Re: Rants about cheap users...

[John_L._Graham@adbbs.antioch.edu (John L. Graham)]

Hi Nathan!
        I just thought I'd throw in a couple of cents worth. I've also
published a couple of shareware titles (Tonight's Sky, Tonight's Sky GS,
Nightfall II, Ground Track, Graph Paper GS, and coming soon to a BBS near you
Ground Track GS). It's been my experience that registrations are always slow,
and I've had some disappointments, but in my case I didn't write any of these
with the idea of making money. I wrote them because there was software that I
wanted that didn't exist or I thought could be done better. I started
releasing some of my software as shareware not to make money, but because (as
I'm sure you know) there's a HUGE difference between hacking out some code
for your own use and for others to use. I'm sure no one would recognize the
first freeware releases of Tonight's Sky or Tonight's Sky GS. Jeesh were they
bad, but they were to programs I used for myself for years.

I don't think Apple II users as a group are cheap. As in any population I'm
sure there's a wide variety of folks :) However I do think (IMHO) that folks
are busy, they put things off, they really intend to get around to it, but
like a lot of things it doesn't get done unless it rises to the top of the
to-do list. The message I would like to get across to Apple II users is the
biggest thing I get out of shareware isn't the money (heh, heh as Nathan
pointed out there's not a lot in it) but it's the moral support knowing folks
are appreciative of your work and you've provided them with something they
didn't have before. It makes the HUGE amount of work it takes to produce a
final product (including docs, yech, I hate writing docs) worth while. Even
worse, ever go back and try to update thousands of lines of code after not
looking at it for a couple of years?! It takes a while :)

Have fun... 'cause if it t'ain't fun, what's the point?

John