Here's how I deal with users who steal
pud.com
pud.com
I also like the subtle dig, "if you can't afford it." I've certainly pirated things myself. If iTunes asked me, "We noticed you've pirated The Walking Dead. If you can't afford $3, click here to get it for free." By reframing it as charity I might be shamed into purchasing it. :)
That's certainly a novel approach. I would love to hear how it turns out.
To me that means the price is too high, so maybe also let them set their own price?
"How much will it cost me? You can upload one song for free."
Add in testimonials, press and word of mouth and prospects can get an indication of how useful DistroKid is likely to be.
When I said chance, I was allowing for lack of followthrough on the part of the artists. When there's a service that can get your material in front of purchasers so cheaply, a huge, huge portion of the responsibility to succeed then relies on you to create a saleable product and then drive some interest.
That's embedded in the definition of a market--sellers get to choose the price, buyers get to choose whether or not to buy.
Lack of negotiation isn't a curiosity, it reduces friction of transactions - see item, point at it, give the money, you're done; which saves effort for both parties.
What about people who can afford but are unwilling to buy luxury items, like Louis Vuitton bags? Should they be able to set their own price?
He's offering it for free (for some users). I was simply suggesting he also allow those users to pick a price and pay him something.
FWIW, his idea struck me as logical. I might be able to afford something that still doesn't make sense for me to buy, since I don't get eg; $20 of value from it. See econ101. But I'm not sure PWYW would be the solution here.
A professional musician will not think twice about paying $50 for an awesome tab software, but to me, a hobbyist guitar player, paying more than $20 would be a stretch. This has nothing to do with the quality of the product.
The Humble Bundle pricing model has shown that such an approach can be extraordinarily successful, but I'm not sure how well it can be extended to other software products.
I suspect there are those who would try to get it for free, regardless of how much it costs. It's probably more successful in converting those who wouldn't have paid in the first place - IE by reminding them that they've been "caught out".
Having said that, no homepage mention may be turning away the honest users who might genuinely be unable to afford it. Only offering a discount to those who cheat the system seems to be rewarding deviousness. It feels more honest, to me at least, to "remind" people that there's a student/concessionary fee available, as opposed to revealing it.
That reminds me of Airbrake.io, whose lowest-cost pricing plan was higher than I wanted to spend on a toy site I made recently. On my phone I can't find the text on their site, but in small print on the pricing page it said something like "or, we have a developer plan, which is free for one site and one user."
It was exactly what I was looking for, and I wish there were more ultra barebones plans available for otherwise-paid services.
Perhaps, instead of explicitly mentioning the Scholarship accounts on the homepage, there could be text along lines of "Struggling to get by and can't afford it? Email us and we'll see what we can do."
You don't understand, it's just business.
Furthermore, the conversion of requiring people to beg via email to explain they're broke is next to zero. People won't do it. They'll take the POLR: fake accounts. Kicking them out also won't help: they can attack the brand and also if they succeed, the service looks like the bad guys. Furthermore, it builds stats by having more accounts registered on the platform. Whether those fake accounts get killed off is up to the business owner. Is padding stats worth the liability and cost of junk accounts?
We're still talking about DistroKid, so it just bought them free PR.
The point is everyone can make more money by taking a calculated gamble on positive ROI giveaways. The unit cost of an app is often pennies. Any concern about mass defection of paid users to unpaid is unlikely if the service is good and shows trying to take the high road. And that adds goodwill valuation to the brand. These intangibles make the service of higher value than a formulaic subscription service that thinks short-term only. It's not quite the same as selling gym memberships. :)
The meta is that when a service is small, keeping CAC low and getting as many users as possible while maintaining cool is hard. The churn between paid, unpaid and closed accounts is also a delicate dance to keep satisficing toward $. Sometimes giving accounts away in exchange for something non-monetary is a way go (real friends or not).
And also, don't forget gangster marketing: http://youtu.be/t73Q3f4YjwQ
Entirely true. But it would remove the conflict of offering the scholarship option only to people who cheat, which is the whole point. They can of course continue to also offer it to those who do, just like now.
