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Comment by richbradshaw | Hacker News Reader

I'm a teacher – around 70% of kids have their iPod's jailbroken purely to use pirated apps. The reason? They don't have a method to pay for apps (so can't even download free apps), and their parents don't trust them to link their cards.

The point being that the sales in these cases aren't lost sales, they could never have been sales.

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That’s, by the way, a lame excuse of the kids. They do have the ability to pay. Gift cards for iTunes are available everywhere and if you have one you do not need a credit card to set up an account. I think even kids will be able to afford a 15€ card once which gives them an account. (I might be wrong about this but I think there are even ways of getting an account without a gift card or credit card. I’m not sure about that, though.)

I’m not a kid but I don’t have or want a credit card and I’m always too lazy to set up the alternate payment method available in Germany so I just use gift cards. (They have the added bonus that various electronic retailers will discount them by ten, twenty or even fifty percent every year or so. I have my Google Alerts set up. I’m consequently not paying as much as I would with a credit card.)

What is frustrating for me now that I have one is that they require a fully set up account in order to download free apps.

You're saying kids have to leave the house, go to the grocery store (good luck if you live in the suburbs), buy a gift card, go home, activate it, and then they can buy their app? Oh, and a bonus! They get to do it all over again next week to buy another few apps!

Homework: Go ask your parents (or grandparents) how they used to get money for the weekend. The answer is that they and 300 of their neighbors stood in line at the bank on Friday to withdraw cash. They'd have to plan the weekend before, grocery shopping, a trip to the movies, ice cream for the kids, gasoline, so they knew how much to withdraw. Ask Grandpa if he prefers that over swiping his debit card at any time of day on any day of the week.

It's not just about the ability to pay but the ability to pay with low friction.

Well, it doesn’t get much more low friction than piracy, especially if you are thirteen-year-old with hardly any money. I was merely pointing out that “my parents won’t let me use their credit card” is a lousy excuse on all levels.

All I’m saying is that it’s ridiculously easy to get iTunes gift cards. (There are at least three stores which sell gift cards within easy biking distance from me, getting to a store which, for example, has a decent selection of music is quite a bit harder. Buying music was quite a bit harder when I was thirteen only ten years ago.) It’s perfectly safe and there is no need for a credit card. The excuses are invalid, the kids pirate apps not because it’s hard for them to buy them, they pirate them because they don’t want to pay anything. (Thirteen-year-olds, myself included, are like that – I can’t really say that I’m surprised.)

You've made an assertion with nothing to back it up. Thirteen year olds pirate because they don't want to pay? Please provide data and evidence to support your case.

You are funny.

I was responding specifically to the assertion that kids can’t legally download anything from the App Store if their parents are not willing to hand over their credit card. That’s patently untrue. It’s easy to get an account, it’s easy to pay.

Now, teenagers might pirate for other reasons than not wanting to pay (I don’t know what those would be), I can only guess. They are not in any way forced to pirate, though.

Presumably you read my first reply, in which case you do know "what those would be". Once again, it's about convenience.

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