[ghaff]

You're not really describing Shareware (though in practice it may not have been a whole lot different). Shareware was software distributed under a try-before-you-buy license but the license actually required you to pay if you continued to use the software beyond a certain time period.

Did this make a difference for most users? No. But, when I wrote shareware, I usually got one or two 4 figure site licenses per year from companies for my product. It was just a sideline but the difference between pure donationware and "you're really legally required to pay for this" did make a difference.

That said, today I'd probably just do it as open source donationware though the money wasn't completely trivial for me at the time.

[nhebb]

> You're not really describing Shareware

These days, yeah, but the term shareware started out as OP described. It later became synonymous with trialware.

https://asp-software.org/www/history/the-origin-of-shareware...

[tonyedgecombe]

Eventually it became a rather derogatory term, I remember endless debates in the ASP about abandoning it, which I think they did in the end.

A lot of it was on the covers of magazines or you could order a set of disks from people like Atlantic Coast:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/edgecombe/4709059216

[ghaff]

The ASP at least for a long time took a hard line against crippling whether by feature or time limiting. After I moved on (and retail software started offering demos, open source became widespread, etc.) shareware evolved into the sort of crippleware, adware, etc. that you still see in some corners of the software world today.