Author Topic: Found on the Web: Short Rant Against Users of Free Web Apps (Read 25155 times)

mouser · « **on:** January 05, 2012, 10:37 AM »

Short post about frustration and abandonment of a freemium web service -- being picked up by sites like slashdot and hackernews.

There's nothing notable or special about this -- I think it's just striking a nerve that I suspect we'll see more of as more and more business people come to terms with the limits of building a business model on giving away free services. Still, it's worth reading and discussing..

I am done with “free”. I have come to the realization that most people who want something for free will never, ever think of paying you, no matter how valuable they find your service...

http://www.tylernich...emium-business-model

Screenshot - 1_5_2012 , 10_33_07 AM_thumb.png

from http://slashdot.org/...freemium-doesnt-work

Josh · « **Reply #1 on:** January 05, 2012, 10:43 AM »

Without reading the whole article, the first sentence sums it up for me. I came to this realization years ago with regards to free software. I really do not think it is a sustainable business model. I've watched many products go from free to shareware and the user base instantly turn, despite the various ways developers have attempted to calm their userbase before, during and after the transition. It all comes down to unwillingness to pay. It all ties into what I once titled the Entitled Generation. Most users fail to realize just how much work goes into developing software and, as such, they will never come to terms with why it is a good idea to support products they use and enjoy.

berry · « **Reply #2 on:** January 05, 2012, 11:08 AM »

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,

Josh · « **Reply #3 on:** January 05, 2012, 11:25 AM »

That is part of it. Many freeware users feel they are entitled to use the software and you, as a developer, are required to listen and add whatever they want. They clamor for more and more, but complain the second you ask them for money or display a simple dialog requesting they donate. It is a losing battle for the freeware developer.

mouser · « **Reply #4 on:** January 05, 2012, 11:26 AM »

I wonder if the key problem here isn't so much that a service is technically "free", but that the free users view the service as making money off of them indirectly. If facebook and google are making billions from advertising off their "free" services, it's not surprising when users don't feel a strong loyalty or bond with the site (how google continues to reap so much good will from people i don't know -- they certainly don't get it from me).

I think the relationship with users is quite different if they don't feel like they are being used as cattle.

daddydave · « **Reply #5 on:** January 05, 2012, 12:57 PM »

Well, I remember when there were a lot of e-greeting services that existed pretty much for the purpose of harvesting email addresses to spam, before people figured out what was going on. Or maybe people still use those, I don't know. So it probably looked a lot like spam, if people have that memory. And the service he provided seemed to be an e-greeting service of a sort, that just happened to have Santa in it.

I do sympathize with the general case, though, of the developer being harassed and hounded for suppport by people getting something for nothing though. That's why HFSLIP (a slipstreaming tool similar to nLite except it was a 30 page batch file) doesn't exist anymore, and he was being hounded by free business users.

rgdot · « **Reply #6 on:** January 05, 2012, 01:50 PM »

Without reading the whole article, the first sentence sums it up for me. I came to this realization years ago with regards to free software. I really do not think it is a sustainable business model.
-Josh (January 05, 2012, 10:43 AM)

This can't exist, by definition. Just because examples of "successful" free software are out there doesn't prove that such a thing is even possible, those examples are luck or whatever not successful businesses. I think software authors should understand - and surely they do because they are the techy types - that we live in an age where people want free movies, music etc.

If you write freeware you go in knowing that you are not doing business, whatever comes in (donations, etc.) are happy bonuses.

EDIT: I want to add that the quality of the software is not even important, because quality is in the eye of the user, 1000s of software on softpedia, sourceforge and elsewhere that do the job well but have 100 downloads in their lifetime

Josh · « **Reply #7 on:** January 05, 2012, 01:59 PM »

EDIT: I want to add that the quality of the software is not even important, because quality is in the eye of the user, 1000s of software on softpedia, sourceforge and elsewhere that do the job well but have 100 downloads in their lifetime
-rgdot (January 05, 2012, 01:50 PM)

This is also part of what I referred to earlier. I have watched on several "review sites" where a program goes from being rated 4.5/5 or higher to 2/3 because of a change in the pricing scheme. Roboform is an example of this. As a long time roboform user, I was under the misconception that they offered free upgrades for life. But, alas, they played the upgrade/update game. Upgrades are typically referred to as v1 to v2, etc and updates are from 2.0 to 2.99. As soon as the change with RF Everywhere came into play, the once highly rated program went from a 4.4 on FileForum to a 3.7.

