forum.vdsworld.com

Garrett · Last edited by Garrett on Tue Sep 24, 2002 3:45 pm; edited 1 time in total

C/Net - Download.com will start charging for adding your program to their
listings and updates to your listing

PGWARE · **Web Host** Joined: 29 Dec 2001 Posts: 1566

Sounds good in theory to boycott but many shareware developers get many downloads from them. I know it's not really 'fair' to pay since they aren't hosting the files but just a single html page where your files are listed but they do bring in the downloads and $99 isn't too bad for a listing when the returns are much more. I think c-net eventually will loose leadership of being the top shareware site by doing this though and may have to go another route. Their like any business and are trying to find a way to get paid for their website, c-net over the months has gradually been seeking new ways to make money. It appears they are about to be the next to burst their internet bubble.

vdsalchemist · Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2002 1:24 pm Post subject:

Hi All,
Well I have no problem with a company that is trying to make a dollar or two or even $99...The problem is that most shareware is under $20 especially VDS shareware...I personally think that the developers out there sell their products too low and by doing so they de-value there abilities and others like them. I think that C/Net should have been charging a nominal fee all along then they would not had had to charge so much now.
As business men we should know the value of our assets and charge accordingly. Give people a fair honest price for our product and make sure that our product is sound. Which brings me to another subject since I have not seen that many sales for Gadget anyway, I will be increasing it's price after I post these new examples. At this beta intro price I am giving Gadget away and possibly telling people that Gadget is not as powerful as I say it is. No one here wants it anyway. So since every other company out there is increasing their prices, I believe I will too. Sure in the short term I will lower my cash flow but in the long term it will be worth it as Gadget grows and new abilities are added I hope to attract attention from large companies that need an intermediate scripting language like VDS but with the abilities to connect with exisisting applications.
So Garrett I don't think boycotting c-net is the answer. I think you should charge more for your products. You, PG, and a few others have really awesome products but I believe they should be at a higher price. No matter what you set your prices to if you have a good product and you present it well you will sale your product. I believe the big problem is time...you guys needed to show a profit right away so you slashed your prices to generate more sales. IMHO that was a bad decision. Anyway this is just my 2 cents on the subject. Selling a lot of something for a little is still just a little bit above nothing.....

PGWARE · **Web Host** Joined: 29 Dec 2001 Posts: 1566

Hmm I never lowered prices, the prices for my shareware applications has always remained the same and I specficially choose those prices.

While you may believe charging a higher price is okay I don't feel that way. I feel charging a fair low fee which still turns a profit is the way to go. People will simply not pay for high prices for software, you may get 1-2 sales with high prices which in the long run will cause you to CUT prices. I've made well over 50 grand in one year with my current applications so I don't think my business model is doing that bad - low prices and high sales.

As for c-net I agree they have a right to charge and I will be one of those that will pay to have my software listed and updated as cnets site bring in considerable downloads.

Tommy · Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2002 3:42 pm Post subject:

Now hear yourself talking... That's absolutely ridiculous, raise the prices?! People
must hate you now for that remark. It just isn't fair to rub the VDS community like
that. Many VDS users are personal users, already had to pay for VDS and yet
again have to pay a fee for being able to use a DLL. Sure, I do charge for my
DLLs but it's no way to establish a business, the price of my DLLs is such, that it
exactly does compensate for my time I spended on them, but nothing much
more. Furthermore if a DLL is priced too high, with the current amount of
competitive DLLs around, users will just hop on to another DLL priced more
attractively. Trying to get rich by making DLLs for VDS is impossible and will
never work, not even by raising the price.

Also of course any person will be free to boycot download.com and for them, it may
indeed be a solution to the problem. I for one, will no longer use the service for
downloading files. If ever I would have managed to make a revenue making
shareware application, I'll be glad to invest the fee and have my files listed there.

Rubes_sw · Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2002 3:49 pm Post subject:

Well i have several products listed on Download.com, and i they are going to charge me to use the service I will remove them because although having over 3000 downloads of PC Protector (bugs and all) no-one yet has purchased it Sad

So for me it would not be worth it, I do agree with tommys views, why charge big prices and have low sales when you can charge low prices and have lots of sales Smile

vdsalchemist · Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2002 4:00 pm Post subject:

PG,
I am not pointing fingers here and I think there is nothing wrong with your business model. It is just a little conservative for my taste is all.
I have looked at all of your products and IMHO I believe they are worth more than what you are selling them for. Your products are very solid and you continue to make them better. That is why I think you should be able to ask for more money than you are currently. If I offended you I apologize but if you were working for a corporation and they asked you to build these very same products then your salary would be higher than $50,000. I am not suggesting that you should go and work for a company somewhere but rather just giving you food for thought.
I know you are prob. saying that I am nuts right now and that is fine but I did not take a year out of my life working day and night to build a product that I can only make $50,000 off of, (if that much). I plan to use this product and others to build and promote the VDS language as a better and quicker solution to product deployment.

