buy the software you ****ing thieves

Maybe if it was priced closer to what its worth.

Adobe's CS suites are available at student pricing from Adobe, which are pretty reasonable.

still ridiculous.

http://www.adobe.com/products/creati...ndard.edu.html or http://www.adobe.com/education/produ...?showEduReq=no

$349-$449 for the industry standard suite of very powerful, professional tools? What would be a "reasonable" price for it?

Everyone wants everything but no one wants to pay for it.

I just had a guy argue with me on the phone because he wants me to build him a wheelset - but thinks he shouldn't have to pay labor because he's buying the parts from me and paying for shipping.

That's sexy. Dunno how I feel about lopro geo's though tbh.
Also, Leuky: quoting that thing was a *****. thanks for all that blank space!

I always ask myself that question, and can never seem to answer it.


For some reason I feel differently about tangible products. It's not free for the manufacturer to produce more copies of it, they have to actually produce something.

Once the code is written, companies just pump out copy after copy, that literally cost them nothing, and sell the stuff.
I just wonder how much money actually went into producing the software.

A lot.

http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/enha...48674733-2.gif
http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/enha...8675005-17.gif
http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/enha...48675044-3.gif

Would the owner of a bike shop squawk at the idea of shelling out $300-$500 for tools that were absolutely crucial to getting his work done?

It's the same thing with design software. It's a toolbox, full of important tools.

If you're not a professional(or going to be, or a student), then you probably don't need professional level tools and can just use GIMP for free.

probably.

Maybe the bike shop owner could just go to the Park Tool store and steal what he needs to operate his business effectively.

maybe.

Not an accurate analogy. A better one would be to say that someone else got the tools one way or another and gave them to a third-party who figured out how to quickly make bootleg copies available. And frankly, there's an easy way to solve the problem. Commoditize software and other digital creative works. A publisher shouldn't give a **** about the perceived value of his work when he's bringing in buckets full of cash due to increased sales volume that otherwise would not avail themselves to him.

These aren't "bootleg copies". This is the fully functional, full quality, real working thing, hacked to believe that it was paid for and legitimately activated.

If someone robbed Park Tool of a bunch of their tools, and left them in an unlocked warehouse, and someone told a bunch of bike shop owners/mechanics where they could pick the stolen tools up for free, would it not be a similar situation?

I'm just saying that the ethics of software pirating cannot really be argued. We can admit we shouldn't do it, but we do it regardless. But arguing that a suite of piece of high-end software is priced ridiculously at $349 is just silly.

A better analogy for downloading copyrighted software would be if we had a Star Trek energy-matter replicating machine, and we could download into a datafile to create, say, a Kilo TT (seems to be everyone's favorite bike here). Now you press the button on your machine and pop out copy after copy of Kilo TT's.

The original designer should be compensated to some degree, but at what point does it become fantastical? This is not a black and white issue, but unfortunately a lot of people are uncomfortable with shades of gray.

:lol: I like that analogy.

Got my bike back from the shop. New crankset feels so much stiffer and responsive.

Software piracy is not the same thing as theft. Stolen items leave the original possessor having less of something. That does not happen when software is pirated. Instead, "potential" revenue is not realized. That potential revenue is hard to quantify, because it's impossible to know how many of those people who downloaded the pirated copy ever intended to buy it in the first place. So, if there was a warehouse of infinite size, filled with an infinite number of Park Tools, would I feel bad about taking one? No. Do I realize that I'm not doing the manufacturer any favors? Yes. Do I feel bad about it? A hell of a lot less than I would if I could buy the tool for 10 cents, knowing that the manufacturer still had an infinite number of tools to sell to everyone else.

CS is expensive but i feel like its priced accordingly, what it enables you to do,and if you actually use its functionality the way it was intended and not just making memes and putting sunglasses on cat pictures, its definitely worth it

i just would rather spend my money elsewhere than on software #firstworldproblems
i bought logic pro which was a $500 program when i was in music school, and i dont regret it but it took a lot of thinking to shell out that much for a bunch of 0s and 1s

buying CS is like buying every park tool ever made, not just some of the tools.
some people dont need all that, others do

Today I downloaded a bunch of new tools for the shop. I'll have copies of them up on the RG site later.

Hey, I set this bike up for photo!

scrod's got a 3d printer. sweet.

So should the first copy sold be really super expensive, and then they give it away to everyone else?