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Comment by schrototo | Hacker News Reader

Judging from the other comments here this may be a surprisingly unpopular opinion, but if you're pirating an app that costs one fucking dollar you should be ashamed of yourself.

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It amuses me that all of the armchair economists come out in force, writing one page dissertations on why piracy is actually efficient for the market at large and creates opportunities while neglecting the fact that the app costs one dollar. One dollar. You pay more for a cup of coffee. All of their time spent being smart on the Internet (which is quite important, I'm led to believe) was more expensive than if they just bought the app (or three) to begin with.

Ridiculous.

I'm not arguing for or against piracy but keep in mind that even at one dollar these apps can easily add up to a lot. My younger sister, for example, wants to download every cool looking app that she sees in the app store, be it useful or not. Add to that the huge influx of crappy $.99 apps that are not worth even a penny and you have enough incentive for people, especially teenagers with limited budgets, to pirate these cheap apps.

I think in order to solve the problem, it's important to see and understand all sides of the equation, even the ones we don't agree with.

It's almost as if people can't have everything they want! How unfair!

Also, if you are cheap enough to fret about one fucking dollar, you probably would not buy it if you could not pirate it.

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