Garrett · Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2002 4:13 pm Post subject:

Well there was a little more to the picture that really made me mad, and
it's this statement here by

vdsalchemist · Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2002 4:16 pm Post subject:

Tommy,
You miss understood what I am trying to say here. I am not saying go out and charge someone $50,000 for a DLL Wink

I am saying don't Sad

on someone that is trying to make a living just because they want to start charging for a service or product that they provide and have worked very hard to provide. I remember when C/NET was just getting started and other like it and I always wandered how can someone offer something for nothing? I am an American so many of my views as far as money goes are very capitalistic and they may not line up with others here.
Even if you do not see Gadget or any of my products worth the price I do that is fine. The cost to build Gadget has been very overwhelming and I would not dare goudge my prices and try to force people to pay more than what the DLL is actually worth. When I bought VDS 3.x it cost me I think it was $89.00 and VDS 3.x had bugs in it and it could not do as much as Delphi Standard which was going for a little more but I bought it because it was simple to use and I bought other DLL's to increase VDS's abilities but I seen that I was going to have to keep buying DLL's unless I learned how to write my own and give VDS the ability to call any DLL reguardless of how it was made. That is why I think Gadget is worth more than $25.00 of which I only see about $19 of after taxes and the e-commerce fees. I see Gadget as a way to increase the value of your VDS purchase and not having to re-invest into your investment over and over again.

vdsalchemist · Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2002 4:22 pm Post subject:

Garrett,
No no...I am not saying that a lower priced product is of less quality. I am saying that others may get the impression that because you charge a lower price you did not put the time and effort to make your product the best it can be. Like the old addage says "You get what you pay for." Many people believe this way.

PGWARE · **Web Host** Joined: 29 Dec 2001 Posts: 1566

Well none of my applications took more then 1 1/2 months to initially create. Updates are usually made biweekly but I by no means spend all my time working on these programs. I work on these programs on my free time and yes I do plan on working for a corporation as well as continue to develop my own software on the side.

I didn't take any offense to you're comment, nor took it personally. Wink

I make shareware for fun and really enjoyed the large community of people who decided to purchase. I understand where you're coming from and do hold some of you're beliefs that it would be nice to charge more but people will just go to alternatives when things are priced too high.

I do realize you worked hard on gadget but there really is no way you'll make thousands on it. I'm not trying to be mean but those are the facts, the size of the vds community is tiny and trying to find corporations which use VDS and sell them the dll will be even more difficult. I know you worked hard on the dll but trust me you will not make any fortune off 1 dll for vds, it's impossible. Sade even struggles to turn a profit on VDS, they make about 3-4k on vds per month which does not take into account the payment to their developers or workers on the vds project which lowers the revenue even more.

If you're looking to make a fortune you're best bet is to make applications not dll's. Tommy's approach is much more sound, make dll's to help developers and charge a smaller fee. You wont make a fortune but you will be rewarded for you're efforts. Spending too much time on a dll is just not worth it if you are looking to make money off it, you'll end up finding that the community is too small and people won't be willing to pay high prices for dll's. I've done the dll thing for years and found it didn't make much money, for some time I tried to make money off dll's but it never worked out. I've since then just created some shareware dll's but mostly freeware.

LiquidCode · Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2002 4:25 pm Post subject:

I just thought I would jump in here too. Smile

I have been using
VDS for a long time now and I have been trying to make some
money creating software products. I really enjoy using VDS and
making money from something you enjoy is most peoples dream.
Since C|Net is making that statement as Garrett said, that hurts
us developers that enjoy programming as a hobby. I have been
struggling with making money programming that I have thought
about giving up programming all together. I can't do that because
I would go mad with boredom Exclamation

I just hope that this doesn't
start a trend because as mentioned before, it could hurt a lot of
small freeware and shareware products.

Garrett · Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2002 4:28 pm Post subject:

vdsalchemist · Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2002 4:41 pm Post subject:

PG, Garrett, Tommy and others,
I did not make Gadget with the thought that I was going to be rich like Mr. Gates overnight. I made Gadget to fill a gap that I badly needed filled to build other products faster and more effeciently without having to stay in the confines of a VDS DLL. Gadget was going to be built reguardless of rather I sold copies of it or not. I wanted it. I went for it and now I decided to share it's abilities so others in the VDS community could build their products and compete with other shareware and commercial vendors but like alot of Americans I want to make a little bit of money off of it. Actually if I had financial backers that could support my programming habbits I would make Gadget opensource but I built Gadget strickly on my own with my own finances so I have to sale it Sad

PGWARE · **Web Host** Joined: 29 Dec 2001 Posts: 1566

I don't think there is anything wrong with selling you're works to pay back the time and effort you put into it. Tommy also agrees with this as you can see from his other messages. There is nothing wrong with that, but raising prices probably will not help sales when it comes to vds related extensions.