It's probably less work for me to send an email explaining why I think I deserve a free account than to tell the system to send emails to five email addresses that route to me, and then do whatever I need to do to validate them.
In my experience, this works until a user hits a moment of hardship or "meh". Then they cancel and find it's easier to reallocate those consumption dollars to something new than reboot the subscription.
I think this is a great practical solution. They are not being rewarded with a free product (they have that already), they are being rewarded with shame and/or understanding.
The shame of being caught out may make them stop stealing. The understanding may encourage them to stick with the product and buy when they do have the money, or recommend it to others. Win / win solutions are rare and beautiful and should not be discarded for spurious moral values.
I think this is the best way to combat hidden "just data-copying" computer crimes - because people think they can't be seen while doing them, they just need to be shown that someone can see and they'll stop. (This should work on all but the small fraction of people who will steal whatever you do - again, see [1]!)
[1] "The honest truth about dishonesty", Dan Ariely http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0007477333
But some of these people would still copy the software instead of ordering the disk from us. We didn't really detect that, but the boss added a screen that just randomly pops up reminding the user that if you are running a copy now, remember that copying is WRONG.
We would get repenting phone calls from users begging to be forgiven.
They've already pirated the software so it's not morality, it's guilt.
Terrible wording aside, I think the two have both intersecting and unique qualities, guilt and morality, that depending on the person will be called into play at various points in the decision making process.
Disclaimer: IANAbehaviorist, I was just raised by one, and nearly married to one.
The incarceration rates of atheists vs christians in the US are quite telling.
Seems like 0.07% from survey by Federal Bureau of Prisons.
1. I don't think the data actually exists. The commonly cited figure of 0.2% atheists is extremely dubious.
2. There are too many confounding factors and hidden variables. A plurality of Hindus speak Hindi, but believing in Hinduism neither causes, nor is caused by speaking Hindi. Likewise, if atheists are underrepresented in prisons, there are just too many simple demographic explanations to draw any conclusions about morality.
Maybe. Because it is a question on which significant numbers of people differ, it would be a poor choice for such a study.
> Is admitting that "Mohammed is the final messanger [sic] of God" moral or immoral?
No.
> Is calling the Pope God's representative on earth moral or immoral?
No.
> Is calling Jesus devine [sic] moral or immoral?
No.
> Until you can define what you're trying to measure, you cannot do any study.
Not every action is moral or immoral, and some actions have a moral component but it is debated which is preferable. On the other hand, LOTS of actions have clearly defined and widely accepted morality. Construct your study so you measure whether participants take more than their share of M&Ms or whether they cheat on the test when they think it will be undetectable.
True, but there are some actions which some people think are moral, and some think are immoral. The religious questions I gave are like that. People disagree about whether an action is moral or immoral. Some Christians will think that it's moral and right and good to call Jesus divine (and a sin and immoral to claim the opposite), whereas some (say) Muslims will think that it's blashpemy and wrong and immoral to call Jesus divine (and a moral and good thing to claim the opposite).
I think if a video game loading screen told you "Piracy is WRONG!" it would be ineffective in GTA, neutral in Civilization, and effective about half the time in Mass Effect.
Likewise, if gonzo porn had interstitials about how copying is wrong, I doubt anyone would be moved by it, but if political feminist porn had little interludes where the director said she didn't make much off her work and would rather you support her, it would almost certainly be effective.
People who are religious will happily do a whole number of viciously amoral things, like go to war, kill people, or make others feel subhuman for their gender or sex preferences. But people in general will react as the situation warrants, and if you can control that situation you can control people.
There are undoubtedly angry people, willing to lash out at anyone they think may have wronged them, and some of those people may identify as feminists. That doesn't mean that feminists hate men, white or otherwise, anymore than men hate women as a class of people.
