Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mit-eddie!ll-xn!oberon!pollux.usc.edu!kurtzman From: kurtzman@pollux.usc.edu (Stephen Kurtzman) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: CrippleWare Message-ID: <6878@oberon.USC.EDU> Date: 10 Feb 88 21:49:39 GMT References: Sender: nobody@oberon.USC.EDU Reply-To: kurtzman@pollux.usc.edu (Stephen Kurtzman) Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA Lines: 19 In article rs4u+@andrew.cmu.edu (Richard Siegel) writes: > >Personally, I think that "CrippleWare", that is, software that intentionally >has features disabled or rude messages that repeatedly are displayed, with >instructions to send money in order to get the features working/remove >the message, is the lowest form of nastiness. > CrippleWare is a good idea. That is, software that is "semi-functional". A good example of this is the QuicKeys demo. It is powerful enough to demonstrate the advantages of QuicKeys (it is even useful in its own right), but not enough to compete with the product. It also has the advantage of letting the potential customer mull over the idea of the product for some time before making the decision to buy. I don't consider rude messages as part of the CrippleWare idea. Rude messages are annoying. There have been a couple of rude messages that have made me think twice about buying a shareware product. In the cases where I am lukewarm but leaning towards purchase, a rude message tips the scale and I don't buy.