Re:Sci-Hub as Necessary, Effective Civil Disobedience
by arthur_trudeau on Monday June 26, 2017 @11:51AM
(#14637707)
Economists would label it basic price discrimination, albeit with a floor of 0, and as a way to suppress competition rather than capture value on the low end.
In a similar fashion software piracy can actually help large, established players. Take for example Photoshop, which back in the days was quite pirated piece of software. Adobe certainly lost some money, but I think the main losers were cheaper alternatives. Young and poor pirated Photoshop, learned to use it and when they got employed wanted to continue using Photoshop since that was the only package they really knew. If piracy had not been an option, many would probably have gone for other, more affordable alternatives.