Keyclone - $10 or $20?

[Fallenfaith]

Charging for a per machine licence is not unreasonable, most if not all software companies do it.

[Zub]

I think it all comes down to one thing. If you *want* keyclone, you pay the price. if not, you can always try one of the other tools.

<3 keyclones. the tool has great feature, and the guy is very helpful.

[skarlot]

if there were bullshit awards going out, posts like this might win.

Care to elaborate?

not really, it's plain to see.

[Vyndree]

if there were bullshit awards going out, posts like this might win.

Care to elaborate?

not really, it's plain to see.

If you want to have an intelligent conversation, it's usually best not to come out with guns blazing.

That being said, I'm game to start.

I see one side of the coin -- in essence, "Why is someone allowed to charge me extra just because I might make more money?". Well, absolutely. It's a form of discrimination based on perceived income. But let's look a little deeper than that.

This is a personal standpoint -- you're really not losing any functionality from a technical perspective -- you can run multiple WoW windows on the same machine, or you can buy multiple windows to get a SIMILAR functionality cross-computer. But as a human, it makes sense to us from the perspective of the consumer that these two things are the same -- cross-machine and cross-window.

Software licenses are often done per-machine. Why is that? I'm going to assume it's because there really is no way to track "ownership" outside of the actual physical machine, which includes things like IP addresses, MAC addresses, OS keys, hardware configs, and the like. Your hardware is essentially your "identity".

Furthermore, the programming logic required to send keypresses to multiple WINDOWS is totally different than sending it to multiple MACHINES. From a programmer standpoint, that's 2x the work for what the consumer sees as the "same functionality". So in fact, while the CONSUMER sees no "additional value" in purchasing the "same functionality" twice -- it can indeed be thought of as two seperate programs (one codepath: send keypresses to multiple windows on the same OS; one codepath: sending keypresses over a network connection to other computers, who must receive, process, and respond to those communications)

So since it "costs more" from a technical development standpoint, let's look at things from a business standpoint.

If a consumer's computer breaks, how much does it cost, in time, to support the consumer and update to a new computer? What about those of us who regularly reformat our computers? So... if a consumer has more than one computer that's more man-hours required to support them. If you didn't charge per computer, the user with the most computers will be the most "expensive" -- with a likely average of more support-hours required for the same dollar price.


So while we may not like it personally, I can see the reasoning -- both technical and business -- for charging per-computer. Multiple-computer support is more expensive. Initial cost of development for two-codepaths that do "the same thing" is also more expensive. Granted, some consumers won't like the business model or won't want to pay for "the same functionality", but it certainly isn't discriminatory on purpose. It has logical reasoning to support the one-license-per-computer cost.



So I guess I understand Skarlot's perspective -- but you're also thinking in the mode of the free open-source developer mentality thanks to Octopus. You can ignore the business standpoint side of things, because as a free software nobody can DEMAND your time for support (granted, I know it gets annoying -- I get PMs daily for AHK/Octopus/Keyclone support even though I don't use ANY of them!). But it's POSSIBLE as a free-developer that you can ignore the fact that nobody is paying you for your time, therefore you "owe" nobody your time. So taking that long-term-support of the argument out, you just have consumer happiness and perception versus initial coding time. So your decision is weighted to neither side, while keyclone -- as a business who is selling his support time as well as the initial cost of the product -- has to balance 3 things weighing more towards the license-per-computer argument.

[skarlot]

Thing is I'm not anti-keyclone - if he dissapeared .. I might end up with more users than I really wanted. There's definitely justification for paying more for multiple machines. I personally dislike the licensing with keyclone and wouldn't even bother renewing my license, I would just make my own keyclone at this point. However, the summing of numbers as he does with hardware, and comparing against software (hardware != software, software is freely duplicated), is just invalid. It's crafy, and then saying "oh but look it's a good deal", well who's it a good deal for? Him, you better believe it, because if he's prepared to sell 2 for 40, then 5 for 100 is a damn good deal for him! It's nothing to do with the price of the computer hardware. It's pure trickery.

[Vyndree]

It's nothing to do with the price of the computer hardware.

I didn't say it had anything to do with the price of the actual hardware. (And I'm in no way calling you a hater, I just like controversial conversations. They're quite engaging )

I hypothesized that supporting multiple licenses on multiple computers, where users can freely change the system ID at a mere hardware upgrade or OS install means that he has to spend more man-hours supporting the product. Therefore, if that is the case, then it's justifiable to charge more for something that will cost more time to support.

If that's not the case then my hypothesis goes out the window, but I know that supporting a product takes vastly more time than the initial time to program it. I'm working in Visual studio right now and we are currently supporting our products for )I believe) 10-11 YEARS. Which means testing our products against old releases, operating systems, hardware, and combinations is ALOT of time. A looooooot of time. When you buy software you're not just buying the collection of 1's and 0's. You're paying for the developer's time -- in the past (to develop the initial product) and in the future (to issue bug fixes, patches, and ongoing support)

[keyclone]

the subject alone is amazing. please show me another industry where you would expect.. nay, demand... a product from an expert for no cost what so ever. seriously. think of one.

food production?
medicine?
cosmetics?
automotive?
computer hardware?

ok.. they may be physical real world products. let's try intellectual based products:
--
music?
art?
marketing?
graphic design?
movies?
tv shows?


service based products?
--
legal advice?
tax preparation?
medical?
car repair?
landscaping??

you can't even get your yard mowed or car washed without paying someone at LEAST $20. so why is it that people actually think they can argue about software production and expect to get it for free?

answer? the open source community... which is big business's answer to the garage programmer... the little guy we all heard about in the late 80s/early 90s that could topple some large corporation from his garage (if you don't know what i'm talking about, go watch 'the pirates of silicon valley' for a refresher). by supporting open source, big business insures the little guy cannot earn enough money to work solely on his 'garage project'... thereby hampering development and insuring a dominate role for the large corporation.

add 15-20 years to that movement and you come to today... where people expect all software for no money out of their pocket. what most people don't realize is that those 'open source' companies have staff that require salaries. how do you think those salaries get paid? with what income? answer... by selling any data they can collect on their users to marketing companies, which in turn will push directed ad campaigns to the end user.

when you start to understand that.. you'll think twice about using 'free' software from unknown/anonymous sources.. especially anti-virus software (free AND closed source?? LOL)

as for the price of the equipment, i believe skarlot was going to nitpick over the cost of a computer. i believe you can get refurbished computers for $500... plus tax. mid line machines are $750-1000. top end is still $1500-2500. and don't forget you need a monitor... which you could dumpster dive for, or spend the $200.

[Arryth]

Yikes, sorry to get everyone all worked up. I'm sure the program is worth the $20. I just had intentions of 2boxing mybrothers account while he waits for wotlk. I thought it would be something neat~ So i was gonna be cheap about it...

Take it from some one who has used it for over a year, Keycone is worth every penny, if you want to operate on one single machine. It also works nicely from multiple computers. I have had a few problems, but those were do to my own ignorance, rather then any thing wrong with Keyclone.

Buy it, Install it, ???? , profit.

[Moorea]

I think having some sort of discount past the first license would make sense (ie $10 2nd license, ...)

[Zub]

My company actually sells its software licenses per cpu.