Didn't you know capitalism was bad?

Trolls on a mission..

Published on February 11, 2005 By Draginol In Personal Computing

..I'm in a ranting mood...stand back!

Over the years I've noticed a pretty consistent thing - there are people who really really have a problem with the concept of people making a living selling software.

As a result, some of these people make it their mission to go out and harass people (like me) who make a living selling software.

One example came up today. I am a news moderator on the popular tech news site Neowin.net. I think it's a fantastic site with an incredible staff of volunteers. But it has a sizeable user population of "l33t" users who a) Think they know everything on tech because, well they're 19 years old and they know everything doncha know? and Non-free software is the devil and any level of nastiness is justified to thwart the purveyers of evil.

One guy today went so far to create an account called "ToadLad" (my account name there is "Frogboy"). Get it? Toad = Frog. Lad = Boy. Very clever...

Since I post software news on Neowin I also post Stardock's press releases too. On other sites, our media relations goddess does this. But since I'm a news moderator on Neowin, it makes sense for me to go ahead and do this since, essentially I would be the one who would end up approving the final news item.

But this guy went onto a rant that essentially went like this "You just love to spam the world with your crap? You've already got Stardock.com and WinCustomize.com? Why do you have to spam your stuff here?" Here being a Technology NEWS site. And spam being news for software that is (god forbid) not free.

For those not ambitious enough to create fake users to troll the comments, you also have the people who insist on trying to rationalize that any good commercial product has a freeware equivalent. Photoshop? Oh, the Gimp is much better. Terminal Server? Loser, VNC. WindowBlinds? No, just hack your uxtheme.dll. And now with our upcoming Multiplicity program we've got the same crowd chimes in with "Oh, you can do the same thing with Synergy!"

In most of these cases (almost all these cases) these "l33t" users have never actually used the commercial product (see "evil" above). But they just know because they know everything. Who cares if the "Free" program has a lot fewer features or is flakey or requires hours of setup time to work? When you're 19, time is all that matters and $20 or whatever is big money to someone who's source of income is their mom.

I have nothing against free software. I use a lot of free software. In fact, I use free software whenever I can. I'll take free over commercial any day if it does what I need it to do. But there is nothing inherently magical about free software. And the downside is that most free software I run into (not all of course, there are very well known examples) have the 80% problem. They work -- almost. They tend to often be more proof of concept.

"Sure the screen flickers when you switch desktops and you can't play a full screen game while using it and you have to configure the machines using a text file with arcane configuration fields and it sometimes disconnects for no reason requiring you to reboot...but...it's free!"

I don't think I have a problem so much with the people who try to promote a freeware program. Hey, more power to them. I take the view that people who might potentially buy our product will try out the free alternative, try ours and make their own conclusion.

What I do have a problem with are the people who intentionally go out of their way to try to stifle my right to promote our software. The double-standards really irritates me. As if free software somehow deserves special treatment because it's "free". I don't think users should make such distinctions in terms of what gets reported, only in terms of when someone makes a decision on what to actually use.

Comments (Page 7)

zoogies ln e

on Feb 13, 2005

Wow, that really sucks. However, I really don't see how this relates to capitalism?

John Galt

on Feb 14, 2005

" Communism And Free Shouldn’t Be Used In The Same Sentence."

why not?

Communisim is taking from the wealthy to give to those that are not. Those that are not wealthy didn't do anything to earn that money other than be pathetic. Thus the poor get something for nothing. Last time I checked the definition of Free = Getting something for nothing.

"Again, Linking Communism With Theft. Erm OK. Plus Calling It Socialist Crap Is No Better Than a person That Says They Hate Racists Then Turns Around And Calls a Police Officer a Pig'.

Um, how do you equate this? The poor which outnumber the rich either by force of arms (Russia) or by force of votes (US) impose the military or police to take from the rich and give to the poor. The rich didn't give them permission to take it. The poor didn't enter into a business agreement, there was no trade, it was not volentary in any way shape or form. Simply because the government is the one stealing doesn't make it any less stealing. If you believe that if a vote is taken and the majority decide to kill someone that it's alright for the government to do so, then you belong in Nazi Germany with the Jewish death camps, because that's exactly what Hitler did (Nazi = National SOCIALIST PARTY) during WWII (don't forget he was popularly elected on the patform that Jews were evil and should be killed). A gang is still a gang, even if they're elected with a mantate to steal. Democracy does not give the government the right to break it's own laws. (deductive billing anyone?)

The universe doesn't do something for nothing.

That In Itself Is a Really Poor Outlook On Life.

