[pcunite]

My software title "FileSearchEX" is so pirated that I can no longer continue to work on it full time. Indeed, search engines show more "free crack here" links than legitimate ones. Imagine going to the supermarket and having "free" eggs next to the $5 carton ... which would you choose? I know what 90% of them go with.

[vidarh]

While it sucks to not be able to work on it full time any more, it boggles my mind that it'd be possible to earn enough from a tool like that to work on it full time for any amount of time in the first place. Not meant as a criticism of you - in fact if you've managed to do that, hats off, clearly you must have done something right with it.

[polemic]

There always have been, and continue to be, people making perfectly good money from this sort of software. I'm not sure why you're surprised, given that people make profitable fart apps for phones, and that it is apparently rational to bury people with money to run any number of fundamentally useless startups.

[zura]

While we are at it, any advice of how to market such software? I mean, when there is more or less saturated market.

Thanks!

[ballard]

As someone that writes a lot of code, both commercial product, contracts and FOSS, the two responses that make sense are: better copy protection or copy encouragement. One side boosts revenue while the other makes customer acquisition easier. Usually the later is used first and later on gradually shift to the former.

Rife theft is a huge opportunity to convert unpaid to paid users.

[JetSpiegel]

You should sell it to Microsoft instead of the users.