Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!amdcad!ames!husc6!psuvax1!vu-vlsi!swatsun!garth
From: garth@swatsun (Garth Snyder)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Shareware (was Red Ryder)
Message-ID: <1362@pompeii.swatsun.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 1-Nov-87 15:23:24 EST
Article-I.D.: pompeii.1362
Posted: Sun Nov  1 15:23:24 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 5-Nov-87 21:42:35 EST
References: <377UD069225@NDSUVM1> <172@ut-emx.UUCP>
Reply-To: garth@swatsun.UUCP (Garth Snyder)
Organization: Swarthmore College, Swarthmore PA
Lines: 45
Keywords: shareware
Summary: Shareware is often overpriced

In article <4909@oberon> kurtzman@pollux.usc.edu (Stephen Kurtzman) writes:

    Let's face it. A lot of shareware is garbage. Red Ryder may be an
    exception, but I doubt it. I have seen many postings on the net and
    BBS's that enumerate the bugs to be found.

In article <7082@prls.UUCP> gardner@prls.UUCP (Robert Gardner) writes:

    On a somewhat related note, I think the amount of money asked can be
    important, but perhaps differently than people might think. I get
    annoyed at shareware that asks me to send "what I think it's worth"
    or similar and I also don't like ones that ask for $5 or less! (Maybe
    even $10 or less.) Why? Because it hardly seems to be worth it to go
    to the effort of making out a check, sending it in the mail, etc.
    just to give someone enough money to go to a movie. It also makes you
    wonder what kind of an opinion the author has of their software and
    what the chances are that they'll really do anything else with it. Is
    this a strange attitude?
    
I could not disagree with you more.  The average price of a shareware
program seems to be around $15, yet most shareware seems to be of the
quick-and-dirty might-be-useful-once-in-a-while variety.  How can this
compare with a "real product" like Dark Castle which you can buy for less
than $30?

I am a college student and don't have a lot of money to spend on
software.  Since I get so much more bang per buck out of commercial
products, I tend not to use or buy shareware.  There are some very good
shareware programs out there, but generally speaking these are few and
far between.

Consider what $15 means to someone like me.  It can mean three movies,
two records or a compact disk, ten hamburgers, twelve milkshakes, half of
Beyond Dark Castle (I'm saving up!), etc.  Placed against this
competition, a program to strip linefeeds out of text files doesn't fare
too well.

--------------------
Garth Snyder            UUCP: {seismo!bpa,rutgers!liberty}!swatsun!garth
Swarthmore College      ARPA: garth@boulder.colorado.edu
Swarthmore, PA 19081    ALSO: {hao,nbires}!boulder!garth
--------------------