You say that like it's a problem.
Look at it this way: Does Ubuntu or OS X suffer from being pirated? Not really. Windows needs to figure this out for themselves.
Look at it this way: Does Ubuntu or OS X suffer from being pirated? Not really. Windows needs to figure this out for themselves.
Gates has said so himself: http://www.itwire.com/it-industry-news/market/23137-how-pira...
Gates has also, in the past, confirmed how important piracy is to Microsoft: "Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don't pay for the software... Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."
All listings are free. With the exception of job postings and agent housing ads in NYC. The exceptions provide enough revenue for the small (~40) staff of CL to keep things rolling. The free postings zero out revenues for anyone else looking to compete in the same space, establishing a large marketplace with strong network effects and an effective monopoly.
Ubuntu (and open source in general) works because of inverse-free-riders, "free helpers" we might call them. That seems to be a sustainable model, but it likely won't work for annoying grunt programming - note the poor driver support in many Linux distros. For some tasks, someone needs to be paid.
If people were stealing iPads from Apple stores, would you suggest Apple should “figure [that] out for themselves”?
Secondly, stores actually do deal with shoplifting--they euphemistically call it "inventory shrinkage" and just chalk it up as an expense. "Unauthorized" copying isn't even an expense!
Windows may not be the best example since it’s so massively profitable, and sells a lot to enterprise customers and OEMs who won’t pirate it. That said, I suspect the business case for producing high-budget, non-mass-market consumer content (say, HBO shows) is starting to tip. How many people pirate Game of Thrones for every one that pays for it?
In the end, we live in a capitalist society — the people making software, movies, music, books, etc. have to get paid for the stuff be made.
Again, I know this analogy isn’t perfect, but what you’ve said is not all that different from telling a shop owner who was robbed that maybe he should do something else instead.
A more suitable analogy would be to a bookstore owner who's struggling because of (legal) Kindle downloads. Sucks for him, but time marches forwards. Perhaps he should partially convert to a coffee shop or similar.
And there it is, an artificial market created through technology and legislation, just like the copyright market. I'm sure plumbers would be eager to point out the virtues of having such a system.