mholloway wrote:
seriously, is the trial download -- full features *including suite version* for two weeks -- not enough?
one thing that product designs, and software designers in particular, have to do is design for the clients they DO have and not the ones they WANT to have.
I often have to make adjustments to my own programming work to suit the seemingly odd behaviour of the general public. Long ago I learned that when mass behaviour seems to go against logic, it is my logic which is flawed, not the mass of users. Because I am writing
for users. They are the ultimate arbiter, not me. If it's my opinion versus the actual behaviour of 100,000 people, and I disagree with 100,000 people then I will lose.
In this case the answer to your question "is it not enough?" has been proven to be "no, it is not enough", even though that answer seems both unreasonable, immoral, unjustified, etc. That is the answer. It's not the answer that anyone wants to hear, but it is the actual answer. When selling to the real world it's better to take measures to make the product fit better with the proven real world market.
In the Ableton's case they created their (relatively) new 14 day full free license thingy, which I'm sure will take a chunk out of those who would have got a cracked copy to try. And it does seem to be 'try' as the poll shows most people do then buy. But, I bet that even this will not impact the 'try before you buy' contingent too much
Because as unreasonable as it may seem - the 'demo' requirements of most people are actually a
lot more than software companies (or anybody) would normally think of as rational. What the market seems to indicate is that a demo period of
many months of functional use is what is required. I know that seems illogical, but look at the behaviour of the respondents. I've got to say I can kind of understand this. I have an ongoing battle with MaxMSP, once every two years I am allowed to demo thier software, at which point I have 30 days to do it. Then I usually get a ton of work and the demo times out. I have installed 3 demos of Max and although I know I probably might like it, I've never actually found out due to not having enough time to do so. I have never bought it because even 30 days was not enough (when I spend 28 days working 14 hour days). So I can understand an urge to simply bypass the bullshit and
really try an application on my own terms. In this case I have not though.
Also, I've got to say that making emotional "you are all criminals" statements on a mass behaviour like this is less than pointless. This is the mass behaviour of people, and the people do then go on to make the purchases (if the poll is right). It may not fit with your moral world view, but then most of our modern activities would be completely immoral when viewed by someone from the 19th Century. Morality is a fluid thing, and it is driven by the average of behaviour.
Business will adapt to the realities of this new morality and this whole discussion will seem bizarre and anachronistic.
Of course, it's still stupid to go on the official forum of a product and say "hi, I'm using a crack, can anyone help".
but there's a difference between 'stupid' and 'immoral'
GAFM ***