Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!obsolete.UUCP!nazgul
From: nazgul@obsolete.UUCP (Kee Hinckley)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: RE: Piracy
Message-ID: <8905190127.AA18493@obsolete.UUCP>
Date: 19 May 89 01:27:13 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 36


         One facet of the piracy issue that I'd like to bring up is the
    question of early version penalties (EVP - a.k.a. upgrade fees).  When a
    software item is upgraded to a newer version the same suggested retail
    price is kept.  People with older versions usually must pay an early version
    penalty in order to trade in their old version for the new one.  These
...

When was the last time you went to a car dealer and complained
because they wouldn't give you this years version of your car for
30% of the price you paid for the old one?

You have two choices with software.  You can do what you do with
your car - sell the old one and buy a new one.  Or you can do something
unique to the software industry, upgrade to the new one for a small
percentage of the full price.  Of course if you do the latter you
relinquish your right to resell the original, but that's because
it's an upgrade, not a new sale.  If you want to sell the old one
you have to buy a new one - just like your car.

Now you're telling me this is unfair?  Frankly I'm amazed by the
concept.  In fact Zip is planning on doing the same with the Zip
Chip, which is even more amazing, given that the media cost is
presumably a bit higher :-).

I can possibly see your reasoning if you think you are paying for
the amount of work that went into a particular product.  However
believe me, the amount of work that goes into an upgraded product
is usually equal to or greater than the amount in the original.
With the original you could do things anyway you wanted, with the
upgrade you have to maintain compatibility (even when you did it
wrong the first time), plus fix all the bugs that were found, but
*without* creating any new ones.  Starting over from scratch would
often be much simpler.
					-kee
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