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A comment on Ask HN: Does Shareware still work in 2018?.

Re:Ask HN: Does Shareware still work in 2018? by abalone on Thursday November 15, 2018 @10:09PM (#18466020)
“Still work”? Was there a time that shareware worked? Serious question.. citations appreciated.

Also it sounds like you are doing enterprise software. Shareware was more of a consumer pricing model. With enterprise you want to make it totally free for small scale grassroots adoption by champions and then monetize large scale adoption.

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Re:Ask HN: Does Shareware still work in 2018? by aasasd on Thursday November 15, 2018 @10:19PM (#18466081)
Both Carmacks had themselves each a Ferrari before they put out Doom. “Commander Keen” bought those Ferraris.

Though I'm sure it was always a game of chance like everywhere in business.

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Re:Ask HN: Does Shareware still work in 2018? by darkr on Friday November 16, 2018 @07:46AM (#18468335)
You mean both Johns? (Carmack & Romero)
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Re:Ask HN: Does Shareware still work in 2018? by aasasd on Friday November 16, 2018 @08:13AM (#18468476)
Well, I had Adrian Carmack and John Carmack in mind, but frankly I don't really recall who it was, just that there were two of them.

Wikipedia mentions that “by mid-1994 John Carmack had purchased two Ferrari Testarossas,” so it's possible he was both of the guys. But I'm sure others did well too.

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Re:Ask HN: Does Shareware still work in 2018? by tincholio on Friday November 16, 2018 @08:14AM (#18468479)
He probably meant John and Adrian... both Carmacks and founders if ID
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Re:Ask HN: Does Shareware still work in 2018? by trevyn on Friday November 16, 2018 @11:31AM (#18469748)
And intriguingly, those two Carmacks are not related!
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Re:Ask HN: Does Shareware still work in 2018? by EamonnMR on Thursday November 15, 2018 @10:14PM (#18466049)
Doom and Quake where sold as Shareware. Also, Ambrosia Software was flush with cash for a while there in the late 90s and early 00s.
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Re:Ask HN: Does Shareware still work in 2018? by LeonB on Thursday November 15, 2018 @11:30PM (#18466423)
Shareware certainly did work for some, pre-WWW.

Distribution was not a solved problem back then, and required significant capital. Shareware use a viral engine of growth (though this did mean that there were far more products for which shareware didn't work versus the handle for which it did).

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