Hairy One Kenobi wrote:

> "Jim Watt" <jimwatt@aol.no_way> wrote in message
> news:q3u6m11fu38h979efvi13s59vl76aa1ot4@4ax.com...
>> On Sat, 29 Oct 2005 11:27:36 GMT, "Hairy One Kenobi"
>> <abuse@[127.0.0.1]> wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>> >Absolutely. Just be wary of saying that stealing a Ferrari from the
> factory
>> >is fine, because someone /might/ not have bought it
>>
>> Of course the difference is that the Ferrari cost money to make
>> wheras copies of software involve no cost to the manufacturer.
>
> Yes and no to that one: you recoup your development cost from your
> expected sales. Until you make that back, you're down (I'm utterly sure
> that you well understand this, but I'm trying to make it crystal clear to
> everyone..)
>
> In other words, if you invest $1m developing something and expect to sell
> exactly two, a price of less than $500k is going to leave you in trouble.
>
> Expect to sell 100k of 'em, and you can start the bidding at $10 plus your
> profit, cost of capital, etc. If, OTOH, you expect 90% of the 100k users
> to be using pirated copies, you set the price a bar higher, at $100. So
> that the 10% of legitimate users end up footing the entire development
> bill.

Here in the United States the insurance companies used the same claim that
"bad" drivers were jacking up the costs for "good" drivers. The started a
points system and behold, people started getting in less accidents and
making less general driving infractions (speeding, etc). Now, they want to
change the points system to a system based on your credit (even though your
credit has nothing to do with your driving skill). So, what is the point?
The point is that companies will use any excuse they can to justify
increasing their profits (including bold faced lies)

<snip>

Imhotep