[earnesti]

Yes. I was developing some open source stuff before venturing to for-profit closed Source Software, and I was surprised that the paying customers were on average much nicer than those who got their stuff for free!

Great idea about the priority queue.

[iamacyborg]

When you pay for something, you’ve already demonstrated that you value whatever it is (a product, a service, etc). Free stuff tends to attract people who don’t value the thing.

[jorvi]

Or the more darwinistic view: anything you pay access for, you can get gated off from.

Its quite difficult to ban someone from a public park, especially when they can just put on a new hat.

Its really easy to ban someone from a private park. Even if they do put on a new hat, when they get belligerent again you just revoke the renewal of their access pass.

[throwway120385]

There's also a level of professionalism depending on the product. When I'm responsible for an MSP team I'm very polite to them and always try to get them good, detailed, high-quality information when I'm telling them about problems with their work product, because I want them to do good work quickly and that's the best way to do that.

[ryandrake]

Yea, I'm not sure it's open-source vs other software. It's public vs. professional insiders.

My company's bug tracker is mostly internally-filed bugs, but accepts bugs from the public. The difference in tone and attitude is night and day. The public-filed bugs can be wild, varying across: Rude, entitled, arrogant, demanding, incoherent, insulting, irrelevant, impatient... They are also the worst when it comes to actually including enough information to investigate. Frequently filed without logs, without reproduction steps, sometimes without even saying what the filer thinks is wrong. We get bugs with titles "It doesn't work" and with a text description that reads like a fever dream from someone very unwell.

We do have strong personalities among employees, but bug reports tend to be professionally and competently written, contain enough information to debug, and always, always leave out insults and personal attacks. The general public (at least many of the ones technical enough to file bug reports) does not seem to have the emotional regulation required to communicate professionally and respectfully.

[kelnos]

> Frequently filed without logs, without reproduction steps, sometimes without even saying what the filer thinks is wrong.

In projects where this is a problem, I've made an issue template that clearly requests all the stuff I think I'll need. There's a big note at the top of the template that says it's not optional and that if it isn't filled out fully, I'll close the issue without comment.

And then I do that, every time. Sometimes they fill it out and reopen, sometimes they don't. Either way, I don't end up wasting time trying to help people who don't respect my time.

[leidenfrost]

I tell my friends all the time: You want your product to be accessible? Sell cheap, but not too cheap.

Fair deals attract people with some money, but the almost-free only attract people who are forever broke, who live their life feeling entitled to everything being handed over to them.

[fargle]

> were on average much nicer than those who got their stuff for free!

this is always true with, at least a great many, people. it's related to choosey-beggar syndrome. it's a bug/glitch/feature in human psychology.

if you ever have the chance to be a property manager, never ever let someone move in a week early or pay a week later for free. never let your rent get drastically below market. when people aren't paying for something, it's incredibly common behavior to stop respecting it. it's like a switch flips and suddenly they are doing you the favor.

that's why in times past, offering or taking "charity" was considered impolite. but making a small excuse might be ok. say someone needs to stay an extra week after their lease was over, but was strapped for cash. instead of saying "sure you can stay one more week", say "well, you'd really be doing me a small favor staying in the place to watch for the extra week since it's empty anyway. how about i discount the rent by 50% for that week and amend the lease to take care of it."

[throw16180339]

My experience was that raising my consulting prices lead to better customers.