this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
788 points (96.9% liked)
Technology
59197 readers
3083 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Putting aside the argument that privacy is NOT theft. The argument that piracy hurts creators has been shown to be largely false.
Most of the time the people who pirate software or media wouldn't convert to real sales if the piracy option wasn't there. Those people simply wouldn't buy the product. And even if some of those did convert to real sales, it wouldn't be enough to make or break profits.
Secondly, there's a knock-on benefit to having more people use the product regardless of legitimacy, as it increases word of mouth sales. The more people that talk positively about a product, the more people hear about it, and consequently the more sales you'll make.
Microsoft learned that lesson with Windows licenses. They really don't care if someone has a legitimate license or not. The more people they keep on their platform the more it translates to sales in other ways. I still meet people that have never heard of Linux, because there's a network effect of "everyone uses Windows", despite Linux accounting for around 5% of global desktop marketshare.
Quick edit: this isn't an argument to say that piracy is fine. The point I'm making is that from a logistics perspective, it can actually increase sales in some instances.