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Comment by alin23 | Hacker News Reader

I'm tired of the TnT Russian team cracking my macOS apps. Both Lunar (https://lunar.fyi) and rcmd (https://lowtechguys.com/rcmd) are now available for free on macOS piracy websites.

I made many attempts at discouraging this through anti-piracy measures I learned while working as a malware researcher a few years ago. But if I want my apps to also be available on offline devices, there's really no way to combat this.

The apps are also targetted more toward power users which are more likely to know about cracked apps. This is really hurting indie devs.

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Not that you asked my opinion, but $23/year for screendimming software--its no wonder people crack this.

The only realistic scenario that I'd pay that is if my employer was fronting the cost. Then again, maybe for some people it really is delivering that much value.

Lunar lite and rcmd seem priced fairly. If it makes you feel any better (probably not), the people pirating your software probably wouldn't have paid for it anyhow. Or if they did pay for it, would pay for it with things like stolen app store giftcards.

In another life, I was quite money-limited, and so I downloaded basically every game, movie, song, and app. I didn't feel badly about it either. I was never going to buy the media. I couldn't. Once I got old enough and had enough disposable income to not have to pirate things, I stopped. But quashing my piracy would have never equated in more sales. Anyone who sees a pirate download and assume that's a lost sale is deluded--its not happening.

I think the best methods are trying to get people to pay (who haven't already) are probably guilt or a productive-spirited suggestion. If you can detect that someone is cracking your software or doesn't have a valid license, put a donation link in the shape of a coffee cup in the corner of your software. At least people have the option to support you. Otherwise--you'll never best the crackers.

It’s not screen dimming. It is an app to fully control the monitor without using its physical buttons.

Lunar can change the hardware brightness, the same one that you can change using the monitor OSD. That in itself required a lot of reverse engineering and research about the DDC protocol.

Adaptive brightness, ambient light sensor integration and other automatic features also needed months of non-stop work.

Plus, the app is open source, trying to give something back to the community which gave me the inspiration to create this: https://github.com/alin23/Lunar

Even with $23 per license, after taxes I barely make half of what I made at my previous job where I worked less hours.

I don’t understand how you can dismiss this so simply.

    the people pirating your software probably wouldn't have paid for it anyhow

I heard this argument so many times.. it's like saying to someone who just got their bike stolen while they were trying to sell it

    | the thief would have probably never bought it

If you don't need the Pro features, don't pay for them and don't use them. Simple as that. Why does it feel okay to steal them in the software world, but it's clearly a crime in the real world?

You're describing the complexity of achieving the outcome. That is a great achievement - you spent months of work to achieve something technically complex. Congratulations, sincerely. However, to the end user, Lunar is a utility that controls screen brightness. I too am not surprised that many people are reluctant to pay a yearly subscription to control the brightness of their display.

The screen brightness changing is free forever. The license is unlimited (not yearly subscription) and only for the Pro features (automatic adaptive brightness, sensor integration etc.)

It doesn't matter. He created it and can price it at $1,000 if he wants. The point is nobody should expect him to continue working for free after people crack the software. Thus, cracking hurts indie devs and innovation because there's less recoupable reward for such work.

That's actually really cool. Kudos to you.

Unfortunately, as cool as it is, I don't think it really changes much. I took a quick scan of your website, determined it was expensive screen-dimming software. Others are likely to do the same.

I have no doubt that this took an extraordinary amount of time to get right. You also did a beautiful job with the app and the website. I've tried to put something together that's a fraction of the complexity, and, well--it's just a lot of work. You should be proud of what you built.

That being said, all of what I said still stands: even though it allows you to control the hardware through software, it's still an expensive piece of software, and it's sort of niche. Having to rebuy the software every year for updates is also sort of a piss-off, even though I know you're doing lots of testing for each OS update and possibly hardware revisions too.

Thanks! Well I guess that's just the current state of selling software. People are reluctant to pay for the work.

