use-revolution Digest, Vol 30, Issue 23

[Marielle Lange]

Kan,

Thanks for sharing this,

But as you made clear in your earlier post, you are only using  
revolution for fun. I was myself very happy paying for a studio  
license in this context, just for being given the opportunity to play  
around at evening and week-end time. Have this "feel clever" feeling  
because I was ready to rapidly assemble 2 text boxes, 3 buttons and  
have them "do something".

For my part, I went up to an entreprise license. And then I started  
to be unhappy. I know some people on this list make ample money from  
their runrev activities. Making money was not what I was most  
interested in. A paradox is that the fact that you don't make money  
out of your hobby makes you more demanding about what you pay out of  
your "hobby" budget. Strangely, you become a lot more unforgiving of  
any default in the product you bought... because your money has been  
spent, you cannot afford to buy a replacement before a few months.

The reason I reacted to Dan's email is that he used the analogy to a  
photographer who is ready to pay a lot more for his lenses. I doubt  
that the semi-serious hobbyist he was didn't take the time that each  
penny he put into his hobby was well spent. I am sure his friend  
chooses each one of his lenses carefully, taking into account the  
intrinsic quality as well as long term reliability of the tool. I am  
sure a story like the one Dan's told on a semi-serious-amateur  
photographer  list wouldn't have decided him to pay for a $200 lens  
he was not ready to pay for, from the start. I am sure you do choose  
your bikes carefully even if you are well aware you cannot afford  
Lance Amstrong's one. I am sure that even if you  buy your bikes out  
of your hobby budget you still expect to be treated as a serious  
customer.

I only encouraged Dan to focus on the aspects of intrinsic quality of  
the product and customer support, as I believe they will have a lot  
more impact on non profit users than what may appear to some as not  
very subtle door salesman's tricks.

Marielle



On 09/03/2006, at 4:57 PM, "Kay C Lan" <lan.kc.macmail at gmail.com> wrote:

> OK, then substitute me.
>
> I can fully relate to  the story Dan posted as I basically used  
> exactly the same logic when I upgraded from REV Express (free at  
> the time) to REV DreamCard (may not have been called DreamCard) and  
> then to REV Studio.
>
> REV Express disappeared and I was pretty ticked off at not having a  
> 'free' version for hobbiests to 'play with'. I even emailed REV and  
> let them know what I thought.
>
> But to put it into perspective, I 'play with' trains, and I spend  
> more annually on model trains than REV.
>
> I enjoy cycling, and spend more on my bike annually than I do on  
> REV. See my recent post - subject REV vs Visual Basic - on how I  
> use REV to support my cycling.
>
> I enjoy computers, and whilst I LOVE Perl, MySQL and other  
> freebies. I still spend more annually on computer hardware and  
> software (excluding REV) than on REV alone. Then again children do  
> form a large part of the software expenditure pie (games).
>
> So, I'm never going to make money out of my trains (apart from a  
> few sound investments), my bike, or from REV. Although I still hope  
> that one day I'll actually script something that is useful to  
> someone else.
>
> Please feel free to 'check up' my story. I'd love to send you a  
> photo of my Live Steam engine or my new road bike;-)





------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
--------
Marielle Lange (PhD),  Psycholinguist

Alternative emails: mlange at blueyonder.co.uk,

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