Download.con

Posted on 2003/02/03 11:56:46 (February 2003) by john.

What a nerve!

Having finally uploaded a new version of Photo Studio to stuffware.co.uk the other day, I thought it might also be a good idea to update the listing on download.com. I'd put the entry on there over a year ago now, so the version number and some of the other details were all out of date. So, I logged in, edited all the details, then pressed submit. I was then faced with a page asking me to choose my "listing package". There was a gold one, a silver one and so on, all with different assorted bells and whistles. Fine I thought, for commercial software. Photo Studio, however is freeware. So I thought I'll just scroll down to the bottom and find the free option and continue. There wasn't a free option! What's more the cheapest package is $79! I was shocked! They even had the nerve to offer me a page attempting to justify the value for money $79 package would be. How can it possibly be value for money? It's FREE software! An outlay of $79 for a consistent return of zero can never be value for money!

Why should I have to pay anyway? Download.com is littered with advertising. Nobody visits that site because of the site itself, which is actually quite badly written and poorly laid out. People only go there because it will direct them to the software they want. So without the software it is absolutely nothing. I'd apparently had over 16,000 downloads through download.com. Which means possibly 16,000 people have been subjected to their advertising, which they get paid for, because of my software. They should bloody well be paying me if anything! This is like the equivalent of Google trying to charge me because people might be able to use their search engine to find my web site. Rediculous.

So disgusted was I with this corporate greed, that I have now removed Photo Studio's listing altogether. They said it would take a while for my application to process, but within a week Photo Studio will no longer be available through download.com. The only place to currently get to it is via stuffware.

Altruism is not the opium of the masses. Everyone seems to be well and truly harnessed by greed, to the point where they assume everyone else in the world is hampered thus. Greed has a lot to answer for and, in my books, deserves a damn good spanking.

As an aside: I was hit by a homeless woman on Saturday because I didn't have any money to give her. It bothered me.

Posted by Rusty at 2003/02/03 13:03:40.

Good for you John. Suddenly, money can be made from the internet so everyone is at it.

Data and software for the love of it is so rare these days.

Posted by Rob Lang at 2003/02/04 12:17:05.

You could try listing it on www.tucows.com. I admit I've not looked at this properly, but there is *plenty* of freeware on there...

I will also host a mirror if you want more google hits?!!

Posted by rowanboy at 2003/02/04 11:43:10.

I agree John, the commercialization of the web is sickening. You can read about it in my latest book, available from Amazon and all good book shops. I also have mugs, mouse-mats and other assorted merchandise.

Posted by dsp at 2003/02/04 15:46:33.

The irony of the timing here hasn't been lost on me... However, the two things are different.

Posted by John at 2003/02/06 17:40:42.

Sorry, how, exactly?

Posted by Rob Lang at 2003/02/07 15:38:37.

The (sort of) irony is that I'm complaining about download.con trying to get money out of me a few days after setting up an online shop. I think this is what Tim is getting at. However, they are different because I don't force anyone to pay money in order to continue receiving the online services I'm providing (in this case, a piece of software to download). Many people tell me they have really benefitted from this software and it has saved them lots of time. So I am providing a service to these people for free. Completely independently, if people happen to like the look of one of the things in the shop, they can buy it, and in return they get a real tangible object. There are real manufacuting costs involved in real objects, so no company is practically going to give them away for free unless there is some advertising attached. I'm not really expecting anyone else to buy these things, I mainly set it up because I wanted these things for myself, and it seemed like a neat way to do it.


Download.con are asking me to pay money for something I get no tangible return on. I don't get anything from people downloading Photo Studio. The $79 download.con are asking goes to them in its entirety. This is my chief whinge. If I was going to make some money out of it, fine it would be reasonable for me to pay for it's advertising. However, it is totally free software. That, and the fact that it was originally free to list on download.con and then they introduced charging at a later date. This to me is a bit of a con. This puts many developers into a bit of a stranglehold in a sense.

Posted by John at 2003/02/08 11:31:05.

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