That depends upon both your product and target demographic. More on that in a moment, but here are a few examples where people earned money by using non-traditional business strategies:

• Open source software vendors treat software as a service. Since they cannot control how the software is distributed, they sell support (e.g. RedHat), advertising (e.g. Google), network storage (e.g. Ubuntu), or solicit donations (e.g. many individuals).
• Two-tiered schemes, where certain people pay and certain people get the product gratis. You frequently see this in dual licensing schemes (e.g. Qt is open source for open source developers, and paid for closed source vendors). Sometimes vendors make separate but similar products to reflect the needs and price sensitivity of different demographics (e.g. Photoshop vs. Photoshop Elements, Office Standard vs. Office Home, or BBEdit vs. BBEdit Lite).
• Many commercial software developers get away with giving away their platform, and charging other developers for the development tools (e.g. Adobe Acrobat vs. Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash vs. Adobe Flash Player).
• Other times we have the opposite situation, where the development tools are free but it adds value to a vendor's other products (e.g. Visual Studio Express as a learning tool for new Windows developers).
• Some game developers give away the game and even some of the online gaming experience, but expect payment for the full online gaming experience.

Hum, notice how most of those examples come from the software industry. Perhaps it is because they are a new industry that is willing to adapt to emerging market conditions, while the established players aren't. But let's try some of the more traditional media.

• Television service can be obtained for free (or a nominal fee), but is advertising supported. Ditto for newspapers and some magazines.
• Some publishers use free content to attract buyers of more expensive physical content (e.g. O'Reilly Make/Craft magazines or a short novel to sell later novels in a series).
• A few authors give away their content in digital form, relying upon people who are willing to pay a nearly identical physical version of it or to make donations (e.g. Doctorow).

And I'm confident that there are many other examples.


Of course, you have to understand your product and your target demographic. You are going to have much more success selling a $15 book, $20 movie, or $40 game to someone in their 40's than someone in their late teens or early 20's. So you have to be more sensitive about pricing products targeted at a more youthful audience. The same goes for products developed for technical vs. non-technical users. A non-technical user is more inclined to pay for something that just works, so you can get away with charging more. On the other hand, a technical user will be less willing to put up with nonsense. So don't expect them to pay for a crippled product.


There's an old cliché: 'the customer is always right.' Clearly it isn't always true because there have always been 'customers' who are willing to steal. But I do believe that there is some truth to that old saying since there is something wrong if too many people would pirate rather than pay. So if piracy is a problem, maybe a carrot and a stick approach should be used: yes, enforce copyright law. Yet also try to find out why people aren't paying then find ways to entice them to pay.