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Don't be a free user?

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mouser:
I didn't read the original article too closely -- but the lesson i take from all essays like this is all about sustainability..

As an author -- find an approach that you can sustain for the long haul, and be clear to users about your approach to sustainability.  That is, if you are only going to work on something until you get bored -- tell your users this up front.  If you are committed to long term development of your software, make sure you can do this without becoming homeless.  If you are planning on releasing a free version until you get some users and then will switch into a commercial version, tell your users.  If you haven't thought about the issues of how to sustain development of your free software, give it some thought.

And as a user -- think about the long term sustainability of the software you are using.  If the author is not asking for financial support, and/or if you aren't willing to financially support it -- ask yourself if there is a risk the software will be abandoned and you will regret your choice of software or your decision not to financially contribute to the project.

When thinking about software, both authors and users should plan for the long term sustainability/maintainability of the software, and favor approaches that have healthy long term sustainability.

Renegade:
As an author -- find an approach that you can sustain for the long haul, and be clear to users about your approach to sustainability.  That is, if you are only going to work on something until you get bored -- tell your users this up front.  If you are committed to long term development of your software, make sure you can do this without becoming homeless.  If you are planning on releasing a free version until you get some users and then will switch into a commercial version, tell your users.  If you haven't thought about the issues of how to sustain development of your free software, give it some thought.
-mouser (December 15, 2011, 10:10 PM)
--- End quote ---

I think this is a big problem.

People get into the game with the best of intentions...



They then realize only too late...

;D

It's all too easy to become overly optimistic. It's not that people are lying or anything, but life goes on, things change, and, well, software gets abandoned.

Larger companies are guilty of this as well. How many times have we seen Google drop projects?

Paul Keith:
I think the problem with that lesson is humanity is inherently lazy/busy and payment is not always based on rationality. (I apologize if I kind of am repeating myself)

As an author, they can change from whim to whim. It's like a woman saying she's not a hooker but then offered a huge sum of money. Will they or won't they become a hooker? Transparency is not that rewarding also. If you're a small service, no one cares. If you're a popular service, then the subject is moot as leverage for donations becomes your side. Neither really teaches about sustainability.

As a user, people can't expect to be taught from a simple advise. There's also so many free services out there that it's impossible to not get hooked by the excitement of a new service. It doesn't help that neither articles nor forums often write about a long term sustainability plan that a viewer can just read and satisfy themselves with. It's also unfair to the users as they don't all know how to work software backup commands. It's like saying I should be expected to manually update my AV. Good advise but then what else do I have to manually take into consideration?

This isn't to say that the lesson you took for yourself is wrong mouser. I'm not that self-absorbed. I just think we have to think of the victims and give them something they can use. Platitudes sound good but paradigm shifts keep history from repeating itself exactly like it was in the past. That said, I don't know of any solution. Authors will do what they want. Often times it's then left to the users to deal with it. Dumb users are the ones always burned and the cycle will continue unless someone gives a helpdesk hotline for their software or create an attempt to secure your faith in their services. If this is the case though then it's back to the author and despite many authors having done this, many authors have not and many people that aren't victims don't address it as something urgent on their part. It's just vicious and unfortunate but that's life.

It's not even just limited to software. Just see every "king's plane" concept in the real world from bosses to government officials to teachers to parents. It's easy to say plan for the long term but many don't know how. Many aren't taught how. Many who know a little bit keep it to themselves or cave into the difficulty of constantly making the effort and many who don't know the right people can't develop the right habits because there's little standardized guides out there. Just look at Linux for example. People eventually stop supporting old versions and no matter how many new versions come out, you rarely see an improvement in the distribution and presentation of manuals that would help people troubleshoot anything. Instead, what you have is the software equivalent of disaster donations after a hurricane or a tsunami.

People will band together to create more active forums. People will create blogs. Competitors will create features that make data importation available. Yet you rarely see the act of redemption come from the authors themselves. Dumb users equally rarely see a lesson besides being burned. Instead whatever help they get is received from fellow burned users like them that are smarter. As a cycle, people simply build themselves up as refugees and those who don't want to be refugees are forced to be because they can't do much about it. Certain aspects like user interface familiarity are taken for granted by smart users because they can adapt to different advanced interfaces (even ones they interpret as easy to understand) and in the end nothing is really sustained. Adoption of close copies of clones in features maybe but dumb users rarely get the whole familiarity pie and with that comes zero progress except migration after migration or settlement. Luck in the end becomes a more important lesson because then some people smarten up. Some people becoming pessimistic. Some people joining groups that suddenly prosper. Some people drop out which creates additional demand from new authors to make their products more appealing. 

mahesh2k:
I like that he's transparent with his business, it's rare to see folks doing that today. Check his spreadsheet of expenses. I now see his point about being real about starting any cloud service for 'fees vs free'. Anyone planning to offer web service for free should read that blog post because it doesn't matter what customers think, Its about bills and food on table.

Paul Keith:
That's not really that rare. Many internet marketing blogs did that. (Some internet marketing scams continue to do that) It's a linkbait and trustbait tactic. (or envybait... meh... I don't know the official term but it's basically a way to send the message to people that your service is trustworthy enough to shell out cash for)

Pinboard is rare only in that they're offering an actual service rather than a scam but the marketing tactic by itself is common especially when it comes to paid services.

There's nothing "real" about it though. I apologize if I come off sounding antagonistic. I'm no more doing what IainB was doing in the CNET Downloader topic which is just to show and warn of obvious marketing schemes that I know of. Pinboard is not any way wrong for doing this, it's just that it shouldn't be used as a metric for "being real".

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