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Comment by vasco | Hacker News Reader

> where most b2c consumers are happy to pay $10+ per DAY on a cup of coffee but not willing to spend $10 on a software PER MONTH

You can see where the money goes for the first, planting and farming, physically transporting beans across the world, processing them, physically making and handing you the coffee.

Bits in a screen that someone just comfortably typed and then pressed a button to ship is not as valuable. On the other hand, even if you can charge much less for it, you can charge it to everyone in the world for pretty much zero additional cost. So I wouldn't complain with the tradeoff.

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I pay ~$200 USD for a Windows 11 Pro license, usable for the life of the machine if it's an OEM license and for as long I live if it's a retail license. That's basically nothing over a sufficiently long timeframe.

I pay $70 annually for Microsoft 365 (read: Microsoft Office), that's ~19 cents per day. That's practically nothing.

Commercial licenses are more expensive, but businesses will have bigger budgets to match.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: At some point you'll come off better just admitting you're a cheapskate who doesn't want to pay for software.

You can be mad at human nature or you can try to understand it. The peoples of the world didn't decide to start an anti software cabal and fake less willingness to pay. So if they do have less willingness to pay, how do you explain it without a useless mental crutch like "they are too cheap"?

Of course there's many costs, datacenters aren't free. The point is what a normal consumer psyche is going through during the purchasing moment.

If you don't want to pay for software, that's fine because that's your money and your prerogative.

But if you are feeling a need to lay out excuses to justify yourself, that is just pathetic to witness. Just say you aren't paying for software rather than claiming programming isn't valuable work.

As for normal consumers, they just pay up and go about their day: A fair price for good software that satisfies their needs and desires. There are more people out there buying Windows and Office than there are people freeloading off of Linux and LibreOffice (and much less people who "pay" for Linux and LibreOffice by contributing back).

"cheapskate", "freeloading" - you're not really hiding your contempt for people that don't want to pay for Microsoft products. There's a myriad of reasons why companies, public institutions like governments and universities pay for Microsoft, and it's not 100% based on merit.

In one example, the Government of Quebec was successfully sued because of how it preferentially used Microsoft products _without allowing alternatives_ in their contract bidding process [0]

Leaning on "free software users are cheapskate freeloaders" and framing it like Linux is lower quality than Windows because of money spent is a reductive view - it depends entirely on what you use your computer for.

0: https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/quebec-government-sued-for-b...

You should read to whom and what I am replying to first:

>Bits in a screen that someone just comfortably typed and then pressed a button to ship is not as valuable.

This is a guy who argues that programming is not valuable work compared to a cup of coffee, as justification for his refusal to pay for software.

That, as far as I'm concerned, is a cheapskate and a pathetic one at that.

Programming is valuable work and some programmers want to be compensated in coin for their work. Not all users will want to compensate in coin or even compensate at all. These are both fine. Devaluing the former to justify the latter is not fine, and is what I am attacking.

I don't argue it. The behavior of consumers shows it. I'm just noticing it and sharing my observation which you're free to disagree with, but I think digging on this rather than calling our customers cheap will only advance our cause. You should learn to separate the person from the argument.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

I'm talking about general attitudes of consumers of software as a software developer that depends on people buying software to pay bills. You kept trying to make this about me personally not paying for software when you have no idea where I spend my money on - rather than address the fact that people do have less willingness to pay for software. Do you think you'll be more or less successful at selling your software if you understood your buyers more and call them cheap less?

I'm not sure from where you are concluding that people are less willing to buy software. Most people buy Windows, Office, Adobe's suite of programs, video games, and much more enough for there to be a burgeoning market.

Of course, I agree a lot of techies and especially the audience here (who aren't normal people for conversations like this) don't like buying software, nor selling them for that matter. Actually, sometimes I get the impression they hate the very concept of money, but I digress.

These cheapskates that paid the price the software was sold for...

At some point they should admit they totally screwed up their pricing structure instead of saying that security is an optional add-on.

I agree, but would add this: I think turning buying an operating system into a push-your-luck video game with serious, real-life, negative consequences is bad. Average consumers (and many contractors) are not equipped to evaluate the risks they are taking on with this stuff, and the marketing puffery is impossible to decipher even for people who do this for a living.

Pro 11 is still subject to bullshit ads. Prefer 11 Enterprise licenses so that ads can be completely turned off.

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