However, white men have a lot of cultural privilege in America, and privilege is an insidious beast. It's really hard to see unless you're on the wrong side of it, or spend time giving it some thought. I've been trying to be better about that lately, to at least become aware of the things that society have given to me with no effort of my own, but it takes time.
I don't want to rant at you, but I like to try to educate people when they mis-step. Personally, my ability to respect anyone comes from a place of understanding that they are trying to work to better themselves and others, and try to elevate the dialogue a little. Respect for decent Christians, and respect for Feminists, for me, comes from the same place.
They're just trying to do right in the world. It's hard though. The world is a tough place to get by for anyone, no matter where you come from.
Anyway, I hope you have some opportunities to grow and realize lack of respect for a group of people seeking to be respected is a failure of imagination on your part. I'm sure the world will keep presenting you the lesson until you've either made progress on it, or become so set in your ways as to be blinded to the possibility.
Ciao!
That's a nice false equivalence you've got there.
>However, white men have a lot of cultural privilege
Oh goody, you're hiding behind the boogieman, aka "privilege". In modern, "western" culture there's really no cultural privilege for men. Unless we're going to count the privilege to be drafted, or murdered, or die on the job with nary a twitch of the feminist diaspora.
>Anyway, I hope you have some opportunities to grow and realize lack of respect for a group of people seeking to be respected is a failure of imagination on your part
That's rather nonsensical. Just because a group wants to be respected doesn't mean they deserve respect.
Feminism advocates for autonomy for everyone. Everyone should be able to make choices about how to live their life instead of having those choices made for them. Everyone should have control over their own body. Everyone should have control over their own self image.
You may not perceive it, but many people live in cultures in which they are strongly pushed toward ideal body types, lifestyles, and choices from many angles: family, community, media, friends. This affects both men and women. If people who live in traditionally patriarchal western cultures can now say honestly that they perceive no gender bias, then feminism has won. It may not have won the war, but it has at least won some battles, and it will continue fighting for equality for all.
> If you believe that modern western cultures are not gender biased and this state of affairs is worth preserving, then you are a feminist! You can't deny it because you have just advocated for gender equality.
No, if you're going to insist on naming it, it is "egalitarian". I also don't believe this state of affairs is worth preserving.
>Feminism advocates for autonomy for everyone.
No, no it doesn't. Feminism, by design and definition, advocates for the rights of women. Or rather, I should say, "womyn" since large, vocal factions of the feminist movement don't support the rights of trans-people. But I'm guessing you're one of those feminists that like to no true scotsman those feminists out of play, I guess their opinion don't count.
Also, fuck your patriarchy bullshit. It's a convenient scapegoat and surrogate evil upon which much of modern feminist dogma is based.
Feminists advocate for the rights of women but not exclusively so. We advocate equality and address inequalities. Feminists support men as well when they are victims of inequalities. Of course, feminism is a broad movement and not a dogmatic cult, and therefore you will find those who do not support the rights of trans people, but they are not representative of the majority of feminists.
Since its inception in the 19th century, feminism has expanded to address all aspects of gender in culture and identity. Many feminists like myself do not consider gender to be a binary position but a spectrum of cultural expressions. It is therefore impossible to advocate the rights of women without advocating the rights of men because no one is entirely "man" or "woman." No one fits neatly into static gender stereotypes. The rights of trans, intersexed, and genderqueer people are extremely important as we move forward.
In the long term, I feel it's especially important that we question traditional gender roles because we have an increasingly powerful ability to manipulate our biology. We will see increasing amounts of people with bodies and minds that do not conform to our expectations because they are fundamentally different, and we need to develop a cultural understanding for relating to people who do not conform to our preconceived notions of gender expression.
There's the privilege to not be raped.
Or, the privilege to not be sexually harassed, on the street by strangers, in the office by people you have to see every day, or anywhere else.
The privilege to wear clothing that is comfortable and cheap and socially accepted, and to wear that clothing without being judged as having "given up" or being slobbish.
There's the privilege to register at a conference without being assumed to be the boyfriend of the co-worker you're at the table getting badges with.
