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Would you pay for WinZip?

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zridling:
Vector Capital (a venture capital firm) recently bought WinZip and in their first press statement said the free ride is over for unregistered users. Throughout its history, WinZip continues to work after its trial period expires. But now that using WinZip will cost $29 plus $7 a year for "upgrade insurance," would you pay for it?

mouser:
the moment i hear yearly fee i change the channel.

Sentinel:
As far as I'm aware nearly all of the people I've ever met use WinZip because: -

1. It was recommended by somebody else or trial version was bundled with the PC and the user doesn't even know there are alternatives.

2. Because they think it is free (just click away any little popup on entry as though it was never there).  In fact we chose to buy a rather large number of units just to legally cover us against users we know are using WinZip illegally within our Enterprise.

$29 dollars is probably fair if you love the product, and $7 *may* be fair if there are frequent updates and it is just upgrade protection, not software leasing (the ultimate evil!).  I'd rather pay per major upgrade for software like this though.

It is quite likely that this will push a number of users onto other products, but then again most people will stick to the version they have now (I know of people happily using versions back to 3.0 still) and never know about the change in policy, just because that's how the WinZip user base typically are.

I doubt that Vector Capital will lose out though as the system WinZip has been using up to now has given them massive market share but probably not the level of income one might expect.

Oh, and personally I wouldn't use it, even for free.  There is something undefinable about the interface I just don't like, and the Zip format is old and tired - large file support is hardly a cutting edge update.

AbteriX:
I on my own use better a freeware and donate for it.
So i could share my soft (with my experience how to use) with others.
An commerial product i didn't could give away 'cus of the licence.
I use IZArc wich support more archive format and have the feature
to unpack several archives at once.

mouser:
i'm actually quite fond of winzip, but i will not pay a yearly update for such a thing.

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