Quote:
Originally Posted by Giggleton
. . . it might be argued that they make less under copyright, but you can of course argue anything you want.
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I agree with that last.
For example, you can argue that if pizza was given away, pizza chefs would make at least the same amount of money, because of all the people who would donate cash, and the possibility the government would step in and compensate pizza creators. I don't believe it. Do you?
Now, actually, there are a few chefs who live on donations, such as in connection with churches. And, getting closer to books, maybe calibre creator Kovid Goyal is doing OK, although I wouldn't count on it. But being able to live on donations is unusual, because the supply of generous people is limited. If the generality of chefs give away their services, the generality of chefs will, in the US, live on food stamps, and, in many other countries, starve.
P.S. Re Mr. Goyal, he also has a special situation because cost of living in his country (India) is much lower than in the countries where his software is mostly used (US, Britain, Canada, Australia). But most authors primarily write for people in their own country.