[icebraining]

It's impossible to convince anyone that they should pay you even $1 if exactly the same thing is available for $0 from somewhere else.

Radiohead's In Rainbows, the Humble Bundles and other pay-what-you-want sales disprove that statement. All had average purchase prices well above the minimum. (That doesn't mean such a model is very profitable compared to fixed prices, of course.)

Even in a purely self-interested point of view, there are reasons for paying (e.g. keeping development active).

[pjmlp]

Those are one shot successes, hardly a model to follow for anyone that needs a steady source of income to pay things like mortgage, employees and such.

[icebraining]

Those are one shot successes

Maybe so; can you point out those cases where the average payment for a pay-what-you-want sale was no higher than the absolute minimum?

hardly a model to follow for anyone that needs a steady source of income to pay things like mortgage, employees and such.

That's a very different claim from what I was contesting.

But in any case, it may work in when you have modest needs; Joey Hess just got his second year of development of Git-Annex funded[1]. Of course, not everyone is willing to work for $15k/year, even if it comes with few strings attached, particularly obviously talented and experienced developers like him.

[1] https://campaign.joeyh.name/

[pjmlp]

> Of course, not everyone is willing to work for $15k/year

That is the main point, in Germany you can earn around 5x that on an average consulting job.

[icebraining]

You don't get the freedom he has, though, both in terms of working hours, location, etc.