Reality is a very port outlook on life? (Outlook (with a capital O) is software which I avoid using because it's a really bad PIM) Nothing in the universe happens spontaniously without there being a catalyst. Hence Newton's law that I quoted before. Alturism in any form is a construct of man. And even in man, it still most be paid for. In the case of democractic government it's paid for off of the backs of those that work hard and succeed. In the case of warlords, well it doesn't really matter who they take it from. The point is still the same. There is no such thing as something for nothing. Someone always pays for it. That is the nature of the universe. If you want to believe something else, well then to quote a very excellent author "You may ignore reality, but you may not ignore the consequences of it. It will stil hapen no matter how much you wish that it doesn't, it will still affect you no matter how much you try to pretend that it doesn't. You will still be dead if you step off a 20 story building, because gravity is still gravity and you will fall no matter how much wishing you do" (unless you put effort in and bring a parachute and then the parachute combined with wind resistance will do the work and save you.)

This Particular Paragraph Is Disturbing. Let Me Assure You, People Who Work Their Asses Off To Put Themselves Through Some Form Of Higher Education Are Not "A Vast Minority" That Statistic Was Pulled Straight Out Of a Hat. And People Who Have Or Still Are a Part Of Some Academic Lifestyle Are in Touch With Reality. They Go On To Be Doctors, Surgeons, Architects .. etc

Really? Straight out of a hat? Hrm, I guess the University of Toronto just makes it up eh? Students that either get their money ffor school from their parents or get it care of the government OSAP low interest loans care of the backs of others make up > 90% of their student population. (This was presented to the Tory government in 2001.)

Example : Mormegil Is A Very Respected Artist Here On Wincustomize. He Also Has a Series Of Articles In Which He "Teaches" Others A Little Something In The Art Of Making Icons. He Teaches, He Also Applies What He Teaches. If The World Followed Your Little Saying, There Would Be No One Around To Teach Anybody Anything. They Would All Be Busy With The "Can - Do" Part Of Your Theory.

Logical falacy in your position: Your asserting something that is not addressed by my statement and claiming that it disproves my statement. I give an either or. I never once gave the case of someone that does AND teaches. But then those people that learn from him are lucky. They're getting something for nothing. Someone else is footing their bill. Either Mornegil is paying for it with his own time and effort to do so, or someone is paying him to do the teaching. Either way, you're getting something for nothing, but make no mistake, the bill is still being paid, just not by you. (hence the Oprah car syndrome I mention)

The Last Paragraph Is Just a Windows Vs Linux Battle. Nothing New There. It Does Shed Light on Your Narrow Perspective On Things. Just Because You Don’t Like Linux Or Reading Manuals - Doesn’t Mean Its Crap. Millions Of Users With Win/Linux Dual Boot Systems Seem To Think Its OK.

Brad does an excellent job of explaining why those people love linux in his post.... I need not say anything more because you're proving my point. If you don't value your time, then great, waste it on memorizing archane commands. If you realize that a computer is a tool, not a purpose in and of itself, then you have better things to do than recompile your kernel.

You Come Off Sounding Like Disgruntled Software Developer. Disgruntled Because Some Crack Group Developed a Crack For Your Respective Software. A Group Compromised Mainly Of Teenagers Who You Assume Live Off Of The Wealth Of Their Parents. The Whole Article Was Distasteful And Poorly Researched In My Opinion.
Were is your proof that I was wrong? This is so typical in these forums. Say I'm wrong and then don't give any proof. It would be interesting one day to actually have someone prove me wrong instead of just saying I'm wrong and thinking that that is enough. Lots of people said Ayn Rand was wrong. They're still saying it. Ironically most of them never read Rand's works in the first place, and no one has ever presented any evidence that she is incorrect in any way. (well I did about homsexuality in my blog, but I seem to be the only one left that actually debates instead of just bickers....) Socialists are the children of subjectivism. Subjectivism's fundamental belief is that there is no truth and that reality is unknowable. As a result, people think that they can ignore reality and worse think that they can just say someone is wrong, and it will be so because they are more popular than someone else or they wish it were that way.

*sigh*

John Galt

on Feb 14, 2005

I'll post my earth shattering response tommorow - In the meantime I stick ny a comment I made a long time ago:

WC and JU should NOT be linked.

---

Again, wanting something for nothing. WC and JU are linked because this is as much an advertising site for StarDock as it is a service to you. Brad provides a service to you and in exchange drives traffic to SD and WC. In this way he makes money, and thus pays for the thing that you get for free.

