Re: Apple II Oasis

[Phoenyx <quazar@dcnet2000.com>]

> I do not believe that the author of Oasis is charging the extra money. I
> do realize that the check fee is being charged by the US company he is
> using for collections. I will probably eventually pay the fee, because
> Oasis really is an excellent program. But quite honestly I would rather
> spend the extra money to send him an international money order directly
> rather than pay this company its rip-off fee, even though the fee is
> cheaper.

Ok, I think I understand your point of view. What I don't understand is
why you have a problem going through a middleman, which is essentially
what is happening. Many companies use this method. They manufacture what
ever product which is then sold to another company who then sells it to
someone else. In other products, there is usually someone who handles the
purchase for you and they always get a commission whether you realize it
or not. The more obvious ones are real estate brokers, stock brokers and
auto salesmen. Less obvious are the retailers, such as a convenience
store who generally charge a 30% markup on products you purchase.

Considering the push for electronic retail, we can expect to see many more
of these types of establishments. For many small time authors or other
types of sellers, it is easier to do business this way. It is not cost
effective to setup a website simply to sell a program unless that program
is expected to be the next 'killer application'. It is even more costly
when the site/business is expected to deal with more than just credit
cards.

> It's really the principal of the thing. No way does it cost this US
> company $6 to process a check.

Again, I understand your principal as well, I expect that you are right
about the cost of the check processing. However, I have had experience
with check processing at the retail level. It can be very expensive to
deal with checks. When I managed a convenience store, we used Telecheck
who processed any checks which bounced for whatever reason. The fee for
such makes this $6 fee look like pocket change. Not only was there a flat
fee for each check, they also took 50% of each check processed. This cost
came directly out of the store's profits.

I realize that the example is not exactly the same but the point is. By
accepting checks, the company runs the risk of receiving bad checks and
thus dealing with the costs of collecting on them. Unfortunately, most of
us pay for the mistakes (or absolute fraud) which others have perpetrated
on businesses via check writing.

As a friend of the author, I would hope you decide to either send a
cashiers check or somehow pay the registration. I have been on both sides
of the shareware system. As an author, I know that some people will not
pay a registration fee (of any size), for whatever justifications they
decide upon. This is usually worse in the Apple II arena where folks seem
to think that software should be passed around for free use. I'm not
pointing fingers here or flaming anyone, this is common knowledge for any
long term II user whether they develop software or not.

As a computer user, I have dealt with shareware quite often. For my old
BBS, there were all kinds of nice utilities or external add ons which
could cost a sysop a lot of money. Often I could not justify them for a
free access BBS system. In the cases where I needed such a program and was
unable to make my own, I gladly paid the fee. I remember a few times that
I had to use a broker for a particular program as the author was not set
up for dealing with credit cards or checks. I forget the name, but there
is at least one company which deals with a lot of shareware this way.

Anyhow, Teodor created the system so that the limited version such as you
are using could be used freely and not require a registration fee to do
so. When you register, you get a better product without the limitations
of the current system. The most annoying one to me was the Disk Manager
moving files instead of copying them. I use the DM quite often when I am
sorting my library archives. It is so easy to copy files between disks
without having to use any extra steps.

At least you were willing to explain why you weren't paying the shareware
registration. Most folks don't even bother with that.

-- 

Thank you for your time and interest. I hope it was helpful
or at least interesting.

Phoenyx,

Apple2 user since March 1984

Links to Phoenyx's pages:
preferred..... http://zip.to/Phoenyx_A2
alternate..... http://www.tinyangeldesigns.com/Apple2