Tag: economics

When Software Piracy is OK

Software piracy is bad in most cases, especially when it involves frivolously indulging in all kinds of loot found on The Pirate Bay for the sake of simple entertainment. But what about the first-time entrepreneur who self-teaches a pirated copy of Photoshop to make a logo for her first website? Or the YouTube poster who tries his hands on professional video editing software to make his videos look better? These people might also be pirates but their impact on the organizations they pirate from is negligible at worst and beneficial at best.

They Weren’t Expected Customers

The software put out by giants like Adobe is made for a professional crowd and priced thereafter. Their customers rely on their software to make a living; buying it is an investment rather than an expense. What Adobe isn’t relying on is selling a few extra copies of its software to curious teenagers or people looking for an alternative to Windows Paint. Software piracy is only a problem if it hurts sales. Everything else is just free marketing. If {insert big company} wasn’t expecting you to buy their product (because you aren’t their customer and can’t afford it in the first place) it doesn’t hurt them. If you are using Adobe Illustrator to make squiggly graphics on your spare time you aren’t hurting Adobe’s bottom line because you would have never been a paying customer.

They Provide Free Marketing

Having people all over the world using your software without hurting your bottom line sounds like an ideal marketing campaign, and it is. Droves of people start learning your software, their peers will take up interest and you receive free brand awareness. All this knowledge and goodwill towards your company will be paid back when these people become professionals and purchase your software for their business needs. Don’t look at it as piracy, look at it as early adoption. Or even freemium.

They Become Future Customers

People who grow up around renowned pirated software products tend to stick with them in the future as well. A skilled teenage Photoshop hobbyist might turn into a graphic designer after a few years who subsequently starts a company. Companies can’t afford to risk it with pirated software and will invest in the real deal. Plus, paying for software that actually lets you earn revenue doesn’t feel like a waste of money. It feels like (and is) an investment.

Freemium is Legal Piracy

Legal piracy already exists. It’s called freemium. This model builds on everything explained above and lets the professionals pay for premium services, lets the noobs play around without risking fines or imprisonment and most importantly lets the fledgling entrepreneurs start out with minimal investment and grow with the software.

If anything, piracy is the result of incompatible world views and freemium has addressed that. Rather than making software one-size-fits-all it can now be handed out in bite-sized portions. Sample, eat one item or order the whole menu. Its fair, its modern and its here to stay.

iPhone 5 vs iPhone 4 Thoughts

Wait, the iPhone 4S was sort of a disappointment because it didn’t present any innovations and was a meager update of the iPhone 4. And the iPhone 5 is sort of a disappointment because it didn’t present any innovations and is a meager update of the iPhone 4S. Apple post Jobs is just like any other fruit at this point.

The iPhone 5 is the Beginning of the End of Apple

And so it begins. Apple post Jobs is not what it used to be, and I knew it would happen sooner or later.The new iPhone 5 is not that groundbreaking and it feels like just about any other new smartphone: high-tech yes, groundbreaking not so much. The problem with companies like Apple is the visionary-type leader. Once he is gone, no one can really replace him. And then there is the keynote. Steve Jobs would cook up (no pun intended) all kinds of strange innovations and sometimes it was hard for us to see why they would work. Take the iPad: it looked like a big iPhone but Steve convinced us iPads make sense. And now they do.

There is nothing for Samsung to copy now that iPhone has nothing new to revolutionize

– Kumar Indresh

The iPhone 5 keynote by Tim Cook on the other hand felt like any other tech product launch. And the upgrades don’t make sense. It could be that Jobs is not around to tell us why a longer iPhone is better, or it could be because he didn’t design it in the first place. If you own Apple stock, I would contemplate a sale pretty soon. If you don’t, I would contemplate a short-sale pretty soon.

Sour Times as Houses Seized by Banks

You know things are bad when you measure the performance of the economy in the rate of houses seized by banks. Nevertheless, in these sour times it is a good indicator of how screwed we really are. There should be a how-screwed-we-are index for this.

Reuters reports that the rate has slightly gone down which is good news and might shed some hope on the future of America.

We should probably also spend a minute thinking about why people buy houses they can’t afford. But let’s not rub salt into the wound at this point.

How to Save America

As most of you know, America is on a decline. The country (I know, America is a continent but bear with me) is struggling with jobs, lackluster spending growth and an unclear future for a country geared mostly towards consumerism. Turns out, mass tourism is the answer.

Take China. An arch foe, stealing both jobs from American factory workers and owning a pretty damn substantial $4.5 trillion of U.S. debt. Sure, China helped grow American businesses by offering dirt cheap manufacturing but “dirt cheap” has amounted to quite a lot of money and the various Chinese entrepreneurs are now ready to spend.

Here comes the good part.

Consider where China is coming from for example. All those years under strict communist rule has made the Chinese people very eager to loose the shackles and experience a free individualistic modern lifestyle. The Foreign Direct Investment in the Special Economic Zones in China (such as Shanghai and Shenzhen) also helped promote what western culture is all about (since we manufacture all our stuff there).

What do you get if you add these two together? Heaps of opportunity and a brighter future for America. Chinese people with new-found money are eager to experience all the neat tricks of western culture and America is there to provide. It’s time for America to switch to mass tourism.

The many decades of spreading American pop culture internationally (besides China) has also resulted in a pretty diverse and large group of people who love America, so why not let them come and boost the economy? There is no money left in American pockets anyways; someone else’s wallet is needed. If you can’t be an empire, being a tourist destination is the next best thing.

What do you think? Could boosting tourism actually be the viable answer to Obamacare?