Pricing / entry cost for this tool

[Marty Knapp]

Michael Lew wrote:

> For some time I have been toying with the idea that software should  
> be sold on an income-weighted pricing scheme. If Richard can afford  
> to pay more for Rev than Andre, it is in large part because he lives  
> and earns in USA rather than Brazil.
>
> I have a couple of educational titles being sold by my University  
> that cost the same number of Australian dollars to Harvard as they do  
> to universities in Africa. It doesn't seem fair. Perhaps software  
> prices could be adjusted for the average (modal) wage in a country.  
> It wouldn't harm me for people in low wage countries to pay me almost  
> nothing instead of absolutely nothing...
>
I don't currently make money from writing software -  I make utilities 
for my own use. But if I did sell software I don't think I'd be 
interested in getting paid 3rd world wages (no offense intended - just 
don't know another way to say it) and paying U.S. rates for my housing, 
food etc. If you're rich and don't care, you can give your software 
away. I'm sure many of the pros on this list who make money programming, 
program because they like doing so. I'm sure the RunRev people love what 
they do. But we all have bills to pay too.

When someone sets a price on a piece of software, I get to decide if 
that's worth my money. I don't figure it's their job to make sure I can 
afford it -  they don't owe me a thing (which is the attitude that 
socialism breeds IMHO, sorry to digress into politics!). Certainly it's 
noble to want to see everyone have access to good software. But having 
directed a local soup kitchen for 6 years, I can tell you there are 
people in the U.S. who are desperately poor. Who would administrate a 
system that would charge based on income? I think I would always be VERY 
poor when I went to make my purchases!


Marty Knapp