Re: Where is the beef???

[Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>]

Willie Yeo writes ...
> 
 ....

>         Just because it is priced at $100 means that you have to pirate the software?

    "Pirate"? Since when is anyone pirating Appleworks 5? If the owner
of Appleworks 5 believes that it is being wrongly listed on an archive,
why, in all these months, has the owner not objected? Why has not the
owner taken five minutes to send an email requesting that the product be
delisted?

     
> In the real computing world, if you do not wish to pay for a product, do you
> go and find an alternative ?

     That is what most users do. Fortunately, Appleworks 5 software is
available for free downloading. Were it not, new II owners would
download and use some other word processor-- Appleworks 2.x with Time
Out add-ons is one good alternative.


 
> >      Everyone knows that the chances of actually selling the product
> > at such an outrageous price are just about zero. Clearly, the
> > "seller" is not really making Appleworks 5 available; the "seller" is
> > sitting on the product. If Appleworks 5 were not available via
> > archives, most new A2 owners would not use it. Those who develop
> > products which support Appleworks 5 or which depend upon it would
> > have a smaller market.
> 
>         Whatever the company chose to sell the product at what price is not up to the
> say of the users. Turnover of the sale of the product will indicate to them
> that it will be over-priced and they will decide themselves.
>

     The above assumes that someone is actively engaged in marketing and
distributing the product. Obviously, this is not the case with
Appleworks 5. The distributor wants to sell each package at a high price
and is in no great rush to do it. Fair enough.

     Meanwhile, there is every reason to believe that the company
benefits from having Appleworks 5 software remain available for free
downloading:

1. Every so often, some vigilante type rants about Appleworks 5 here, on
the world's largest Apple II forum, producing much free hype for anyone
with packages to sell.

2. The surest way to kill a word processor's attractiveness is to make
it unavailable to the mass of users. So long as Appleworks 5 remains
easy to obtain and in general use, anyone with packages to sell is much
more likely to make sales to schools and similar institutions.
Similarly, a user is more likely to pay a premium price to obtain the
Appleworks 5 manuals if he or she believes that Appleworks 5 will remain
'the standard' Apple II word processor.


     Whoever owns the copyright, why mount a serious complaint which
could stop downloading and weaken the value of the remaining packages? 


 ....

> >      Rather than complaining about the presence of Appleworks 5 on A2
> > archive sites, you should be expressing thanks. Both the archives and
> > the copyright owner deserve the gratitude of Apple II users.
> 
>         I will thank the copyright owner if they decide to reclassify the software as
> freeware or shareware.


     So far, the copyright owner has chosen in favor of free user
access. Why does that bother you so much?



 
Rubywand