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Comment by aaronbrethorst | Hacker News Reader

Occasionally, users of a piece of $10 shareware I haven't updated since 2005 email me demanding a refund because this software they bought 10+ years ago has stopped working on El Capitan. I refund their money because it's not even worth my time to argue with them.

http://www.chimpsoftware.com/irooster/

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Wow, do they have any legal leverage (as in, sue you for 10$) to get their money back in this situation?

I would just ignore them, or if point to the relevant point of license agreement and/or law (if there is such point/law).

Dunno. Probably not. But it's not worth the time or energy to deal with them beyond giving them back their two lattes worth of money.

Probably not worth it to argue indeed.

Though coming from a country where $10 can get you 5 lattes :), I would not give those money back. Nevertheless I payed taxes for that income.

It's pennies, but I have known/seen too many people who try to haggle extensively, who need to be reminded about common sense.

I get you, and agree on general principle, but I also have to consider what my time is worth. I once calculated that even a single customer service interaction cost me far more than ten dollars at my standard billing rate. If I want to argue with implacable assholes, I'll go pitch a VC or something.

Not worth it - exactly.

> If I want to argue with implacable assholes, I'll go pitch a VC or something.

That's a great one. :)

Instead of abandoning your program, why not open-source it? No money, no nagging customers. If someone wants to make it work, then they can. You can then deny responsibility for maintaining it.

> no nagging customers

Hah! I wish!

the beauty of it is they're /not customers anymore/.

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