[tgsovlerkhgsel]

I've built a small tool that I distributed as "free for personal use, contact me for a commercial license", without technical enforcement, not even a nag screen.

I made one (1) sale, despite receiving e-mails from several people thanking me that they're happily using it at work, and that sale was to a company who wanted customization, and only ended up actually paying the invoice when they asked for another round of customization and I pointed out that they haven't paid their last invoice.

Donationware does not work for companies, I think - the bureaucracy required to make money move from the company to you will keep people from doing it even if they think you deserve it. If it is labelled as voluntary instead of a legally required license fee, it will also be hard to make it happen.

If you're targeting companies, and want to do a shareware model, you should:

* Make it easy to buy (with credit card etc.), but also provide a contact for volume licensing. If you're lucky, this allows employees to pay you for your software without having to go through approvals.

* Make it hard to use permanently without buying (beyond just a nag screen, e.g. blocking the save feature once an expiration time is reached)

Your goal isn't to convince someone to pay for the software. Your goal is to convince the person sitting in front of the computer that dealing with the bureaucracy to pay you is easier than not dealing with it, and if given the choice between a nag screen and the bureaucracy, the nag screen is easier to deal with.

[eigenvector]

Companies have successfully convinced themselves that anything software is some form of black magic that can only be procured by the IT department and through a small army of Business Development Managers. In my job I have fairly broad discretion to purchase things, generally up to $100,000 I need only write a one-paragraph justification of what I'm doing as long as I'm working within an approved budget.

Except 'IT'.

I can't buy a $5 mouse at Best Buy. Or a Lightning cable to charge my company-provided iPhone. That will trigger long chains of accusatory emails from Accounting and Procurement. Software and 'IT equipment' has to be purchased according to the Policy, which to be quite honest I've never successfully figured out how to do.

It's come to the point that I'd rather buy small things (<$50) out of my own pocket than persecute myself by spending days going through some convoluted process and knowing at the end of it that we paid 3x the market price to get it from our 'Preferred Supplier'.

[nl]

This is where shadow IT comes from and why < $1000 SaaS products work.

Lots of managers have credit cards and will pay the SaaS fee and ignore procurement processes. The the app becomes embedded in the company and the procurement team has to accept the reality of it.

[GordonS]

> knowing at the end of it that we paid 3x the market price to get it from our 'Preferred Supplier'

It's not even just the cost of the item itself - I often have to spend hours of time over a period of months to get something purchased, with multiple levels of management also having to spend time on approvals and chasing people up. The cost of all that time can easily exceed the cost of the item.

Sometimes I hate working for a megacorp :(

[pengo]

I worked for a company in the 1990s which had previously had a very bad experience purchasing custom software, and as a consequence had formally restricted the delegation of authority to business unit leaders to specifically exclude ANY software purchases. As a consequence, if one of my team needed a Microsoft Word license, it had to go all the way to the Board of Directors - and it only got there if the CEO believed it was important.

[rusk]

.. and knowing at the end of it that we paid 3x the market price to get it from our 'Preferred Supplier’

Very clear what’s going on there once you get to the end. Somebody’s got themselves a nice cash cow sewn up.

[jabl]

Doesn't need to be a conspiracy, where somebody is getting rich at the company's expense.

At work we have something similar, where every few years the IT department tenders the 'preferred supplier' for general IT stuff. The logic is basically that by promising the vendors exclusivity, they will bid lower. So yes, sometimes that means we'll pay 3x for a keyboard compared to the price we'd pay at the local discount computer store; I think in general the prices for the stuff that is in the 'tendering portfolio' is very competitive, otherwise it's list price.

OTOH, we save money since the billing from the preferred supplier is worn-in standard procedure, and also employees don't waste company time searching the web for the cheapest/best/whatever keyboard.

[crankylinuxuser]

What's its own level of horrible is Amazon.

If you have a business account, everything gets bundled into that account. Sure, if your org is 110 people big, keeping track is pretty easy. My last job was with a state university. They see thousands of purchases a day, and Amazon bins them onto 1 credit card, and in 1 account. For all 8 campuses and over 50k people.

