Michael Lew wrote:
For some time I have been toying with the idea that software should
be sold on an income-weighted pricing scheme. If Richard can afford
to pay more for Rev than Andre, it is in large part because he lives
and earns in USA rather than Brazil.
I have a couple of educational titles being sold by my University
that cost the same number of Australian dollars to Harvard as they do
to universities in Africa. It doesn't seem fair. Perhaps software
prices could be adjusted for the average (modal) wage in a country.
It wouldn't harm me for people in low wage countries to pay me almost
nothing instead of absolutely nothing...
I don't currently make money from writing software - I make utilities
for my own use. But if I did sell software I don't think I'd be
interested in getting paid 3rd world wages (no offense intended - just
don't know another way to say it) and paying U.S. rates for my housing,
food etc. If you're rich and don't care, you can give your software
away. I'm sure many of the pros on this list who make money programming,
program because they like doing so. I'm sure the RunRev people love what
they do. But we all have bills to pay too.
When someone sets a price on a piece of software, I get to decide if
that's worth my money. I don't figure it's their job to make sure I can
afford it - they don't owe me a thing (which is the attitude that
socialism breeds IMHO, sorry to digress into politics!). Certainly it's
noble to want to see everyone have access to good software. But having
directed a local soup kitchen for 6 years, I can tell you there are
people in the U.S. who are desperately poor. Who would administrate a
system that would charge based on income? I think I would always be VERY
poor when I went to make my purchases!
Marty Knapp
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