of the supposed "free world" are not opposed to this happening. Open standards in personal computing, and unrestricted global communication, are becoming viewed as a threat - either to national security in the form of cyber-terrorism and criminal actions - or to vested political and business interests in the form of unrestricted communications. Maybe the governments can't find a 100% effective or legal way to stamp out something like Wikileaks - but they certainly can put a stranglehold on the communications pipeline such that it will no longer be possible to evade government censorship over the main data networks. Or get the word out to the entire planet in a quick and efficient manner.
I wish software developers the best of luck. Because as things stand right now, the Powers That Be very much want the Internet as we know it, along with the classic personal computer, to be seriously gone.
Once everybody is safely corralled into heavily monitored and remotely controlled tablet computing and smart phone platforms, the governments will breath a collective sigh of relief. After which it will be back to business as usual without any of the 'rabble' rocking the boat, asking embarrassing questions, or posting things those in power would rather not have us see.
And so far at least, it looks like the bulk of the general public no longer cares. :(
superboyac:
Damn 40. Thanks.
So it's not just me being paranoid about it, glad to know. I don't usually get to see the big picture so it's really good to hear the perspective of the wiser ones like you explaining the history of these things. I've felt the restrictions over the years. I closely follow news about cloud computing, hard drives, mobile technology specifically for this reason. I want MY computer to be my data headquarters. I'll use other services and methods as auxiliary tools, but in the end, I want everything with me.
But...I still think there's an opportunity still there. I don't know what it is, if I ever figure it out I'm coming here with it to make everyone here rich. There's a way to do this without doing anything illegal or harmful, except for pissing off some big boys who just want to sit back and collect money.
1) We don't need to do anything like Wikileaks. Software developers shouldn't be a threat to national security. Sure, you can use developed tools for anything, just like I can bash in someone's head with my "harmless" paperweight. But that's no reason to ban paperweights.
2) Yes, the market for third-party windows shareware is small. But I believe with the proper marketing and price points, there are enough people to justify making a living. Sure, it won't employ thousands of people, but maybe a hundred? It's all relative...small market, small number of employees making a living.
3) Quality. I've constantly struggled with developers who insist on ugliness, inconvenience in their programs as if they are "not important" things. So this mindset needs to be changed if you want to evolve with the industry. People do care about ease of use and good looking things. Does that mean you have to sacrifice quality for superficial looks? No!! But it does mean that when it comes to making a button for something and you're thought is "Well, it will take me 3 hours to program this...and in those 3 hours I can add 10 additional command line features. Therefore, I'm going to go with the command line features." This mindset needs to be changed. You don't want to restrict the already restricted pool of customers by doing that.
4) Easy to buy, low-stress purchases. I've talked about these before.
5) Flexible employment structure. Do we all need to be in one building. No! Do we need to go to a lot of meetings? No. Do we need salaries with benefits? It would be nice, but it would be better if the software was bringing in enough money for the programmers to take care of those needs themselves. Salaries and benefits are characteristics of big companies...but they have a lot of money to pay for those things up front. The better goal is to make products that pay for all of that. This is obviously a very difficult area to figure out.
6) We don't need to be the bad guy to anyone! We're making software that most people don't care about. If they cared about it, they'd be doing it themselves. Oracle is not going to make tools to, say, organize things in our system tray. So they shouldn't care how someone else does it.
It can be done. How is the question. I'm going to try to figure it out...
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version