
Guy Asks For Software Crack, Creator Provides Free App Instead - zohaibr
http://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestudies/articles/20110519/09502514340/guy-asks-software-crack-creator-provides-free-app-instead.shtml
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cmb320
I can't believe this simple, kind of stupid thing I did has gotten so much
attention. I also can't believe so many people hate Stella. It's not the
greatest beer I've ever had, but it's no bud light.

~~~
darklajid
I loved your reaction.

But this isn't about your attitude, this is about far more serious things:
Beer. Leaving Germany for good end of this month and - well.. Israel's beers
are f...ing (well, it's kind of on topic with your app, isn't it?) baaad. So
my choice in the future, after being spoiled in a country of beer drinkers, is

* Local brand starts with G (Ugh...)

* Local brand starts with M (Really. Life's too short to drink that)

* Weihenstephan (which seems to be from Germany, but the fact that I never heard about it here gives away how decent it is. Seems like an export-only product)

* Stella

So - rest assured: You're not alone. If you remove all the better
alternatives, Stella is really okay. Kind of.

~~~
maayank
I actually like G. Also, in Tel Aviv/Herzliya you have good choices (Guinness,
Kilkenny, La Chouffe and Mc Chouffe, Bischoff Dopplebock, ...[1]). Pubs that
have many kinds of beer in Tel Aviv:

* Norma Jeane - you can find anything there

* Beit Ha'bira ("house of beer")

* James' Beer Factory - this one in Petach Tikva, kosher (opening times wise as well, so no drinking on Friday night) and actually doesn't have much choice. But they serve self brewed beer which is decent.

There are others I can't recall now, but I can ask friends.

If you want to go out for a spree with me and other hackers, make sure to drop
me a line here or at maayan@maayank.com! :)

EDIT: Googling for it, Beit Ha'Bira might have closed shop. I suggest as an
alternative Norman. I don't recall visiting it, but I've heard (and after
googling, read) only good things. For exact addresses google for the names of
the pubs with "Tel Aviv".

[1] it's very late here so I'll leave it at that.

~~~
mikle
First of all - it's not James', it's Jem's Beer Factory, which is indeed very
good. The stout there is awesome.

Now a few more if I may -

Mike's Place is nice

Porter & Sons on Haarbaa street has a huge selection -
[http://www.rest.co.il/sites/Default.asp?txtRestID=10911&...](http://www.rest.co.il/sites/Default.asp?txtRestID=10911&txtNavID=3&txtItemID=443182)

~~~
maayank
Thanks, great additions.

Mike's Place is a good place to meet foreigners. Notice the beer selection is
relatively limited: <https://docs.google.com/View?id=dfdfk37q_410g7h8vwhf>
(relative to the other places mentioned here)

~~~
mikle
Yeah, I guess as a Guiness lover I forgot Mike's doesn't actually have a great
selection.

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chrislomax
Although I find this fantastic, I also find it quite odd?

I think his attitude is fantastic for someone who is having their apps ripped
off, I find it strangely odd that in the comments people think this is the
attitude that developers are meant to take when their work is ripped off,
humbled.

I purchase all apps from the app store, I had Cydia but I took the jail break
off my phone. I think the 59p - £3 for an app is nothing for all the hard work
that has gone in and I am more than happy to make the purchase.

I think the whole episode has been strangely rewarding for him but again I
think it makes people think that all developers should have this attitude. I
think it's funny that in the comments that someone said that developers should
treat all consumers with positive and constructive humbleness. I'm sorry but
the meaning of "Consumer" is "A person who purchases goods and services for
personal use". There is a keyword here, "Purchase".

Kudos to the guy for some great PR but I really hope that all "consumers"
don't get this mentality when trying to rip off apps

~~~
britta
I'd note that jailbreaking and Cydia are not about piracy or encouraging
piracy (they're about much more - tons of people even buy jailbreak-only
tweaks/themes/etc. from the Cydia Store). Some percentage of people do find
ways to get pirated apps after jailbreaking, but those people have to go out
and install additional sources/tools beyond the default Cydia install.