There's the privilege to get a job, fellowship, or acceptance to a school without being seen as an "affirmative action" choice who must not be really good enough for whatever position you've obtained.
The privilege to speak up for yourself without being called a bitch, and to do so on the Internet without receiving rape threats.
The privilege to grow up with a massive and wide variety of role models who are active, dynamic agents enforcing their will on the world, rather than submissive prizes awarded to those who wear down their "resistance" until they submit.
It is utterly laughable to suggest that being a man does not come with a huge, incalculable amount of privilege, in any part of the world.
It is insane to do so in the technology community, which has been acting to expel what few women attempted to inhabit it (probably not by intention, but certainly by result).
Now if only it weren't for the fact that the majority of rapes are institutional, ie. in prison, and are committed by women against women. Or the fact that rape laws have been shaped by feminism in a way to make men the only ones capable of raping in an overwhelming majority of sexual encounters -- rape being defined by the likes of the FBI as forced penetration with a penis or object. Or that male rape victims are routinely marginalized in media. Or that the same illegal conduct by a male is "rape" but is only "sexual assualt" when committed by a female. Or the utter disproportionality of punishment for male verse female perpetrators. Or the various "rape shield" laws that allow the accused to be dragged through the mud in the press while "protecting" the accuser, even when the accuser is proven false. Or that women have started to view calling sexual encounters rape as a "get out of trouble free, card.
>Or, the privilege to not be sexually harassed, on the street by strangers, in the office by people you have to see every day, or anywhere else.
Yes, men are never sexual harassed. Neeeeever.
>The privilege to wear clothing that is comfortable and cheap and socially accepted, and to wear that clothing without being judged as having "given up" or being slobbish.
Once again, a non-gendered "privilege"
>There's the privilege to get a job, fellowship, or acceptance to a school without being seen as an "affirmative action" choice who must not be really good enough for whatever position you've obtained.
Having been involved, first hand, on both the applicant and hiring side I've seen the results of forced "equality" in hiring. It rarely increases talent and often harms it.
And on and on...Your list is full of tropes that are half truths or ignore the two-sided nature of things. I'm glad the echo-chamber of self-victimization is working out for you though.
Of the feminists that do hate men, I think most of them do because they have experienced oppression at the hands of men in very direct ways, such as:
* Sexual harassment (probably all of the women you know have been sexually harassed)
* Sexual assault (one in four on average, higher than that for women in the global majority/women of color)
* Overt sexism (being derided as an "affirmative action" placement, told to make sandwiches/get off the Internet, etc.)
* Covert sexism (being assumed to be a subordinate in an office, being assumed to be an assistant/boyfriend at tech conferences, being singled out for "preferential" treatment in a Victorian expression of respect for fragility)
As a man, I think that there are a lot of reasons why women would hate men, and why people of color would hate whites. I think this is mostly justified. Men, and particularly white men, have and continue to do pretty absurdly horrible things, and more than that, refuse to even admit to it! The catcaller on a street doesn't think he's doing something wrong, much less the person who judges a woman more harshly for her efficacy at work (since she seems "cold" if she gets things done).
One of the best defenses of hate I've ever seen is from Butch Slaughter. You can see some of his work here: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Butch%20Slaught...
Mr. Slaughter guest lectured at a class I took on domestic violence, and one of the things he said that will always stick with me is that "there are some things you're supposed to hate." Systemic inequality, and the oppression of the majority of humans, is definitely something you're supposed to hate. And I think it's impossible to wholly separate that from the people who are responsible, either by accident or by choice, in supporting such things.
Copyright should be abolished, and this is a moral issue.
I know you are trolling, but you made it a moral issue not me.
Nothing about creating value and selling it for money requires that I be prohibited in my rights about what I'm allowed to do with digital works, be they considered property or thought. Unfortunately copyright holds us back in this regard and builds an economic environment predicated on this offense.
Picture of statue = copy of software
Public area = internet
$5 per print fee = software license fee
I am not even sure if I fully believe my own analogy, but I find it interesting to think about.
