How do you justify not paying for EverQuest?

[Ekco]

also, don't know if you guys have been paying attention to the news or not but every fortune 500 company stole IP from every person they could to build their LLMs, literally Petabytes of it.

[Ciderpress]

If one wants a piece of software bad enough, one might pay for it eventually. If that piece of software is on offer for free, you will obviously get it for free instead. The company then doesn't get as high a return on the investment of money and labor and time they put up to develop the software in the first place. If they don't bring in money, they can't keep making photoshops.

It's not really complicated at all, rationalizing software piracy only works if there's some magic genie who keeps developing and making new software for free. It might kinda feel like that's the case sometimes, but it's not.

[NopeNopeNopeNope]

Originally Posted by Ciderpress [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If one wants a piece of software bad enough, one might pay for it eventually. If that piece of software is on offer for free, you will obviously get it for free instead. The company then doesn't get as high a return on the investment of money and labor and time they put up to develop the software in the first place. If they don't bring in money, they can't keep making photoshops.

It's not really complicated at all, rationalizing software piracy only works if there's some magic genie who keeps developing and making new software for free. It might kinda feel like that's the case sometimes, but it's not.

Well most “free trials” are also with limited features to prevent the one-users like me from exploiting them

But either way, I can’t imagine it being completely legal to essentially steal a digital product for personal use. Like are you going to get in trouble for it? Probably not. But if some mega-company like Nintendo wanted to after you with their army of lawyers over it, I’m sure it’s not 100% legal

But I not super versed in law so….

[Ekco]

they just spent a billion dollars making a LOTR show nobody is watching, i think the creatives are doing just fine.

[Ciderpress]

You're literally stealing a finite resource, which is the labor of the developers. Yes we all get that software can be copied an arbitrary number of times. That doesn't mean there's an arbitrary number of new talented software developers, who are compensated for their talents and efforts by their employer, who is only able to pay them if they bring in money by selling the software that you very well might otherwise buy, if you didn't choose to download it for free instead.

Lars was right. Completely, entirely right, about the napster thing, and the exact same principle applies.

[Reiwa]

Originally Posted by Ciderpress [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You're literally stealing a finite resource, which is the labor of the developers. Yes we all get that software can be copied an arbitrary number of times. That doesn't mean there's an arbitrary number of new talented software developers, who are compensated for their talents and efforts by their employer, who is only able to pay them if they bring in money by selling the software that you very well might otherwise buy, if you didn't choose to download it for free instead.

Lars was right. Completely, entirely right, about the napster thing, and the exact same principle applies.

You're indirectly stealing from the workers who already literally had the surplus value of their labor stolen by the company.

Nor is the software itself finite.

[Ciderpress]

Originally Posted by Reiwa [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You're indirectly stealing from the workers who already literally had the surplus value of their labor stolen by the company.

Nor is the software itself finite.

The company stole nothing by offering a set wage in exchange for labor. That the labor *might* deliver excess value eventually doesn't somehow retroactively implicate the employer in some moral crime. The risk is taken by the person signing the front of the check. If there's nobody to sign the front of the check, there are no photoshops to steal because I don't want to work for free anymore than you do.

Also there are things called raises, which also only exist if payroll continues to function.

[Reiwa]

Originally Posted by Ciderpress [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The company stole nothing by offering a set wage in exchange for labor. That the labor *might* deliver excess value eventually doesn't somehow retroactively implicate the employer in some moral crime. The risk is taken by the person signing the front of the check. If there's nobody to sign the front of the check, there are no photoshops to steal because I don't want to work for free anymore than you do.

Also there are things called raises, which also only exist if payroll continues to function.

Is signing checks the most valuable form of labor?

[Ciderpress]

Originally Posted by Reiwa [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Is signing checks the most valuable form of labor?

Don't just respond with a question ugh

[shovelquest]

The difference is my generation understood that the cost of piracy, and adblock is < the gains you get from selling products at a reasonable price to a reasonably sized audience.

But now everyone thinks that companies should make TRILLIONS of dollars, and anyone who prevents that is anti american.