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Between free online services (Google, Facebook), extensive piracy (bitorrent), and the proliferation of free open source software, internet users have had it drilled into their heads to not pay for anything, ever. I'm in the 37 Signals camp - I think the creators of software and services need to charge for it, and users need to start paying for software they like.

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Agree totally, also I generally hate the ad supported model for software (there are a few exceptions like stack overflow).

I have downloaded android apps where the only option is a "free" version supported by ads, this makes the UI messy and means that I click ads accidentally when using the software. Often the software itself is actually useful and I wish they would just give me the option of paying them $x for a copy without the ads.

Considering porn was a $13 billion industry last year, I think people dramatically overestimate the cost of piracy.

That number's from Wikipedia, in case you're wondering.

Certainly we sell downloadable digital goods, easy to pirate, and have seen no appreciable falloff in our income over 3 years.

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