So the preferred vendor means also integrating with your financial system. So budgeting is easier. But Amazon makes this so damned hard. Even being able to tag purchases would help. But I'm sure ol Besos figured out that makes him lose a dollar.

[jakobegger]

With Amazon in Europe it's especially bad because if you accidentally buy something from an FBA vendor, you won't get a proper VAT invoice. And this makes accounting a pain in the ass.

Every other online store sends you a proper invoice. But FBA vendors will send you sketchy invoices that make it clear they aren't paying their taxes. Which is bad, because that means as a business customer you're on the hook....

[rusk]

I wouldn't say it's a conspiracy so much as "how business is done"

[rwmj]

Considering that software will be running on the internal network of your company, they probably at least want someone they can hold responsible when it interferes with operations / deletes intranet files / opens holes in the firewall / exfiltrates their secrets / etc.

(And yes I know that's because of terrible design decisions in the intranet itself, but has anyone seriously worked at a large company where that wasn't the case?)

[m-i-l]

> Donationware does not work for companies, I think - the bureaucracy required to make money move from the company to you will keep people from doing it even if they think you deserve it.

This is a really important point. Small companies I've worked at generally have had sensible and manageable procurement processes, but big companies have sometimes had mind bogglingly labyrinthine processes even for small purchases. There was once I had to raise an "Approval To Spend" and "on-board" a new vendor, and as far as I could tell the process changed 3 times while I was going through the "process", although I'm not completely sure because while everyone was telling me I had to go through "the process" no-one seemed completely sure what the process was, including those responsible for "the process". All very Kafkaesque. Anyway, it all comes down to your target market - if it is individuals you won't face this problem, but if it is businesses you will face the problem on a scale according to the size of business.

[lathiat]

* Make sure your payment processes automatically provides a business tax invoice / receipt with full details. It's surprising how much of a pain this can be for even business oriented services.

[jrgoj]

One thing developers of products like this can do is offer an accessibly priced license for individual users in a corporation. If it's an indispensable tool for me that I use at work, and the bureaucracy for obtaining even $0.01 USD from the company is not going to happen, the individual license can be a nice middle ground. I can write it off at tax season too.

[vbezhenar]

Is using a crack easier than dealing with bureaucracy?

[alexgmcm]

Using a crack has both legal and security implications for the company and therefore at least in my place of work can result in serious consequences for the employee including termination of employment.

So I'd imagine most people wouldn't risk it.

[vbezhenar]

Most of nag screens implying that you should buy or uninstall software in 30 days or something like that. It's written in license. They just don't enforce it. So violating license is acceptable while cracking is not?

[NullPrefix]

IIRC win10 allows installing without entering product key and keeps somewhat working after the 30day period that it gives to enter that key.

[tomjen3]

Sure, but you have to multiply that with the (perceived) probability of it being an issue with the expected benefit. That is probably a calculation that often comes out as "get it, dammit".

[TAForObvReasons]

The problem is that the tool is being used in a business setting, but the phrase "free for personal use, contact me for a commercial license" does not obligate the users to obtain a different license. They are likely not selling the tool or distributing it, but merely using it.

If you really want a legal way to get companies to pay, phrase it as "free for non-commercial use" and include that in the public documentation as well as somewhere in the tool itself. Non-commercial includes the indirect commercial cases that would apply to the tool.

[pbhjpbhj]

> Non-commercial includes the indirect commercial cases that would apply to the tool. //

AIUI that is wrong in USA and UK (don't know about other countries). At least if using the "non-commercial" definition used in IP law.

For example, you create an advert for free for an event that charges money, that's commercial. You give stuff away that impacts someone else's ability to sell, that's commercial. You do a free event, charge for snacks, it's a commercial event.

Use an app privately the results of which you use to benefit your employer, that's a commercial use.

It's pretty hard to answer the general question for "an app" rather than a specific app and associated action.

[eps]

WTH is AIUI pls?

[dave7]

Not parent, but "As I Understand It"