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Comment by kylec | Hacker News Reader

I've been using the Chocolat betas for a while and it really is a nice editor. Worth $50, I don't know - for around that price you can get Sublime Text 2, BBEdit, or TextMate, all of which are more mature products.

I think Chocolat could be wildly successful as the "Pixelmator" to these other editors "Photoshop" if they dropped the price and sold it through the Mac App Store. But as it stands now, there's nothing that compells me to purchase it.

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$50 is equal to about 20 minutes-60 minutes of your time. Chocolat has easily saved me that much frustration and time. So it's worth it for me.

Vim has saved me that much frustration and time. Maybe I should donate $50 to that Ugandan charity (ICCF?) that Moolenaar likes.

http://www.moolenaar.net/Charityware.html

Maybe you should. The creator of Chocolat is in a position where he obviously has to charge to help him survive. Just because another piece of software that's equally or more powerful than Chocolat is free doesn't mean that Chocolat should be too.

I've been using Chocolat since the very first public beta and I loved it even when it was filled to the brim with bugs. I've also used SublimeText2 in that time. I can say that for me Chocolat is worth the $50. No, I can't afford it right now so I keep using an unlicensed SublimeText but just because I can't afford it doesn't mean it isn't worth it.

Not to pick on you in particular, but I think it's a bit disingenuous to try to say "something is priced to be worth about X amount of time" - it entirely depends on the person and their financial situation.

I've used Sublime Text 2 for a year without actually buying it, but I've also been unemployed college student for the same amount of time, so I can't justify dropping $60 on something optional when I could be stocking up on ramen or paying rent.

Thank you! I keep seeing these kinds of comments and feeling like I must be the poorest person ever to post here. I have yet to make even $15 an hour (which is a mere tenth of what adamjernst apparently gets paid).

You're far from the only one. Reported HN salaries are a lot like internet-penis sizes.

In the third world country I live in, $50 is 4 months salary.

I'm pulling your leg now, but wanted to make a point.

Plus, it doesn't matter if $50 is equal to 60 minutes of my time or not. What it matters is if $50 is a fitting price for such a product.

Would you buy a can of Coke for $50 because it's "equal to 60 minutes of your time"?

If the coke saved you more than 60 minutes, then yes.

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