I just have to chime in on this.
Joshua, I think your tone in your posts has been adversarial and rude
from the very start. To accuse Paul of "gouging" people and referring to
"greed" in his pricing of his ATA driver, for example. Or how about
where you talk about how you don't care if he's discouraged or not, and
that how his ego is getting a "quite the boost" from peoples' posts.
My advice: next time you type something, try to think "is this something
I would say to the person if they were right here in front of me"? How
would you like it if somebody popped up and called you greedy and a
price-gouger when you offered to sell people something you'd worked long
and hard on for what you believe is a fair price? Those are fighting
words.
Then you take a shot at the rest of us, saying that it's "been proven
that people will pay anything" because we don't think he's a jerk for
charging 50 euros.
Everybody else seems to support Paul's decision to charge what he feels
is appropriate, whether they intend to buy it or not. You may imagine
yourself to be the lone voice of reason, but I think the folks on this
list are fairly reasonable people.
You could have simply said it wasn't useful enough to you at the price
he's asking and let it go at that, instead of adding all the comments
about greediness, etc., and we could have avoided all this consternation.
-Steve
On Monday, July 29, 2002, at 12:02 AM, newtontalk_at_newtontalk.net wrote:
> From: "Joshua Johnston" <flagg_at_midmaine.com>
> Subject: Re: [NTLK] [ANN] ATA Support 1.0b13
> Date: Sun, 28 Jul 2002 19:55:24 -0400
>
>
> Yes, I did think this through before posting. I see, from what has been
> posted to the list, that very few people are actually purchasing the ATA
> driver because they need it, but solely to pay Paul for his efforts.
> That's fine, really. He deserves to get something for the effort.
>
> I just can't see it as altruistic in the slightest. He knows you'll all
> pay for it whether you need it or not, and he's milking you all for what
> he can get. This is a problem with any fanatic user base. The laws of
> supply/demand/need don't apply. I'm just sorry to see that greed does.
>
> It's a shame, because as I said, it could have become ubiquitous, a true
> testament to community spirit, but now it won't. I honestly don't care
> whether Paul is discouraged or not, though it's quite clear from the
> reaction here that his ego's gotten quite the boost from this. He's
> getting people pledging to send him money. One voice standing out from
> the crowd shouldn't harm any but the most fragile ego.
>
> If you'll all pay him $50-75, good luck to you. Good luck to him, it's
> just sad to see a great program turn into a luxury item. Let's just hope
> that Hiroshi doesn't take the lead and jack up his price for the WLAN
> driver since it'll be proven that people will pay anything.
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