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Found on the Web: Short Rant Against Users of Free Web Apps

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superboyac:
I think about this stuff a lot.  I've been convinced for a couple of years now that the freeware model simply doesn't work.  It only works if you REALLY don't care about money.  If you do care, but you're just being nice, it's going to fail sooner or later.

To me the key question is this: what is the best way for a software developer (small programs like FARR and stuff like that) to make a living working on these programs?

The iOS app developers seem to be able to do it, but I'm not sure if it's reasonable to expect them to make a living doing it (I think most of them do it on the side, but I have no idea).  They also are very centralized and integrated with all the devices and itunes.  So it's not only easy, but there are no competing marketplaces for iOS.  Now, how do you do the same for Windows users?  Can you do the same?  If not, how close can you get?

The other issue is the prices.  Most shareware is going to be minimum $20.  That's not much, but most people would consider it too expensive unless they were really serious about it.  The app prices ($2-5) are much more acceptable psychologically to users.  They'll buy it just to see.  That's where you want to be, even more so with Windows.

I don't know these answers.  But there's some secret there.  Windows developers should be able to make a living writing these small applications.  But I don't even know that.  Maybe those days are over.  But we still haven't seen it done like the itunes stuff.  We'll see when the windows marketplace comes out.

We can try an experiment here.  I know mouser has tried various ways over the years to get donations and money distributed to the developers here.  None of them have really worked out (there have been several threads debating all the reasons here).  But how about this?  We already have DCupdater, right?  What if DCupdater included ALL the software going around here...mouser, skwire, skrommel, etc.  everything in the list.  Then, put a suggested price in DCupdater next to each one.  Then, have a place where someone can buy a special license key or something with one click (credit card info will need to be stored).

I'd be interested how that works.  I would even go as far as not making any of it free anymore.  But before people have a fit, just put a minimum of $1.  So, skrommel can sell each of his things for $1.  mouser can sell his stuff for $5 each.  It's so cheap, customers can come in with $30 and buy a whole bunch of things, and it really wouldn't be all that stressful.

i don't know if it will work well, but I have a feeling it can.

superboyac:
I've done both and I basically agree. Too many "customers" of my freeware were demanding and rude. The customers of my payware are courteous, thoughtful and pleasant.

cheers,
-berry (January 05, 2012, 11:08 AM)
--- End quote ---
I know.  It's crazy, isn't it?  I've been selling these technical books last year, and little did I know that the loudest complainers was coming from people who either had their money refunded or "borrowed" the books from someone.  I learned a lot there.

40hz:
I feel his pain...

More interesting, however, is a lesson that can be learned from this:

When creating the letter, I have people agree to my privacy policy before they finish. It says I may contact them from time to time letting them know when our other site’s open for the holiday season. Basically, letting them know when they can get some more free stuff from me. I have an opt-out link on that policy page, and I included one in the email I sent right at the top, at the bottom and in the body of the email.
--- End quote ---

Lesson: when requesting permission to conduct e-mail marketing it's usually much smarter to ask people to opt-in rather than breeze them into accepting and later offer them the opportunity to opt-out. Many times, requiring people to opt-out of an automatic enrollment results in bad feelings and suspicion.

Many of the reputable e-mail marketing service providers now require a double opt-in (i.e. request plus follow-up message to confirm request) for people using their service.

And for exactly that reason.
 8)

Renegade:
What was that saying, "if you're not paying for the product, you are the product"? :P

Well, that's what many small developers can't manage to do. They put out free/freemium software but don't have a model to turn people into products like Facebook or Google do.

Then again, turning people into products is incredibly difficult. Difficult as in writing the product again 5x or more. On a good day. With your guardian angel close by.


I remember Ndoc. It was fantastic. Then...

http://web.archive.org/web/20060819173307/http://johnsbraindump.blogspot.com/2006/07/ndoc-20-is-dead.html

I have decided to discontinue work on NDoc 2.0 and no longer participate in any open-source development work.

The development and release of NDoc 1.3 was a huge amount of work, and by all accounts widely appreciated. Unfortunately, despite the almost ubiquitous use of NDoc, there has been no support for the project from the .Net developer community either financially or by development contributions. Since 1.3 was released, there have been the grand total of eleven donations to the project. In fact, were it not for Oleg Tkachenko’s kind donation of a MS MVP MSDN subscription, I would not even have a copy of VS2005 to work with!

To put this into perspective, if only roughly 1-in-10 of the those who downloaded NDoc had donated the minimum allowable amount of $5 then I could have worked on NDoc 2.0 full-time and it could have been released months ago! Now, I am not suggesting that this should have occurred, or that anyone owes me anything for the work I have done, rather I am trying to demonstrate that if the community values open-source projects then it should do *something* to support them. MS has for years acknowledged community contributions via the MVP program but there is absolutely no support for community projects.
--- End quote ---

I have a freemium experiment coming out the moment I can finish some testing. I've just been busy, so it's been sitting on the shelf for several months now (a ton of work for Samsung Semiconductor chewed up most of my time). I wanted to try to get it submitted as a NANY app, but couldn't manage to get the time for final testing. The freemium model complicates things somewhat, and the 2 people that were going to help with testing never got back to me. :(

I'm not sure what to expect from the project. I've been using it a lot myself for personal use because it's simply all that much better than the alternatives. So, I've got that testing done now (over the last few months). Just a couple things to double check on and it will be finally DONE and RELEASED! That will be a relief and a half or two.

Once I get the product released, I've got a few blog posts planned for some of the internals, the freemium model, and stuff like that.

Speaking of... time to go do some update testing...

40hz:
I have a freemium experiment coming out the moment I can finish some testing.
-Renegade (January 05, 2012, 06:58 PM)
--- End quote ---

@Renegade - I have to give you credit. You are one of the few people I know who has worked very hard to come up with a creative business model for your customers and yourself that does right by all parties involved. Even though we've disagreed on various issues and ideas about the business side of software, I still think you deserve some very special credit for your ongoing efforts.

Best of luck finding that sweet spot in 2012.  :Thmbsup:



 8)

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