Quote:
Originally Posted by aiyori  Frotzwolf
Talking about software, I think the price tag is the real turn-off because not all people have credit cards and not all those who have are willing to pay online. And as far as software is concerned, the real money is made when you can make your format the industrial standard.
You can always give away a free, limited but workable version of the software, such as a zip file opener that can open but can't zip, a PDF reader that can read but can't edit. Their formats become industrial standard because they give away.
That said, we must take into account the potential of the market. For instance, I don't mind giving away an English learning software to Chinese people because I am talking about hundreds of millions of potential users. If the software becomes popular, in the worst situation at least I can sell T-shirts. But if my product is an accounting software, I will certain charge a high price because $0 implies zero responsibility and people would not use my software just because it's free. |
As you say yourself it depends on the application.
Personally I wouldn't pay money for a zip-application because there are excellent free ones out there and because I'm used to being able to do it for free but I would pay money for a language learning program because it is my experience that the free ones are horribly bad.