Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan
This assumes there are only 2 kinds of buyers in this situation:
- Those who will obtain and use free software;
- Those who will not use software if it costs anything
When in fact, there are 3 kinds of buyers:
- Those who will obtain and use free software;
- Those who will not buy or use software if it costs anything
- Those who will buy software if they can't find it for free
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If we include music, there a 4 kinds. Those mentioned and those who download music to check if it is something they want to buy.
Personally I download absolute sh*itloads of music, simply because it is by far the most convenient way for me to check out potential new purchases. The few music stores which exist around where I live are utter crap, carrying almost exclusively whatever garbage that's likely to sell right now. Hence my only options are generally to buy things blind or download them first, which is an easy choice to make. Because I have the option to easily sample pirated music first, I would estimate that I buy
at least 40-50% more music than I otherwise would have done.
Admittedly I'm likely not the usual kind of pirate, in that I'm old enough to want to own my music on physical CDs and LPs, which means I basically buy everything I like sufficiently. The remainder I delete, since don't like it enough to listen to it anyway. I don't own an MP3 player anyway (ok, my PRS-950 can play music, but it never will), so the files would just add to the clutter on my hard drive.
I'm sure the music business would like to see me in jail for this heinous crime, but quite frankly I have a hard time feeling bad about it.