In the end, it comes down to what you stated rgdot, people want things to be free. Free movies, music, software, beer, etc. As soon as something goes from freeware to commercial, the bar for "required quality" is lowered and "good enough" is just that, good enough. People are willing to settle as long as they don't have to pay and they also will actively protest when their beloved freeware, of which most never pay a dime to support, asks for money.

rgdot · « **Reply #8 on:** January 05, 2012, 02:13 PM »

Society doesn't reward hard work, in the realm of bits and bytes it is no different. I wouldn't be happy if a freeware I use goes shareware either and I would prefer it to be shareware from the start so I know where I stand today and next year.
When something is deserving of support eventually something is possible but not in a business model sense - example, I paid for a pro version of a software but never upgraded to the pro and continue to use the free version I had already installed.
Ratings should be taken with a grain of salt anyway, I came across that on a recent hardware purchase, there isn't a single router that has consistently good ratings.

JavaJones · « **Reply #9 on:** January 05, 2012, 04:28 PM »

I think the vast majority of people using Google, Facebook, and many other free services don't really (actively/consciously) recognize that they're the product, that the company is making money off of them. If they do know, they don't care that much, and it's not the reason they feel entitled to get things free nor expect to get new features implemented, etc. I don't know precisely the reason that *is* the case, but I don't think it's to do with the fact that money is being made somewhere. The *opposite* effect - paying customers generally being nicer - may have more to do with the "overjustification effect" than anything, in fact.

As to the potential success of "freemium", well of course there always needs to be *some* source of profit. But there's no reason that sales of an application needs to be its sole or primary source of income, or indeed generate any income at all. Many other industries have done this for years. Newspapers sell advertising. Websites have web ads. Free-to-play MMOs have add-ons and trinkets you can buy. Money is always being made somewhere, it's just a matter of how palatable it is to your overall user base.

- Oshyan

superboyac · « **Reply #10 on:** January 05, 2012, 04:48 PM »

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 · « **Reply #11 on:** January 05, 2012, 04:50 PM »

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)

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 · « **Reply #12 on:** January 05, 2012, 05:40 PM »

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.

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.

Renegade · « **Reply #13 on:** January 05, 2012, 06:58 PM »

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

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.o...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.

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 · « **Reply #14 on:** January 05, 2012, 08:03 PM »

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

@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.

wraith808 · « **Reply #15 on:** January 05, 2012, 08:21 PM »

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.
-40hz (January 05, 2012, 05:40 PM)

I don't think he was referring to his original opt in preference, rather to the e-mail he sends out. From the article:

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.

i.e. you either create the letter and agree to let him contact you, or don't and don't. In effect, it's not really free. You're giving him the ability to contact you in exchange for using the service.

Renegade · « **Reply #16 on:** January 05, 2012, 08:27 PM »

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

@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.
(see attachment in previous post)

-40hz (January 05, 2012, 08:03 PM)

Thank you! I really appreciate that!

Just a quick peek at one of the things I've got in it...

I've got the pricing model set for micropayments and am using geo-location to determine prices. Yeah... I know... I've complained about this in the past, but hear me out...

I'm not looking to gouge people on prices. Quite the opposite. Instead, I've got things set to reduce prices to absurdly low levels for countries where people otherwise couldn't afford it. e.g. If you are in Malaysia, India, Viet Nam, or Iran (just for example), that's the bottom pricing tier, and the cheapest.

On the other hand, if you're in New Zealand, Kuwait, or Sweden, that's in the top tier, and the most expensive (or rather, a normal price).

The point is to make the premium version affordable for people that otherwise couldn't afford it, or would have to consider more carefully before purchasing. The point isn't to gouge people for cash just with some sort of justification like "whatever the market will bear", which in my opinion is merely a rationalisation for pure greed (for which I have nothing but contempt). My general rule of thumb when I made the list was to put countries in the cheaper pricing tier rather than put it in the higher one.

Anyways, wish me luck. I know that what I'm trying to do with this project is unconventional, and could fail entirely, but we'll see. I am somewhat fearful that my attitude towards delivering value to people and making things affordable rather than grabbing every penny that I can from people may very well turn out to work against me.

40hz · « **Reply #17 on:** January 05, 2012, 08:34 PM »

you either create the letter and agree to let him contact you, or don't and don't. In effect, it's not really free. You're giving him the ability to contact you in exchange for using the service.
-wraith808 (January 05, 2012, 08:21 PM)

I got that.

That's why I said "breeze them into accepting."

And I agree with you. It's not a free service because it comes with a price tag. The fact it's not a monetary price tag is immaterial. There's an enforced quid pro quo so you really can't call it "free."

That's one additional problem with free offers in general. Seems some folks just don't have - or refuse to have - a clear understanding of what the word 'free' means.

Free (to download).
Free (to evaluate).
Free - just pay separate shipping and handling.
Free - yadda-yadda-yadda!

Stop trying to make the word 'free' mean something it doesn't.

Want people to stop being confused about what 'free' means? That's easy. Just stop trying to confuse them...and maybe ban the word 'free' from our marketing vocabulary as one way of accomplishing that.