The Cydia founder talked about app piracy in a talk a while ago:
[http://www.tuaw.com/2010/04/13/360idev-saurik-on-the-
mobile-...](http://www.tuaw.com/2010/04/13/360idev-saurik-on-the-mobile-
application-market/) \- it fits in:

"Saurik said that many of the pirates he's dealt with are just kids, no more
than teenagers, very smart but with not much solid life experience to speak
of. And he said that like children, they were both vengeful (they will give
bad reviews and attack developers who attack them), and easily won over --
sometimes, by just sending a nice email, he was able to get a former pirate to
cooperate with him or even '...come over to the light side.'"

"The best solution to piracy, he said, was to convert the pirates -- don't
disable their app or attack them (because likely, they will simply blame the
app rather than learn a lesson), but instead inform them that they're breaking
the rules, and give them an easy way to do things right. One app Saurik
described simply put a one-time notice in the app that the user was using a
pirated version, and saw sales spike when the notice went out."

~~~
chrislomax
I appreciate it's about more. My reservations towards jail breaking were more
about performance and use rather than piracy to be honest. I should have
expanded on my point further.

I don't believe you should be tied into your phones "terms" of operation but
in my situation I found the hack pointless and unnecessary. Not to say that it
doesn't suit everyone though!

If I take Cydia out the equation there, I stand by my point that I prefer to
pay for the goods. Jail breaking and Cydia were used just to get my point
across.

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veyron
I hate to make a comment like this, but it should be noted that this was a
side project of his. I would speculate that he would have a different reaction
if it were his bread and butter.

Note: original forum post at <http://xsellize.com/topic/137904-the-f-ing-word-
of-the-day/>

~~~
danielharan
If this is your bread and butter, you might want to take note of the fact that
his was an effective tactic. Freaking out probably wouldn't have helped.

~~~
erikb
I absolutely agree. It's just that I think he meant that normally, when
someone feels threatened about something that might really hurt him, it will
be quite hard for him to react smartly and calmly and much more likely that he
would freak out.

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cmb320
This is the google alert that started it all: <http://imgur.com/wovz3>

~~~
brown9-2
How do you get Google Alerts in Reader like that?

~~~
Shamiq
When creating an Alert, there is an option to choose feed as the "deliver to"
destination.

<http://i.imgur.com/1uo4R.png>

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econner
This is awesome. Especially because now his app is going to get tons of
attention for his good attitude with this post being #2 on Hacker News. Being
generous pays off in the end :-).

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simonhamp
Lesson here: be human. It seems the response capitalism (among other things)
has taught us is a stance of defensiveness, even abusive.

But this guy dug deep and figured what the heck! Lost a bit of money and made
someone happy. And it's not even Christmas

~~~
nagrom
And the point is he didn't lose money. Other people bought the app who
wouldn't, it seems, off the back of his generous gesture.

Note that this certainly would not work for a large company - it only works
for a (very) small-scale outfit.

~~~
mekoka
I believe it could and already does work for large companies, but differently.

It works so well that we take a lot of it for granted. Look around you, do you
know of any big company that came along, offered something with such seemingly
good intentions that their offering made the competition look like crooks? I'm
sure we could come up with a few examples. Off the top of my head:

\- I'm reminded of the days when hotmail would delete my emails without my
consent, because I was going beyond the 2mb they were giving me. While they
were trying to get me to pay for 200mb, gmail appeared out of nowhere with a
red cape and saved me with a free 1Gig that quickly turned into 2Gigs. How
could I not look at Google like a superhero and at Microsoft like the villain?

\- Similarly, while I visited France a few years ago, I saw that they had this
system called the Freebox (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_(ISP)>,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebox>), that literally revolutionized telecom
in a country otherwise very conservative when it comes to technology. Free's
offering was so compelling that it created a real disturbance that
dramatically affected market pricing (tv, telephone, internet). Even now, in
North America we have to look hard to find equivalent pricing and I'm not even
sure we can come close. At the time it started the Freebox, Free came like a
liberator and in the process racked up subscribers and made billions.