"Hi, buddy! We noticed that you created five dummy accounts in order to get access to our referral reward. Thank you for your interest. If $1.66 per month or $0.05 is too much money for you to afford at the moment and it would prevent you from having a roof over your head and feeding yourself but would still like to sell your music and make a living in pursuing your dreams of being paid for your art and work, then you should check out our scholarship account. We believe in our community and are you are a good person that would not like it if people didn't pay you for your work so we are confident you wouldn't do the same to us."
Or is that too much?
I also have a web service and we used to let people get away with this sort of stuff. First year it worked. Second year, the amount of fraud was impacting bottom line and some of this users turned out to be the ones that used "support" the most. So we started banning bad users and blocking their support requests. The overall impact to the "good" users is pretty noticeable now. Not only can we reply to their support e-mails faster, but the overall system is also faster.
My mentality shifted. Now I think you "owe" it to the "good" users to remove/ban the ones who steal. They are most likely not zero sum, but pretty negative.
If you pave over your lawn when you get your first weed, you may never see the beautiful unexpected mutants that weed might create.
We wrestled a lot with this at 2600hz (and I think all open-source companies do). When your clients use your systems in ways you don't intend, you can shun them or embrace them. The latter tends to work quite well whereas the former only engenders bad feelings.
The way I try to look at it is that a company is supposed to be serving the users, not the other way around.
Maybe you could keep what you have, and also mention in that fine print that you do offer temporary scholarship accounts for musicians in need, giving a link to an easy but real application to be manually reviewed? And instead of automatically granting the scholarship to scammers, do so only after they fill out the application? In practice, you'll probably OK them all, but the hassle and uncertainty of the application will encourage those who can afford to pay to do so.
Little bit like how your can start tertiary study in Australia for free, but incur a HECS debt that begins to get paid once you're earning money.
On a related note - distrokid looks amazing. If I were still making music I'd sign up for sure, just for the Spotify distribution if nothing else. In fact, I dare say if this had existed 5-10 years ago it would not only have provided a means to push my music out, but more than that, acted as an intensive to actually create and produce.
By lowering the barrier to distribution, you're almost certainly propelling a lot of people to working on musical projects which would otherwise fall by the wayside because there's no obvious end goal.
I can understand wanting to keep hands off the royalties and sell the service as a separate product.
I agree it might be an attractive option, to some customers. Might not be as attractive an option to the customers you want the most.
On the other hand, I have to wonder about the story of the police officer - how much is it going to cost that woman to deal with the misdemeanor?
However, I think another pricing plan could be great : It costs virtually 0/year, BUT, 50% of the first $40 of royalties are taken by the site, and the rest sent to the user. Thus the user can still see he is earning something from the first track sold.
In order to make it fair to the people that stump up the cash first you could also charge them slightly more.
Distrokid also does multiple services in one go.
Distrokid, on the other hand, does charge an annual fee, but that's for an unlimited number of albums.
Content Requirements:
- At least 20 albums in your catalog
- UPCs/EANs/JANs for all products you intend to distribute
- ISRCs for all tracks you intend to distribute
Financial Requirements:
- A U.S. Tax ID
- A valid iTunes Store account, with a credit card on file
- Apple does not pay partners until they meet payment requirements and earning thresholds in each territory. You should consider this before applying to work directly with Apple as you may receive payments faster by working with an Apple-approved aggregator.
At any rate props to you pud, for so many reasons... it's a fantastic model and a great product execution. It's the first product that encourages casual music distribution - but that's exactly why I didn't, and probably won't, pay for it.
I have 2 albums up on tunecore, that actually generate revenue. These are albums - professionally recorded, produced, etc. - that I spent money creating, and that I make money back from. I picked tunecore because they were the best thing available at the time, but if I were to do another big release, I'd use them again (despite the fact that I'm not thrilled with the company at the moment because Jeff Price is a great guy and they totally screwed him). And at the end of the day, it's because they have the most distribution partners, and because they send me a check every month. tunecore is for music that I want people to buy.