$:-\$

Renegade · « **Reply #18 on:** January 05, 2012, 08:41 PM »

Stop trying to make the word 'free' mean something it doesn't.

Want people to stop being confused about what 'free' means? That's easy. Just stop trying to confuse them...and maybe ban the word 'free' from your vocabulary as one way of accomplishing that.
-40hz (January 05, 2012, 08:34 PM)

Agreed, but it's hard.

Mostly, it's "free" as in "no money", but... with strings attached. I think most people think of "money" first. Most people don't consider surrendering their privacy to be a "cost".

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).

superboyac · « **Reply #19 on:** January 05, 2012, 08:56 PM »

Want people to stop being confused about what 'free' means? That's easy. Just stop trying to confuse them...and maybe ban the word 'free' from our marketing vocabulary as one way of accomplishing that.
-40hz (January 05, 2012, 08:34 PM)

Seriously. I'm constantly arguing with people in my life about what this and that means. But the thing I always try to focus on is it doesn't matter what the legal definition is, or the dictionary definition, or the wkipedia entry of something. If a word or phrase means something intuitively to 99% of those who hear, and you knowing this, decide to use that term another way...then you are misleading them and intentionally trying to get away with something.

Sure, the word "free" can be used many different ways. but when you see a big button on a website for software that says "free" you are thinking about money. Nobody...not a single person in this world...is impressed by someone offering a "free trial" for software.

"Oh my gosh!! They are letting me try this software out for two weeks...for FREE. Quick, let me forward this to all my friends. They HAVE to hear about this one. Hey John! XXX company has a free trial on their software!"

"No way! Are you kidding me?! Hold on...let me call in sick to work. OK, now I have a day off. I'm totally going to take advantage of this. Honey! please bring me a glass of wine and my robe. I'm going to sit back...get my laptop...and check out this Filename Mangle and Destroy Commander Robot software."

JavaJones · « **Reply #20 on:** January 05, 2012, 09:28 PM »

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.
-superboyac (January 05, 2012, 04:48 PM)

I was under the impression that 99 cent apps sold a lot better than the $2-5 range. As I understand it the $2-5 range is still a really tough one even on mobile devices. I wouldn't be surprised if more expensive apps ($5-10 or even $20) actually sold better. It would jive with PC-side pricing realities where very often pricing your app at $20 actually results in a lower perception of value and thus lower sales than pricing at say $40 ($39.99). There was a lot of discussion on this in the Sagelight thread a while back.

- Oshyan

Renegade · « **Reply #21 on:** January 05, 2012, 10:48 PM »

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.
-superboyac (January 05, 2012, 04:48 PM)

I was under the impression that 99 cent apps sold a lot better than the $2-5 range. As I understand it the $2-5 range is still a really tough one even on mobile devices. I wouldn't be surprised if more expensive apps ($5-10 or even $20) actually sold better. It would jive with PC-side pricing realities where very often pricing your app at $20 actually results in a lower perception of value and thus lower sales than pricing at say $40 ($39.99). There was a lot of discussion on this in the Sagelight thread a while back.

- Oshyan
-JavaJones (January 05, 2012, 09:28 PM)

If you read through the JoS forums, you'll constantly hear about how raising prices increased the number of sales.

Pricing is a very difficult thing to get right.

40hz · « **Reply #22 on:** January 06, 2012, 07:29 AM »

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

I do, being involved with the FOSS yahoos.

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...
$:-\$

wraith808 · « **Reply #23 on:** January 06, 2012, 08:15 AM »

Stop trying to make the word 'free' mean something it doesn't.

Want people to stop being confused about what 'free' means? That's easy. Just stop trying to confuse them...and maybe ban the word 'free' from our marketing vocabulary as one way of accomplishing that.

-40hz (January 05, 2012, 08:34 PM)

Many people respond to the word 'free' in a manner that is out of sync with what it actually means; they'll use things that they wouldn't use, and make an extraordinary effort just because 'free' is attached to it. I was watching a tv show the other night, and there was a band that had been booked for a stage far off the beaten path. They changed the name of the band to 'free beer', and a huge crowd showed up. Now, this was only a TV show, but I think it speaks to the use of 'free' as a marketing tactic, the same as using '$ X.99' to make it seem like the price is lower than it really is.

Also, free is a matter of perspective. From an absolute perspective, *nothing* is free. In terms of money? This site *is* free- it requires no monetary expenditure. But you *are* spending your ability to not be contacted by the person. And people don't understand this concept. Even FOSS is not *free*. Everything has its downsides, and in an absolute manner, that downside is a *cost*. Not in money, but it is a cost.

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #24 on:** January 06, 2012, 10:30 AM »

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.