Open-source solutions are everywhere, and like someone said recently, open-source is seen as free support unfortunately.

> People are reluctant to pay for the work.

Having seen a few different situations, sometimes people may not pay because:

a) it’s quite expensive in their currency

b) they don’t really have a payment method available for international transactions

c) maybe they’re just poor and got some kind of a hand-me-down computer with their savings

d) culturally, in many places hardware has been seen as worth paying for, but software is seen as something you just copy (don’t even get me started on the pricing differences between app releases that do the same thing but run on Macs and on iOS/iPadOS devices)

e) there is a sense of entitlement towards bits, be they apps or photos or music or movies or TV shows

I completely agree. I am Romanian, and in our country, €20 for software was seen as an impossible amount of money. Nobody would pay that amount for software, even companies I worked at used pirated software.

I sometimes get the “I come from a poor country” email and after checking if the email is not some usual spammer, I provide a 50-75% discount code depending on the country.

I understand that price should be relative to the country, and I have smaller prices on Paddle for the countries that are supported.

f) People feel uncomfortable with the 1 year updates. It's seriously off putting to me, as these days everything turns into a subscription. I understand that you don't want to maintain stuff forever for free, but I really hate that everything seemingly turns into a subscription.

I don't want to pay the full price for some updates in the future. Your app seems like it would sell so much better as an impulse buy pricing wise, but that's just me. If this works for you, it works for you.

I don't mind the price personally but together with the "subscription" feel I won't be buying it, one of the two needs to change for me to be interested.

I'd like to second waffleiron's opinion.

I'd pay twice the yearly cost or more if it was a one-time purchase.

A subscription model is an immediate pass though.

Edit: Dev clarifies elsewhere that the license is perpetual and subsequent payments cover updates. If a nonrecurring payment option exists, then I would happily make use of that, and quite possibly return to pay for updates.

It depends. I think you’ll need more work to find the right customer/market who values what you’ve built and is willing to pay. Potentially it could be a lot more than what your current price is, especially businesses.

>People are reluctant to pay for the work.

This isn't unique to indie-devs. People (and others have) will give you a laundry list of reasons as to why they can't afford to buy your project, but at the same time entitled to use it for free. Even open-source is no pancea; billion dollar corporations have abused open source communities as well.

Threads like these are slotted into the back of my head when people make comments complaining about the SaaS-ification/Cloud-ification/Electron-ification of all software. The calculus is incredibly simple; why take the time building native apps making a third or half as what you are making in Cloud, while others tell you that what you have built isn't that valuable and you should be grateful they even pirated it?

In the wise words of GabeN:

> “One thing that we have learned is that piracy is not a pricing issue. It’s a service issue,” explained Newell during his time on stage at the Washington Technology Industry Association's (WTIA) Tech NW conference. “The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates.” [1]

[1]: https://www.gamesradar.com/gabe-newell-piracy-issue-service-...

Then explain all the steam sales.

I feel like steam sales validate this point. Steam provides a better service than downloading warez and cracked games from p2p sites. For many, it's better than visiting a local retail/GameStop and buying the game. It also unlocks a world of indie games that would otherwise be not so easily discovered/attainable. So, people pay.

I meant to say all big sales steam has. You know, the ones that brought in like 80% of the users since they were getting such a good deal.

“One thing that we have learned is that piracy is not a pricing issue. It’s a service issue,” - GabeN

Seems like a pricing issue as well as a service issue.

sure, until you look at the completion% of those games.

People are buying things not to play them, but because it's a good deal/easy to do. Many of the games on the sale are acquired and not played.

Revenue maximization.

People are willing to pay steam $X for a game. If it's not available for that price they just won't play it.

Not GP.

> Even with $23 per license, after taxes I barely make half of what I made at my previous job where I worked less hours. I don’t understand how you can dismiss this so simply.

Seeing the odd numbered price of $23, I presume you have tried different pricing tiers and options, since pricing is a matter of elasticity and finding the right price point to maximize your revenue would require some effort.

