scuse me, but dont put words in my mouth. i mentioned A product,
photoshop, for which there is no comparable competitor, becuase of the
monopolistic way they control the industry. i have not said that
software should be free, i have not said that people should pirate
everything. i did not say any of the things you so delight in saying
i said keith. do the actions of the big houses have anything to do
with anything other than making maximum profit? the vast majority of
piracy of software is of titles NO LONGER OFFERED FOR SALE FROM THE
ORIGINAL COMPANY. please do not subscribe to me a policy i do not
bear. i did not make the suggestions you stated i did john. im
stating reasons WHY some pirate, not trying to get others to do. if
piracy actually became prevelant to the point where it hurt the
industry, id be working against it. but thats not going to happen. i
did not say they have no overhead, so its okay to rip them off, i
stated that my "discounted" purchase of photoshop contained no
overhead for the company as they had no printing costs, which, btw,
for photoshop (quoting an article for memory, please give a margine of
error of +- 5 %) the printing and packaging costs are about 6 bucks a
copy, and the coding and creating about 3 bucks a copy. distribution
of about 10. thats right, 19 bucks to make, and a price tag of 599 a
copy (less 200 if you are a student and send in teh rebate form,
rebates already being discussed previously)
how about facing the fact that the actions of the big houses are what
are driving piracy in the market today, and not vice versa. how about
looking at the fact that software and music that IS pirated at higher
rates also sells at higher rates, and that drops in price have shown a
cooresponding drop in illegal copying. how about recognizing that the
average american cannot afford the confiscatory rates being charged by
many companies, and that trying to create a competing product is
worthless due to market pressures and inabilty to gain funding. im
curious keith, what type of software? whats competition like? whats
your per unit costs and prices? and if you have found pirated
versions of your software, how much of an impact has it actually had
on your bottome line?
and again, lastly, john, i dont want to not pay a fair value. i am
more than willing to pay fair value. i refuse to pay an arbitrarily
inflated price that has been put beyond the reach of the average user
in order to make per unit sales look better in order to keep stock
prices up. and then companies turn around and lay off their staff in
large numbers to get stock risers and make a bunch of money on
options.
photoshop is a great way of looking at it, a perfect example.
according to a report by ADOBE last year, there are almost 4 times as
many pirated copies of photoshop as legal copies. and adobe doesnt
care, because they are still making as much money as if they lowered
prices to be able to sell that much, becuase even though theyd make
more profit that way, it doesnt look as good on certain ratios used
for reporting. its rediculous.
and dont get me started on walmart. if sam knew what was being done
in his name, we could wrap his ass in copper wire, stick him in a
giant donut magnet, and solve the worlds energy problems off the
generated power.
On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 13:36:26 -0600, Johnson, Steven
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> From: John Fields [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 12:05 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> ...
>
> > Interestingly, your proselytizing for the purpose of trying to
> > recruit converts to your world ("If enough people do it it'll
> > be OK") of piracy hardly smacks of anything but dumb greed on
> > _your_ part, in that you don't want to pay for the value of
> > what you want, you want to pay what _you_ want to pay and you
> > want to be the arbiter of what a fair price is.
>
> This line of reasoning reminds me of a fascinating public television
> installment recently aired on FRONTLINE. I believe it was titled "Is WALL
> MART GOOD FOR AMERICA?" This is pretty close to the line of reasoning WALL
> MART's executives decided to pursue when they recently negotiated with their
> major suppliers. The result has been that they occasionally have some of the
> cheapest consumer products available, a point they make sure to advertise -
> just enough target products to entice customers into the door. Then, they
> use the bait and switch tactic to get you to purchase higher end products
> that translate into higher profit margins for WALL MART. Meanwhile, several
> highly respected American companies, like Rubbermaid which used to be a
> major supplier to WALL MART (A company that was written up as one of the
> most successful companies in the United States) was forced out of business
> because WALL MART essentially _TOLD_ them what they would buy their products
> for and not a penny more. Rubbermaid couldn't comply. They were forced out
> of business as China became one of WALL MART's major suppliers of consumer
> products. Meanwhile, Americans and American companies have been forced out
> of business.
>
> I suspect many may disagree in varying degrees with Leaking Pen's purchasing
> philosophy. Never the less, I find myself strangely sympathetic to parts of
> it.
>
>
>
> > You make up excuses like, "They don't have any overhead so it's
> > OK for me to rip them off" which seem appealing but are
> > nonsensical in that it doesn't matter _what_ their overhead
> > structure looks like, it's none of your business and neither
> > are any of their other business practices. Bottom line is, the
> > price of the software is the price of the software and if you
> > don't like it, don't buy it.
> >
> >--
> >John Fields
>
> After watching the FRONTLINE show, my desire to "buy" anything at WALL MART
> is practically nil.
>
> Obviously, being able to sell products at cheaper prices than what is being
> sold by all the competitors should eventually translate into higher
> standards of living for all the consumers who purchased the items at the
> cheaper price. The problem is, at what price and who ends up paying for it.
>
> Should we be afraid of WALL MART and what it's doing to America? Not an easy
> answer.
>
> Regards,
>
> Steven Vincent Johnson
> www.OrionWorks.com
>
>
--
Fairy tales are more than true: not because
they tell us that dragons exist, but because
they tell us that dragons can be beaten.
-G.K. Chesterton
