Lol everytime I read this argument I think of the software VirtualDJ. It was notorious for being the DJ software to use about a decade and a half ago as pirate copies were everywhere! Fast forward to today and you can read post after post from ex pirate user that's now a paid user. VirtualDJ have one of the more expensive software licenses on the market in that sector too. I wonder if many other software companies have had similar experiences?

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I'd imagine most of that is out of annoyance of dealing with pirate version or just them finally being able to afford it as it is now part of their job.

I feel like easiest way to monetize apps like that would be free noncommercial license. Want to DJ your school party ? Go ahead, as long as nobody pays you it's fine, and if someone does, well, now you have money for license.

You're also building potential user base, when everyone can play with your software without limits many will pick it when they will do something commercial

Yep, VirtualDJ has a free version. It doesn't let you use a hardware controller though.

https://virtualdj.com/products/virtualdj/price.html#comparis...

A full actual version of SOLIDWORKS costs, no joke, $10,000 for a professional license ($8k plus $2k/yr support contract). An engineer at, say, Tesla is going to have that paid for by their employer while designing the Cybertruck. That Tesla engineer is also going to want to use SOLIDWORKS to design their bike shed. Their two choices for their bike shed are either use their work computer, or pirate it. (Using non-solidworks CAD isn't really an option due to the muscle memory involved with the application, and the resulting switching cost.) So it's getting pirated. But that also means their next employer better have SOLIDWORKS and so that "lost" sale for a bike shed really isn't.

But you'd be insane to use a pirated copy of SOLIDWORKS for anything professional (like if you were the Cybertruck's door handle subcontractor or whatever), just like you would be insane to use a pirated copy of windows or Office. But let's be real, plenty of people do that. Whether it's because they're poor, or whether it's because they're cheap, or both, full list price is simply not gonna get paid, and so they'll go with the cheaper option - it's just that cheaper option happens to be a $0 pirated copy in most cases. Some offices will have one genuine copy for one computer and pirated copies for the rest of everyone, especially part-time contractors. In that way, a cheaper academic license, even accepting that there's no fool proof way of checking for that, or having a time-limited entrepreneur/start-up option will lead to more sales and more money.

It then becomes an exercise in the dark art of pricing things, to figure out where that sweet spot actually is. A 30 or 90 day copy which is hopefully long enough to build the bike shed, priced right, is an actual sale that can be made that otherwise wouldn't. A cheaper limited version for the non-premium seats at the company are other additional sales to be made.

When I worked at GE, anyone could buy a copy of MS Office for $10 - full version not the subscription.

Why not bundle a separate license for individuals with the enterprise license.

The value of deliverable asset (document etc) from MS Office for the regular user is insignificant. The value of deliverable from a professional CAD application otoh, always has a price that likely non-trivial and plausibly much more than the 10k yearly license or so. E.g. A multi-month project with all of the relevant design data.