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Finished Programs / Re: The Mouser Utility - Requested by App103
« Last post by mouser on December 16, 2010, 08:40 AM »You two need to figure out who is to blame for this monstrosity so that i know who to sue first!
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If you're running a business, the single best thing you can do for your customers is to remain in business. And the only way you'll be able to do that is if you make some money for yourselves along the way.
Furthermore, while you may be tempted to tell your users that if they don't donate you won't be able to continue coding, this is probably a very bad idea for a software developer. It's not like a public broadcasting station, where there is no penalty for a watcher to start watching a show and then have the show go off the air. In such a scenario, predicting doom unless enough donations are received may be a viable incentive and threat. For software, if the visitors to your site get the feeling that you may stop work on and support of the software if you don't raise enough money, that alone may be enough to scare them away.
Users don't want to invest their time and effort learning to use your software and become dependent upon it only to have it dissapear. Because of this, you really need to adopt a somewhat unusual approach, and make a contract with your users: You will be there for them, through thick and thin, and in return you ask for some monetary support. If you can't make a promise to support the software no matter what, then you can't expect your users to donate, do beta testing, and file bug reports, and then risk finding themselves left out to dry because there aren't enough people supporting you. You need to set a baseline of support you are willing to guarantee no matter what - and then you can offer further incentives for donating beyond that.
