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Comment by jameshe | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, every time a typeface is shared on here it is met with some opposition since most cost money for individuals/personal use. I understand it's hard to take the time to design a nice typeface and that the creators should be compensated for their work, but sadly it means fonts like these are practically limited to commercial use. I wonder if there's a better way to turn a profit on typefaces - there's been a handful of really interesting ones posted on HN I've wanted to try.

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There is a ton of entitlement nowadays, that's for sure.

One should be grateful to those who do release their hard work to the public domain or under a FOSS license, rather than being resentful toward those who don't.

People absolutely deserve to be compensated for their work, if they so choose, and they are absolutely permitted to release their work under any license they want.

I think the problem is more that the costs feel exorbitant with respect to both the perceived effort and utility. 75$ is half a year of Netflix - a product clearly born of extensive multi-disciplinary effort - which can't but feel excessive given that the marginal utility of a font is just so low.

I guess I could summarize as saying that an expensive[0] font just isn't, or more strongly, can't be interesting.[1]

[0]More than a cup of coffee, or so. [1]For personal use, marginal benefits scale differently on e.g. a billboard

Netflix is entertainment, typefaces have a LOT more utility in my life. Maybe I'm weird because I regularly purchase typefaces but $75 is a STEAL. Holy shit.

The commercial license for this is also a steal.

Seems like on here, free typefaces are desired but a lot of these free typefaces are released by multi-million dollar corporations...they have someone on payroll to work on them.

I welcome indie typographers.

I totally get why they charge, and for what they do - can't blame anyone for not working for free - I just genuinely can't picture a value proposition in the product commiserate with the effort.

At least personally, I find fonts are something that normalize very quickly. If I change the font on my text editor, I'd notice for a day or so but then it would cease to be 'a font' and go back to being 'words on screen'. I've only really noticed 'displeasure' at a working font[1] when I've got two machines and the settings wind up desynced so one doesn't look like 'how it's supposed to' according to my brain.

[0]e.g. if Hacker News changed its font I really might not notice.

[1]Exempting crap like Papyrus

> given that the marginal utility of a font is just so low.

Then... don't buy it? I mean, it's not like there aren't hundreds of other fonts to choose from, many of which are free.

You might be interested in futurefonts.xyz. Kind of like Kickstarter for fonts. You pay for typefaces in development. Price goes up as more features and components get added but you get everything that’s included when you buy it and then everything that’s added afterward for no additional cost.

One downside of futurefonts.xyz is that each font comes with a different license. Bit of a headache to keep track of the individual Terms & Conditions as a typical user who might want to use a couple of fonts in a project. Really wish that fonts were sold under more standardized commercial licenses.

At least with many open & free fonts, the SIL Open Font License is practically the standard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIL_Open_Font_License

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