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Piracy is cheaper than marketing.

A smart player will consider the volume under the sales curve, setting a price point that will lead to the greatest revenue at the least cost, instead of focusing on maximizing each sale.

I made good money publishing shareware. Maybe 1% of my users registered their copies. Mostly government contractors, who were required to. And free tech supp led to conversions about 1/2 the time.

At my scale, there's no way I could have profitably bought ads, maintained a copy protection scheme, etc. (Having since done it both ways, I know.)

Many, many artists identify exposure as the major hurdle to financial success. The same applies for indie games, phone apps, authors, etc.




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