Hacker News Reader

If you consider the purpose of industry as being to make sellers rich, then yes. But if the purpose is to make consumers better off overall, then no, he's not being a jerk at all. The guy who produces software too inefficiently to compete with the free one shouldn't be subsidized by all the users. I am that guy, I do worry about open source software encroaching on my niche. But I don't blame the authors for stealing my customers!

View on HN

Are you familiar with the concept of predatory pricing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing)?

Do you think it is an okay thing, applied to either brick and mortar or software?

Predatory pricing doesn't benefit consumers overall, so if I'm most interested in their wellbeing, I don't think it's an OK thing.

Isn't releasing a free product also predatory pricing?

No "free" software is actually free. The developers have just used some resources from elsewhere to create the product (spare time while earning a living from a daytime job also counts), and then released it for free gaining an unfair advantage over those who try to make the product development self-sustained. This is purely cheating or predatory pricing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com