> the people pirating your software probably wouldn't have paid for it anyhow I heard this argument so many times.. it's like saying to someone who just got their bike stolen while they were trying to sell it | the thief would have probably never bought it

Actually, that saying about piracy is true many a times. It doesn’t matter that it doesn’t work in your favor either way. Anecdotally, I decide what I’m willing to pay for something and what I’m not willing to pay for something. Have I pirated software? Yes, I have in the distant past. And during those times, I wouldn’t have bought them at those prices either.

Maybe you need to change your website messaging to encourage those who cannot or will not pay to use the Lite version and encourage those who want the Pro version to pay. Pricing doesn’t have to be static all the time.

I hope you find the best options that work well for you and your customers.

> it's like saying to someone who just got their bike stolen while they were trying to sell it "the thief would have probably never bought it"

No it's not.

If a thief takes your bike, you no longer have it, you can't sell it.

Indeed, the problem in the analogy seems to be that software is infinitely able to duplicate. But what’s overlooked is that software also needs maintenance, lots of it.

Tomorrow will be an Apple Event and I’m already expecting some new hardware I’ll have to support or some breaking change to an internal API (because controlling monitors isn’t possible with public APIs).

When a bike is bought, the owner is done with it. While the software developer is bound to keep the software running and compatible with new technologies.

Of course, I could just forget about it and leave the users that bought it with an unusable app when the next MacBook comes out. If piracy is accepted, why wouldn’t this be accepted too.

The problem with the analogy is that it doesn't work. Never has and never will. And you started it with comparing piracy to a bike theft. If someone without money came and stole my bike but I still had a copy of my bike. I wouldn't mind.

Ok maybe not a bike. Maybe a jar of strawberry jam filled from a large pot :)

You won’t care as much about the theft since you still have an almost full pot of strawberry jam, but you care a little since that pot will eventually end.

Analogs in the order of appearance:

    - jar of jam: copy of Lunar
    - large pot of jam: my willingness to keep updating the app in a world where everyone sees theft as “meh whatever, I wouldn’t have paid anyway”

A better analogy would be if I were to give a walking tour to people who pay me $50 to do said tour, but someone uses a parabolic microphone to unknowingly listen in to the tour

Whether someone steals your zero marginal cost good has no effect on whether you will update your software. If the thief would have paid it might, but if they wouldn't buy your product anyway you're no worse off.

If you sell a program which works now, you're not making any claims it will continue to work in the future, that's the model software sales ran for years. There's no reason, legal or ethical, for you to continue to give free updates to people that bought something from you in the past, just like if you sell a bike to someone you don't need to continue to maintain it.

For your software you could sell a support contract with it, you could even bundle it in up front, and then sure you are expected to provide that support.

None of this is of any relevance to someone . If I copy your software it doesn't hurt you, it doesn't cost you, it doesn't deny you the use of that software. It's wrong, sure, but not because of theft, just like it's wrong to sneak into an empty cinema, or download something from the internet.

If I steal your computer, it does hurt you, it denies you the use of that computer. That is theft, that is wrong, and I'd argue more wrong than copying your software.

About 700 people received a free Pro license for Lunar for donating in the past (a much smaller amount than the current price, usually $3).

After their free update period ended, some of those people began using the cracked version. I know that because they reported issues without knowing that the tnt@team.ru email would show up on the report.

I don’t know how many people are doing that, but I can say for sure that there are people that could pay for the software, but don’t because using the crack is easier for them.

Paddle also offers a dashboard and I can clearly see the monthly revenue dropping by $500-$1k on months when a crack is released for the latest version. When I launch an update with a new anti-piracy measure that stalls the crackers for another month or two, the monthly revenue goes back up.

“It doesn’t hurt the dev, I wouldn’t have paid anyway” is just something people tell themselves to justify their action.

> but don’t because using the crack is easier for them.

That's a whole separate problem. In my experience 'anti piracy' measures cause problems for people who pay for the software, it's just another reason not to pay. If it's easier to use a cracked product, you are doing something wrong.

