[mistercow]

I’m not in your target market at this point, but in the 3D CAD space, I’ve noticed that several companies have gone with free licensing for non-commercial use, and those tools end up getting practically all of the of exposure in the maker niches on YouTube.

It seems like a smart — if long term — strategy, since today’s young hobbyists are likely going to be a significant number of tomorrow’s founders, choosing the software their companies use.

It is admittedly a little different. Hobbyists getting into 3D printing are surely more common than hobbyists designing and ordering PCBs. But the latter is more accessible to low volume customers than it’s ever been.

[aleph_minus_one]

> It seems like a smart — if long term — strategy, since today’s young hobbyists are likely going to be a significant number of tomorrow’s founders, choosing the software their companies use.

The same argument is made for student licenses.

My life experience is different: people who love to learn about topics where such expensive software is commonly used very commonly don't get a job in the respective industry, or at least don't get a position where they can choose the software that the company uses. To put it somewhat polemically: people who love to learn all the time are often nerds; these people typically don't end in management positions where they can buy software for the company.

Also, highly smart people often learn about very different things (e.g. software for 3D graphics and PCB design), but there is hardly any industry/departmentment where software from very different areas is used.

In other words: the whole argument "today’s hobbyists/students will in the future choosing the software their companies use" does in my opinion not hold. Better respect that hobbyists/students form a very passionate user base that is typically rather disjoint with the (less passionate) commercial customers.

[blagie]

I would split hobbyists and students.

Students become professionals and DO make choices. I've seen more than one CAD company succeed primarily by courting universities. Indeed, Apple for a long time dominated graphic design mostly due to its education programs.

Within hobbyists / nerds, there are also two general categories:

- Ones who do this on the side

- Ones who do this as part of a job, but in a different industry

For example, a biologist might tinker in writing medical software or designing some kind of lab instrumentation. Those often do turn into commercial products. The PCB is often almost incidental, but if it's in a particular tool, it's very unlikely to ever be ported out.

Of course, that leads to O(1) license, whereas an EE shop will have O(n) licenses with the number of people they employ. But it does lead to sales.

Joel had a nice article on pricing:

https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/12/15/camels-and-rubber-...

The basic upside is giving your stuff away to students and hobbyists costs O(nothing), if you can differentiate in a way which doesn't let paid users not pay.

[aleph_minus_one]

> Students become professionals and DO make choices.

Counterexample: me. :-)

As a student, I had access to some specialized mathematical software. I would like to use them at work, but I now work in a very different industry.

[Workaccount2]

The management types, if they are even mildly competent, will look at what software the skilled employees they want are using, and then go with that.

[aleph_minus_one]

It depends. Often very skilled software developers have a somewhat unusual "taste" regarding the software that they prefer to use ...