Author Topic: How to punish DonationCoder if you are angry at being nagged to donate (Read 42,942 times)

mouser · « **on:** July 24, 2007, 06:57 AM »

Let's say you are a user of some of our software and feel yourself reluctantly giving up and making a donation in order to get member benefits and lifetime license key, but still feel angry about it.

Here is a guide how to get your revenge:

Make a donation of 1 cent. Actually any donation less than 25 cents will go entirely to paypal and we don't see a penny. You still get full lifetime member benefits for this donation.
Although this will cost me a little bit of my time sending you a thank you email, it doesnt actually lose us any money, that's where the next step comes in.
Once you have activated your supporting member account, go to the silly member kit request page and request a member kit by snail mail. If you live in the US, make up an address in a foreign country and it will cost us $1 to $2 including shipping (don't bother trying to calculate most expensive country to ship to as i just slap on random air mail postage stamps and post office doesn't seem to care).
So there you have it, a fool proof way to make DC suffer a $1 to $2 loss on your donation, while you are out only 1 penny.
Caveat: We still enjoy it whenever anyone donates and get happy whenever we think someone wants a member kit, so this technique is not good for inducing mental anguish, only financial ruination.

Note: These instructions are described for fun -- i'm not being sarcastic in an attempt to complain about people who do this -- i don't pay the slightest attention to who donates how much and i have no idea when i send out a member kit how much a person has donated, and i couldn't care less.

justice · « **Reply #1 on:** July 24, 2007, 08:10 AM »

Don't forget to host all your personal/shared files as forum post attachments to increase your bandwidth bill too.

jgpaiva · « **Reply #2 on:** July 24, 2007, 10:45 AM »

Quote from: mouser on July 24, 2007, 06:57 AM

don't bother trying to calculate most expensive country to ship to as i just slap on random air mail postage stamps and post office doesn't seem to care

Second caveat: if someone would choose a foreign country like Nepal, it'd probably make us happy for knowing that someone in such a country liked us enought to go through the enormous effort of donating

f0dder · « **Reply #3 on:** July 24, 2007, 11:28 AM »

nudone · « **Reply #4 on:** July 24, 2007, 12:29 PM »

this sounds like it could be a whole new paradigm in software pricing. it's beyond donationware - it's more like revengeware or psychopathware (insert better *****ware here).

yet again, donationcoder proves to be the first in pioneering software, pricing and distribution methods.

excellent, mouser

mwb1100 · « **Reply #5 on:** July 24, 2007, 06:46 PM »

I must say, I find it surprising how much anger can be generated by someone who finds out that they need to get a key (at no cost) to supress nags in free software.

I can understand that someone might decide they don't want to bother, but to actually get angry over it simply amazes me.

Lashiec · « **Reply #6 on:** July 24, 2007, 07:26 PM »

Bah! I have to make a donation of 1 cent just to make you lose 1 or 2 dollars, and wait for that survival kit! It's not worth the effort to punish DC, as I wanted you to lose millions. I might as well donate or click that little key generator icon, it's easier

Hey, I have a bright idea! Did anyone check those warez sites to see if they have cracked DC software or key generators for those pesky nags screens?

zridling · « **Reply #7 on:** July 24, 2007, 07:29 PM »

Man, you guys are cruel. I would have never thought of this!

iphigenie · « **Reply #8 on:** July 24, 2007, 08:08 PM »

you've had people donating a penny?

mouser · « **Reply #9 on:** July 24, 2007, 08:19 PM »

Quote

you've had people donating a penny?

sure we have, and it's not a problem.

A donated penny no doubt signifies someone who was not happy about having to donate, but was willing to make the effort, or was made by someone very unsure of what we are doing. So it's either a protest statement or a toe in water checking the temperature.

Either way it's fine with us.. Some of those people might even decide to make a larger donation in the future when they see we are just trying to run a good place here.

wreckedcarzz · « **Reply #10 on:** July 25, 2007, 02:51 AM »

Man, I thought when I joined donating $5 was kinda...cheap...(it was all I had, though

) but 1 cent???

Josh · « **Reply #11 on:** July 25, 2007, 03:06 AM »

I want my member kit sent to:

Mr. Fal S. Don8
123 Fake Circle
Tokyo, Japan A4E F1S

Deozaan · « **Reply #12 on:** July 25, 2007, 04:45 AM »

Quote from: wreckedcarzz on July 25, 2007, 02:51 AM

Man, I thought when I joined donating $5 was kinda...cheap...(it was all I had, though ) but 1 cent???

When I joined the site money was tight (when isn't it?) and I was debating on donating about $15. Then the guidelines for how much to donate made me feel justified in being a cheapskate and I ended up donating something small, like $5. But a problem with my bank (overdraft I think, I told you money was tight!) caused the transaction to be refunded a few days later. I informed Mouser and he said not to worry about it. So my immediate lifetime membership was actually free! That says so much about Mouser and his intent about doing this for the money. In other words, he isn't doing this for the money!

I have donated successfully since that first time, and to be honest I haven't taken advantage of most of the member benefits like discounted software or the membership kit, but being a part of this community has repaid my relatively small donations more than ten-fold, both literally and figuratively!