~~~
nagrom
I think we're talking at cross-purposes :-) Did you donate any money to Google
or Freebox because of their kind and generous offers, or did you use their
free service and just expect them t figure the money part out themselves? (For
what it's worth, I switched to GMail and I sure as hell didn't pay Google any
money for it voluntarily!)

You're talking about amazing smash-it-out-the-ballpark-and-out-compete
strategies. I'm talking about being generous for no obvious reason and letting
it float back in on the tide.

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colinprince
This is a common problem, people who are unable or unwilling to sign up to
iTunes with a credit card.

Potential service idea: hook these people up with gifted apps that they can
pay for some other way? Maybe payment in kind?

~~~
eli
You don't need a credit/debit card. At least around me, iTunes gift cards can
be purchased for cash at pretty much any supermarket or pharmacy or
convenience store.

~~~
albemuth
... in the US

~~~
bauchidgw
... in Austria

~~~
p4bl0
... in France and Netherland too.

~~~
bmunro
Australia too

~~~
robotresearcher
and Canada

~~~
tftfmacedo
and Spain

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EGreg
For a second, I thought that meant the author made the app open source :)

~~~
leon_
Nah, that would be too much for such a small PR stunt.

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antihero
$8 for a Stella? Ouch. That said, I paid £4.30 for a Carlsberg Export the
other day. Goddamnit Islington Academy :/

And don't knock Stella, it's one of the best of the "mainstream" lagers.

~~~
veyron
itd be more like 5.60 (after apple takes its cut)

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gotham
I met this guy at Startup Weekend in Manhattan last fall.

His "Sausage Status" pitch was hilarious. He started off by running and
jumping onto the stage. A very spontaneous individual.

~~~
cmb320
haha! That was actually my friend jeff greenspan. I'm not that good with
crowds.

~~~
gotham
Ah! Good to know.

He definitely had the most memorable--and cathartic--pitch that night.

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Shengster
Fine article, but what's up with the hate against Stella Artois?

~~~
nagrom
It depends where you hail from.

Brits and Americans will drink it because they have a HUGE advertising budget.

The Japanese won't drink it because imported beer is hellishly expensive and
Asahi isn't _that_ bad.

The French won't drink it, because wine is much cheaper and much better almost
everywhere.

Germans won't drink it, because if you want something better then there's
umpteen different domestic beers that are fresher, tastier or sharper.
Especially Flensburger.

The Czechs won't drink it because they more or less invented clean, refreshing
beers and their domestic beers are the only foreign beers that Germans will
admit to being fantastic. Especially Pilsner Urquell.

Belgians won't drink it, because they only like beer that's made from
raspberries, blueberries or pansies. I don't know why.

Americans or Brits who don't drink it suffer from 'intensely educated beer
drinker' syndrome - sort of a "now you've seen how big the world is, how can
you make do with this?" aspect. American and British small breweries are
_fantastic_ , alas no huge marketing budget...

This leaves the vast majority of the beer-drinking market to make Stella
Artois money hand-over-fist and puzzled at the rest of the world's
intolerance. Truth is, it's not that bad - it's just that there are things
that taste so much better without the stigma of a huge multi-national faceless
corporation ;-)

TL;DR - Something like Windows vs. the rest of the world. The popular choice
will always be sneered at by connoisseurs eager to distinguish themselves as
educated.

~~~
elliottcarlson
"Belgians won't drink it, because they only like beer that's made from
raspberries, blueberries or pansies. I don't know why."

Ouch! ;) With about 150 breweries and over 450 different beer varieties,
Belgium has way more than just the fruit based ones. Please find somewhere
near you that has Kasteelbier (preferably on tap, but that could be hard to
find anywhere outside of Belgium as bottles aren't that easy to locate here in
NY) - you won't regret it.

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DavidBishop
Awesome. The guy was a decent human being, but more than likely made 20, 30,
100 times back his purchase in goodwill. Brilliant.

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skrebbel
thread tl;dr: boring post, let's discuss beer instead.

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omouse
Alternative: release the source under the GNU GPL or some other open source
license. No such thing as piracy then ;)

~~~
allwein
I'd argue that violating the GPL is a form of piracy.