Then Distrokid came out, and I celebrated. I'm sure there are exceptions to this, but musicians make tons of songs that never see the light of day. Maybe the song isn't entirely finished, maybe it's not good enough to pay for mastering, maybe it's part of a musical direction the musician changed his or her mind on. I've got a ton of these, and these are what I'm using distrokid for. I'm not really promoting these tracks, I'm not expecting a great return from them. A lot of them are unfinished experiments or lo-fi fun, nothing market-worthy. But I can put these up for my friends, other musicians, etc. to hear on Spotify at a higher quality than soundcloud can provide.
As soon as I make $19.99 from distrokid, I'll buy the yearly, more as a thank you than anything else. But until then, I'm probably going to keep my phony free account.
And pud - if you can match tunecore's number of distributors and earnings reporting... well, "disruption" doesn't even scratch the surface.
I would never be a customer of a service where the company tells me that I stole from them in the first place. For the DistroKid case I'd say stealing is a strong word for creating a few dummy user accounts. I'd guess many of us have asked friends to use Dropbox referral codes to sign up even when you know they might not continue to use the service.
If a legitimate person is caught stealing then one is ashamed and prefers other services.
Poverty is no excuse to steal (at least not in my book). Not so long ago I lost everything I worked for in the past 30+ years, including my home. Do you think I steal my way through live now? No I don't, because I was raised that honesty is the most important thing in live-and that's what I taught my kids and that's what I tell my grandkids. What message do you try to convey when you treat thieves the same way than honest customers? I sure wouldn't take my money to a business like this(if I had the money). I believe it invites people to keep stealing from you, because you're asking for it. Dude get real, that's the wrong way to promote yourself by letting everyone know what a good heart you have. Yeah, I know times are hard, but does that give you a free ticket to steal? Absolutely not. And then you have the nerve to compare yourself to the cop in Florida...who indeed did a good thing. This was about food not a frigging piece of software.
It is not optimal in theory to create rule systems that are abuse-able for personal gain, but this seems like on of those cases where it will work in the real world. I'd be curious to see user decision statistics about this in a couple of months.
So why do we assume that everyone trying to cheat his system is Tiny Tim? lol
Maybe it's not good to reward them for trying to cheat? Maybe this enables entitled people to keep on feeling entitled to everything for free? Just saying. I get a little bothered when this sort of thing is met with no criticism at all. Like, he's giving something away for free? He is better than us! If only we all were so noble! lol
Letting people use your product for free if they can't afford it is certainly a nice thought, but then you should give that opportunity to everybody.
Most people are actually honest, but you just need "enough" who aren't and who are also greedy (i.e. the typical fraudster) to lose your shirt. It depends on the model though: If the author's model is such that his costs are bounded and are otherwise absorb-able, given the revenue driven by honest customers, then he may be OK.
But, our model is such that not busting the user can literally lead to unbounded losses and these guys show no compunction whatsoever about driving you into the dirt if they can make a buck.
I wonder if you could make this official with something like this on the home page:
"If you are interested in our product but you can't afford it, please send us an email explaining why you can't afford it and we will give you a free license".
That's it, no conditions ("at least two paragraphs, and it has to feel real!"), no lecturing, just asking people who can't spend money on the product to spend some time instead.
I wonder if the extra thoughts that would-be pirates would have to put into writing that email would be enough to make them reconsider and actually buy the product they would have otherwise pirated...
Writing a "hardship" letter doesn't provide the same feedback (to those people). And while in some respects "gaming" can be cheating writing a hardship letter (when there is no hardship) would feel different to some people.
Would be interesting to test though for sure.
Marginal lifetime cost for servicing an additional account is roughly $0.00, give or take a penny. Marginal benefit from a happy customer with a fresh free subscription and a Twitter account is somewhat higher.
So while you can spin it as goodwill and charity, the bottom line is that it's just good business sense.