I have never donated to any other site or independent software developer because frankly I haven't found that it was worth my money. But there's something different about this site and I feel that every penny I've spent here has been worth more to me than to anyone else I may have sent it out to via DonationCredits.

justice · « **Reply #13 on:** July 25, 2007, 08:43 AM »

Well for me it does work because I found the unique model on this site not just made me donate a multiple of my first donation a few months on, it also changed my whole outlook on the existence of small software authors.

Really, the face of software has always been so homogenic and inpersonal (on the windows platform)! This site has really shown how many small authors are around who should be rewarded. And how much software I use is actually donationware, I mean Irfanview - I never noticed a paypal button, but now I know about it and will at least consider donating (and probably will). And it shows at what low prices some software is sold at: buying a 15-25 dollar copy of a piece of software and get a personal thank you from Gareth in New York, with two kids and a dog! It's just great to be able to support these people in the work that they love doing.

So really for me personally donationcoder makes software personal, which is a huge job and therefore a big thanks to mouser and the community here.

icekin · « **Reply #14 on:** July 25, 2007, 12:34 PM »

I donated as a thank you to the excellent forums and community information rather than the programs itself. Reading the forums is what I have mostly benefitted from. In fact, I don't use any of the programs here regularly though I try them out whenever new versions are released.

ronriel · « **Reply #15 on:** July 25, 2007, 03:36 PM »

I really wanted to make a donation because I am very pleased with FARR. I have been using it for more than a year.

But I don't have an easy way of donating. I don't have paypal, hell i don't even have a bank account.

So, I waited for one year to get the full non-expiring license key.
But recently I have made a software of my own and posted it on the 'finished programs'. Some gave donationcredits, thank you. So finally, i now have credits to donate to the forums.

mouser · « **Reply #16 on:** July 25, 2007, 03:44 PM »

Welcome to the site ronriel, we are happy to have you here

alxwz · « **Reply #17 on:** July 25, 2007, 06:36 PM »

Okay, mouser, it works:

Following your sneaky, guilt-inducing post, I just had to offload almost all my credits which I've been sitting on for so long. It weren't so many, anyway.

Although it was the software (Process Tamer, to be exact) that initially led me to this site, I sadly have to say that I don't use any of it now. Not because it's bad (I tried some and it was great) but because I just don't need any of it (my needs are very moderate).

Mandork · « **Reply #18 on:** July 25, 2007, 08:25 PM »

All this is making me feel like I should donate some more...

Even though I mostly use the software here as entertainment, it's become an invaluable resource. I find a lot of useful info here.

Plus, the mascot is cute.

zridling · « **Reply #19 on:** July 25, 2007, 08:35 PM »

I keep telling you people: donating is not about guilt, it's about impulse! As in, right now I have an impulse to eat some chocolate as my weight just dipped below 300 (I whipped anorexia and I ain't going back, dammit!)

mouser · « **Reply #20 on:** July 25, 2007, 09:57 PM »

This was not a post to get people to donate!
I was just having fun and feeling good abotu finally mailing out some member kits that were a month later in sending. If anything it was a post reminding people they can get a member kit if they want to get somthing stupid in the mail.

alxwz · « **Reply #21 on:** July 25, 2007, 10:03 PM »

Yep, and being free of guilt, I now immediately want that silly membership kit!

And you'll have to mail it overseas!

And after that order, I'll probably download and reinstall all the software on this site...

Then I'll probably donate another 2 (or even 3) cents.

Speaking of the original post, the part I liked most was the random postage.

mouser · « **Reply #22 on:** July 25, 2007, 10:06 PM »

Quote

Speaking of the original post, the part I liked most was the random postage.

funny but true. it seems the post office and I think alike, we can't be bothered to calculate the exact amount.. if it's close enough it goes through.

Curt · « **Reply #23 on:** July 26, 2007, 12:12 AM »

My donations have been motivated a lot more by social aspects than by program's value. How much is it worth to me that f0dder wrote a program I have been using maybe once a week for a second or two? Its not easy to calculate, is it, but it cannot be much, I would say, if I was to hold the price up against the programs I am using for hours each day. And then again; he did take the time, didn't he; and time is the one thing we can never regain, so it should be valuable! NeverTheLess it really is more important to me that he and many others again and again have bothered to take the time to enlighten me on this or that, and even have done so in a friendly manner! "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" (or how the English version may go). That has motivated me to donate repeatedly!

allen · « **Reply #24 on:** July 26, 2007, 03:02 AM »

Quote from: Deozaan on July 25, 2007, 04:45 AM

I have donated successfully since that first time, and to be honest I haven't taken advantage of most of the member benefits like discounted software or the membership kit, but being a part of this community has repaid my relatively small donations more than ten-fold, both literally and figuratively!

My father often joked about sales one day being his financial ruin--I'm sure many others have made the same joke; whether it's they or their significant others buying a bunch of stuff "on sale" that they otherwise wouldn't buy. While it would save them money if these were things they'd have purchased anyway, that not being the case the result is increased spending, not saving.

I say this only to say that the software discounts have, instead of saved me money, provoked me to buy software applications I otherwise wouldn't have. Sure, they're purchases I love--but I'm amused that instead of "taking advantage of" it's more a matter of having been taken advantage of! (Not by DC, of course--just in general, damned sales stickers...)