Comment by zamadatix

7 years ago

It being "unfair" seems to hinge on the assumption piracy = lost sale. Unless your friend simply laments people learn when they otherwise wouldn't have paid anyways in which case I'm not particularly sympathetic but at least understand the reasoning.

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zamadatix

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la_barba  7 years ago

As an hypothetical.. If it were impossible to pirate Windows, would all of those users switch to BSD or some other free OSs? If even a single person goes out and buys Windows, then there is a definite argument that piracy resulted in the loss of at-least one sale.

  • zamadatix  7 years ago

    As another hypothetical... if it were impossible to pirate Windows, would it be nearly as popular around the world? If even one person/business would have used something else that was free as a result of having never used Windows before then there is a definite argument piracy drives sales.

    Of course the world is more complicated than ideological arguments about individual sales. https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2017/09/21/europ...

    I'd argue it's exceptionally rare that a digital good be so unique as to be a "buy legitimately or have nothing" item and any DRM designed to treat software like that does more harm to sales through difficulty to purchase or use than it saves.

    • la_barba  7 years ago

      >As another hypothetical... if it were impossible to pirate Windows, would it be nearly as popular around the world?

      Why Windows became popular will never have a single unarguable objective answer. It was probably a combination of factors, like anything else. The only fact we know is that Microsoft became one the most successful and richest companies, and it was because hundreds of millions of people paid Microsoft for their software, when credible alternatives existed and continue to exist.

      >If even one person/business would have used something else that was free as a result of having never used Windows before then there is a definite argument piracy drives sales.

      I'm not sure I follow your line of thought here. Piracy made windows popular, and so people bought Windows because... they didn't want to pirate it? That is a pretty convoluted argument.. ! :)

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