However, be cautious to not get the leechers, those users who are rich and still would suck others dry. There are plenty of those in the world. I believe for your service, they still wont do much damage to you, compared to the musicians who really have no money and just want to get by.
But still, be cautious. And dont call it stealing, its something else going on here, its fraud or malice or leeching.
EDIT: Though for real this is beautiful and exactly what I want to see because it is what our users are capable of.
The trial version creates this file: NotTheFileThatStoresInformationAboutTrialDates.txt
If you simply remove it, the trial is reset. I would rather spend the $5 then do it every month, so hopefully my users think in a similar way.
What DistroKid is doing is showing good will to users who for whatever reason decide to game the system. It's a fair and square proposition: "This service costs money, we see you are trying to game the system and instead of just kicking you out we are willing to assume you're going to be honest and pay if you can really afford. It's the choice we made (to trust our customers), and that's it."
Constantly nagging about payments, when they already agreed to let people not pay, would in my opinion and taste be just pathetic. The message that would send (again, in my opinion) is: "Remember when we said we trusted you? Yeah, well, that was just to get our foot in the door. We don't, so now not only will we take your money, we'll insult your intelligence with this passive aggressive message." I assumed you're proposing this message pops out as the second phase of the current scenario. OTOH, if they offered this kind of deal right from the start it would be a different thing, but please -- sans passive aggressive pop-ups on morality. ;) That said, I think what DistroKid is doing now, as it is, is perfect.
Perhaps give them the option to apply their first $19 in royalties to the service (or at some discounted rate, as you can potentially collect interest on unclaimed royalties at scale).
Great idea though! Nothing wrong with a little Shaming!
Remembers me of the German magazin 'brand eins' that offered a 'social' subscription where you won't pay for a year if you're struggling with making ends meet. You just had to tell them, no questions asked.
Just checking if all users have the same email domain name (with the exception of a white list such as gmail, hotmail, etc.)?
Or flagging users that are using mailinator/5minutemail/whatever?
Abusers basically work as hill-climbing algorithms. If you catch them, many will just try again after tweaking something.
When in the past I've fought abusers my approach includes: minimizing opportunities to gain information; minimizing signs of progress; lengthening feedback loops as much as possible; increasing the cost of trying to get information; and, when you change things, changing several things at once, so that they have to figure out several things to get back in.
PS. I live in Belgium and we have a crazy tax % here ;-)
New accounts with no activity?
A non-activated account?
Accounts created from temporary email providers (ie: Mailinaotr)?
You could also put a cookie on the users computer, so you know if that cookie is present for 5 subsequent signups that have little/no activity, it's probably a cheater.
...
...is also always a nice feeling? What?
Or for a closer analogy, since this is theft of services: If I hire you to make a website for me, and then don't you, that's still stealing even if you don't take any action against me.
That means the service thinks each user is worth about 4 bucks. Actually not that expensive of a lead generation if it brings in 20 a year.
I would be interested in your thoughts regarding this, because I have seem some lead generation sites pay 50 dollars for the right kind of lead.
As a consumer, and thinking specifically to when I had less means: perhaps wrongly, but I have an acute perception of the value of anything I purchase in terms of the work that actually goes into its production. I'll pay for a service if I'm not being scammed, if some real human effort went into producing it. If it's just a copy of something that was already produced, then there's nothing for me to pay for.
Similarly, if it costs $x but "free if you tell 5 friends", suddenly the whole experience is cheapened. It's perfectly concievable that I could tell 5 "friends" and this has 0 effect on you. My mind starts to wander. Why should I pay more because I don't have 5 friends? Why should I pay more because I'm not willing to shill myself out and strain the relationships I have, to give you some cheap advertising? I consider the premise offensive, and I also see that maybe you don't need the $20 as much as I do.
It's not a great way of thinking, but I think the onus is on the salesperson to have some respect for their clients and not smugly write them off as "stealers" when their storefront provided what might be perceived by those clients as a sales trick. shrug