> “It doesn’t hurt the dev, I wouldn’t have paid anyway” is just something people tell themselves to justify their action.

Nobody is trying to justify people not respecting your intellectual property rights, just call it what it is - copyright infringement. It is not theft, just like someone using an ad blocker isn't theft, or someone ripping a DVD they bought so they can watch it on their phone isn't theft.

The anti piracy measures I use are completely transparent for the end user. They are just checks for the integrity of the app. If a cracker tampered in any way (e.g. added their own dylib at RPATH) I can detect it.

The crack isn’t easier to use than the app. I meant that it’s easy enough to download the crack so the users don’t have any incentive to purchase.

It's infuriating that this argument is still around, and actually taken seriously.

The market says this is mispriced. Has nothing to do with the complexity.

Per license at the wrong price is the wrong price.

If the offline version cant be protected and the legal remedy is inadequate then pick a different line of business and exit the market.

The license is unlimited. You can pay the next year only if you need the updates.

If the app keeps working as expected and you don’t need any update, the Pro features will be available forever on that license.

The price is wrong and you don’t want to admit that.

This is a free utility or $1 for a tiny tiny market.

Hook people and then charge them in that kind of shitty update model. Or a different model. Upsell something else in the app. Collect and sell data. If that price and funnel is not worth your time, then you have to do something else, thats it.

wtf

edit: Oh I see, you're that guy that comments on everything [0]. Sorry for responding in the first place.

[0] https://whaly.io/posts/top-10k-commenters-of-hacker-news-in-...

That’s me! My submissions havent yet hit though, so far.

Your $23 license-if-you-want-to-upgrade is arbitrarily priced for what consumers are used to.

Not sure if you knew this, but you’re already appearing in Google search predictions: https://f.alinpanaitiu.com/jKbRqM/vmception.png

like the license crack for your software

okay okay I'll be more mature here, I checked it out and it doesn't come up that way on my google predictions! tried new sessions on different machines in different locations

Indeed, google.com/en doesn’t show this.

google.ro does. It may be just in Romania ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ weird if it is

> clearly a crime in the real world?

Because real theft destroys value, while “stealing” information merely doesn’t realize potential gains.

> I barely make half

Entrepreneurship is difficult. If it was merely about effort, our societies would have been completely different.

Interesting careers tend to pay less; video game developers work more and get paid less. FOSS software written by unpaid labor is perhaps the extreme example.

The statement "Not that you asked my opinion, but $23/year for screendimming software--its no wonder people crack this." does not make any sense. If this is an application that only dimms the screen (which you can do multiple ways without any application) why would anyone make an effort of creating and distributing it and why would anyone make an effort on searching for a cracked version of given application? Surely there is some added value to it.

Also "if you can detect that someone is cracking your software or doesn't have a valid license, put a donation link in the shape of a coffee cup in the corner of your software. At least people have the option to support you." I have no data to back this up, but I really doubt that the people that are money-limited or just don't want to pay 20$ for an application will suddenly support a developer voluntarily.

I couldn't have said it better myself :)

In the first 4 years, Lunar was actually completely free and supported by donations on BuyMeACoffee.

I made a total of $5k in those 4 years from donations, probably even less after PayPal took their huge cut.

ah, see, you've applied logic where there is none. Am I really going to open a philosophical debate with myself when I visit a product's webpage? I scrolled through, I saw different scheduling types, some other features. But as a whole, the software's purpose is "make screen brighter or dimmer" and that's something I just don't have big use for.

And on your second point. I also don't have data. But if people crck software that costs $23, maybe they're willing to pay some fraction that isn't $23. Isn't that reasonable? Or in your mind, are there two groups of people: one that will pay anything, and the other that will pay nothing?

Not that you asked my opinion, but $1,300 for iPhone--its no wonder people steal this.