You're wanting something for nothing, and worse, want the person giving it to you, to not get anything out of providing you that service. If you want to make sure that services like this go away, then keep up that belief, because that is the only enevitable result of your position.

Same goes for Neowin. It exists because people make money from it or at least break even. If they did not, then Neowin would not exist (just count the number of tech sites that have gone belly up just for this reason). If you take away the ability of people that "donate" their time to make money as a result, then they have no reason to contribute, and thus you lose their services.

Altruism is all well and good (well it's not but hey for sake of argument...) but if you can't eat, and can't pay the internet bill, you're not going to be writting articles on Neowin, or moderating the forums or whatever else that it is that you're giving to others for free.

Jafo

on Feb 14, 2005

JU / WC integration is here to stay .... the only changes likely are with the 'details'....

wombatDK

on Feb 14, 2005

There's boneheads in each faction: Commercial boneheads and free software boneheads. It's the same thing all over and over... Linux vs. MS (why do they always pick THESE two??), open source vs. closed source... commercial vs. free...

I'm rather sick of it. Brad, you basically descended into the same rhetorical junk that your opponents use. FUD is what some people call it I believe.

As I've said so often before: There's a place for each and every thing. There's a place for commercial software, and there's a place for free software. And please, keep the capitalism vs. communism debate out of it - there is no connection between these terms and commercial or free software.

Oh I forgot: I do occasionally write software. Both for money (whenever I need cash), and sometimes for free (whenever I think have enough cash). As far as I know, Stardock does too. Logonstudio and Bootskin come to mind. Throw that to the boneheads of the "it all oughta be free" faction

Persephone3

on Feb 14, 2005

Thank you, John Galt. You said everything I was thinking. Communism IS theft.

WOWfactor.555.

on Feb 14, 2005

Well It's Not Going To Change, So I Guess Certain People Won't Be Reading My Posts - Ah Well. Funny How No One Commented On CANTHUS's Style Of Typing. Doesnt Nettiquette Frown On Capping As Shouting?
As For Scribe Essencay Wondering About Keywords - Umm, Sorry Cant Help You. Just Because You Find It Annoying, Doesnt Mean It's Deliberate. But Then Again, I Guess Neither Yourself Nor a Few Others Will Be Reading This Post - So It Doesnt Matter.

WOWfactor.555.

on Feb 14, 2005

Yes Yes .. Evil Communism Is Theft. Bloody Russians.
Students Are Just Social Leeches (Atleast At The University Of Toronto) And Giving a Real Example Of Someone Who Both Teaches And Applies Him/Herself Is Just a Logical Fallacy On My Part. Even Though It Does Refute The Statement In Question. Sometimes All You Need Is One Good Example To Disprove.

CANTHUS

on Feb 14, 2005

I DON'T MEAN TO SHOUT LOST MY GLASSES NEED CAPS TO READ MY OWN RHETORIC.

100

Essencay

on Feb 14, 2005

CANTHUS.....no offense, but try changing the screen resolution instead

101

WOWfactor.555.

on Feb 14, 2005

No Skin Off My Nose Canthus.

It Seems They Read My Posts After All.

102

kona0197

on Feb 14, 2005

Again, wanting something for nothing. WC and JU are linked because this is as much an advertising site for StarDock as it is a service to you. Brad provides a service to you and in exchange drives traffic to SD and WC. In this way he makes money, and thus pays for the thing that you get for free.

You're wanting something for nothing, and worse, want the person giving it to you, to not get anything out of providing you that service. If you want to make sure that services like this go away, then keep up that belief, because that is the only enevitable result of your position.

Same goes for Neowin. It exists because people make money from it or at least break even. If they did not, then Neowin would not exist (just count the number of tech sites that have gone belly up just for this reason). If you take away the ability of people that "donate" their time to make money as a result, then they have no reason to contribute, and thus you lose their services.

Altruism is all well and good (well it's not but hey for sake of argument...) but if you can't eat, and can't pay the internet bill, you're not going to be writting articles on Neowin, or moderating the forums or whatever else that it is that you're giving to others for free.

I never implied I wanted something for nothing because I really don't. Don't think you know what I mean by what I type.

103

kona0197

on Feb 14, 2005

By the way WOWfactor.555. -

Learn to type!! That is so annoying!!

104

WOWfactor.555.

on Feb 14, 2005

Then Don't Read My Posts.
Although You Do Seem To Do a Good Job Of Reading Them.
It's Old, Stop Being Annoying

105

Jafo

on Feb 14, 2005

Citizen WOWfactor.555. ...some people are required to read your posts to vet their content. Your indifference to their concern/request is either inconsiderate, insulting, or both.

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