The only realistic scenario that I'd pay that is if my employer was fronting the cost. Then again, maybe for some people it really is delivering that much value.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/12/19/crime-blotter-roo...

I categorically disagree with this false equivalence. Copyright infringement and theft are not the same--no matter how much knowledge workers would have you believe otherwise.

Actually, I find it a little ironic that you backed up your statement using someone else's intellectual property.

What about products whose marginal cost is close to, but not zero? Is it okay to steal them?

You say:

> I think the best methods are trying to get people to pay (who haven't already) are probably guilt or a productive-spirited suggestion.

And you also say:

> I didn't feel badly about it either.

Those don't seem consistent.

The reality is that cracking and using cracked software is ethically and immorally wrong. People do it because they're selfish and can get away with it.

You make it sound like people who pirate software are trying to hurt creators.

They're not. The means to acquire the software are just too great. If you give people a way to express their gratitude in other ways--they might (they also might not. heck they probably won't. but I'd also expect it to be non-zero).

> You make it sound like people who pirate software are trying to hurt creators.

No, I am absolutely not claiming any intention malice. I'm claiming selfishness.

> The means to acquire the software are just too great.

It doesn't matter. If you didn't make X, and the person who did make X doesn't give you any right to X... you don't have any right to X.

They made it. By virtue of actually creating the thing, they morally have all of the rights to decide who should have access to it. If they haven't given you access to it, what right do you have to claim over it?

I‘m a developer myself and i have the money, that is not the problem. I have no mac myself, so not a use case for me, but and don‘t get this wrong ... Design of the app is good, website is 10/10 ... but a subscription for a monitor control app is a hard sell.

One time i would say:“well, why not. i use it and there is no better way“ but my lizard brain says:“23$ or euro every year for like 5 or 10 years ... thats money. Nope. One time developing it and a few minor fixes ... “

I have no idea how bad every mac os update f+++s with your app and maybe its a pain, but well lizard brain

Thanks for the explanation!

But the thing is, it's not a subscription. If Lunar keeps working for you, you can avoid updating after the free period of updates ends. No need to pay again.

If you don't upgrade your Mac hardware to something exotic (like the M1 upgrade), and if macOS doesn't pull the rug from under us, devs that play with the DDC protocol, then you won't need any updates.

But Lunar is very dependent on the hardware, because it talks low-level I²C with the monitor controller.

So if you upgrade, and I have to spend thousands of dollars on new hardware and months on reverse engineering it, I expect to be paid for it.

You pay for the product as is now, not for my unlimited future time.

+1 to this. I really hate when small/non-essential software had not just high cost but freaking subscription. Not speaking about OP but https://www.noisli.com/ for example that was useful, no question, but now asking $120 to listen white-noise that I can download for free? I'm okay to pay $20 for offline app and sent $100 to charity. I'm also sure they would have times more profit from this.

Instead of this, pay fix price for software and 1 year of updates seems time more fair.

> I'm tired of the TnT Russian team cracking my macOS apps.

Another HN poster has a relevant suggestion[1]:

> In the 90s I used to make money off shareware, and every time I release a new version hackers would release "cracks" for the license key. Eventually I figured out that these cracks are coming from Russia.

> In the next version of my program, I added a check for system language, and if I detect Russian then I bypass the license key checks, and the program is free to use. This stopped hackers from releasing cracks.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27184692

It's a neat trick, but pretty much everyone knows it nowadays. Could try detecting something else, not sure what though.

On a related funny note, the first Metal Gear Solid V crack only worked on Chinese timezone or language setting, I forgot which.

> pretty much everyone knows it nowadays.

Didn’t think I’d be relinking to this XKCD so soon: https://xkcd.com/1053/

Maybe this is common knowledge in your circles, but otherwise it’s far from widespread. I learned about it from the linked comment (as did other people) and no one I told it to had heard of it before. That includes software developers of popular apps.

We need a much stronger indie dev scene. Drop me an e-mail anytime if I might be of help.

> This is really hurting indie devs.

The fix? FOSS.

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