Discussion of Ethical Software Distribution

[basketb]

I believe that belongs to the intelligent kind of marketing! However, I see a small ethical problem with that: there are many users that had purchased this product, now Acronis is giving away copies of it for free

Just my 2 cents

Marin

Since the server is still unreachable for me, I can't confirm this but I would assume that the version that is now free to download and use does not come with any upgrade rights whereas the previously purchased one would (but this is just speculation on my part).
On the question of ethics, I would disagree with you because if you bought this version previously you have already (presumably) put it to good use for some time and therefore got your money's worth. It's not that you could have bought it yesterday as a newer version is already out and being sold.

[Marin85]

(had to go to the grocery...)

Those who are not interested in theoretical approaches are advised to skip this post

On the question of ethics, I would disagree with you because if you bought this version previously you have already (presumably) put it to good use for some time and therefore got your money's worth. It's not that you could have bought it yesterday as a newer version is already out and being sold.

I hope you won´t mind a strictly formal answer: While I have to agree with you from an economical point of view (price < or = utility), I believe if one wants to properly examine the ethical value of such a marketing campaign in general, one has to be able to make his conclusion (and thus have to make his examination) independent of "externalities", and by externalities I mean something like this (to illustrate): Imagine a customer having purchased this product but got sick for two years and thus never used his product, now this same product is for free (sorry for the unrealistic example, but still it´s an example...) or something more realistic, a customer who bought this product, but the CD (together with his activation key) got stolen and the key was used by the robbers. In both cases there is no utility for the customers induced by the purchase of this product even though both customers would have used the product under different circumstances. Of course, one could classify such cases as "bad luck", but the point is that an ethical approach should be universal, and this includes in particular that a given ethical understanding should be unified, means no "double moral" is allowed. In other words, a rightful ethical approach cannot apply different moral to "isolated cases", i.e. these both cases cannot be regarded as exceptional from an ethical point of view (...and what is even harder, even if one wants to distinguish "isolated" cases, one should define what "isolated" is supposed to mean in the framework of ethics, which I don´t consider as hard, but as impossible )

Just my 2 cents

Marin

EDIT: I added a headache warning...

[beGi]

To download it, wait until the most of Europe is asleep in another 4 hours or so

Yes, I thought that too.
I'm off to play some poker and have some , I hope I'll remember to download it...

Does anyone know how long is this download valid? I didn't see info about that...

[RealBlackStuff]

Pharmacokinetics

Silybin has low bioavailability. Marin, therefore, has been specially formulated to address this issue. It contains silybin in a complex with soybean phosphatidylcholine, resulting in superior absorption and bioavailability compared to silymarin or silybin administration alone. A study in dogs showed plasma silybin levels more than four times higher with administration of a silybin-phosphatidylcholine complex (SPC) than obtained with administration of silymarin alone (see graph). Studies in rats showed that administration of the silybin-phosphatidylcholine complex was capable of reaching effective intracellular levels in liver microsomes not achieved with silybin administration alone.

Sorry, but I could not follow Marin85's last post either...
You involved with dog medication?

[goofyGAguy]

LOL.

I guess he's basically saying life isn't fair.

[Marin85]

Oh, c´mon, RBS, I understand myself very well, plus I mentioned for those who are not interested in theoretical approaches to skip the post I´m gonna summarize it in a simple way then: basketb mentioned an ethical pattern (price=level of utility for the customer) according to which Acronis campaign is ethical. I found two examples where this ethical pattern doesn´t hold and then explained why a good ethical understanding cannot accept exceptions. Hence it follows that "customer utility=price" is not a good ethical pattern and hence cannot be applied in order to understand if Acronis marketing campaign is indeed ethical or not. Simple as angel´s piss!

Marin

[Marin85]

Just shorty back to the ethical problem: While I find Acronis campaign somewhat ingenious and understand that this product is their intellectual property and so they can do with it whatever they want to, I think it is unethical, not because of some exotic theory like above, but because it is a version of price discrimination. Price discrimination is despite its name an economical concept, not ethical, but I believe it has some serious ethical implications... But what am I thinking... Who is interested in ethics when one can get this product for free now...including myself

[Harryc]

Split from original thread. WAY off topic.

[dsvochak]

I think it is unethical, not because of some exotic theory like above, but because it is a version of price discrimination. Price discrimination is despite its name an economical concept, not ethical, but I believe it has some serious ethical implications

"Price discrimination" is signficantly different than a sale. "Price discrimination" is a term that could be applied to what has been called "dumping" (selling products imported into the US for less than what they sell for in the country of origin).

"Dumping" or "Price Discrimination" verges on unlawful in the US.

A sale is a whole different issue. If I pay $49 for an item that later goes on sale for $29, I don't think the seller owes me a $20 refund.

Apparently, Acronis is having a 100% off sale. I don't think I'm entitled to my money back on the Acronis products I've purchased.

[beGi]

Few things:

1. Economy is almost never ethical. Nor is marketing.

2. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

3. Ethics has vague boundaries.

[Marin85]

@beGi: I couldn´t agree more, my friend! Unfortunately, I´m somewhat idealist by soul...

@dsvochak: "Dumping" is what the Chinese make with selling underpriced products to fight competition (i.e. exporting tons of goods to countries where thy can sell them extremely cheap and with supply of vast amounts). That´s very different from price discrimination. Price discrimination doesn´t aim to fight competition (though it could be modified to do so), but to steal the consumer surplus by creating a priori consumer groups. A good example for price discrimination are different cinema ticket prices for students, seniors and "normal customers" . If the prices were equal for all groups (we take here the price for "normal customers"), there wouldn´t be so many seniors and students going to cinema (say they can´t afford it), hence the revenue would be smaller. Suppose the "unified" price was at the level affordable for seniors and students. Then the "normal customers" would pay the cheaper price even though they would in general pay a higher price to watch a movie. Hence to maximize your revenue in the given situation, it´s rational to create this price discrimination, basically you kill two rabbits with one shot - demand increase, price level incease (level here is important since there are different prices).

Why I think that Acronis campaign is an example for price discrimination? I would definitely agree that it doesn´t fit in the classic frame of price discrimination, but here are my reasons:
1. In this case one can observe two groups created: the first one is the one that was (or principally still is) willing to pay for this product for whatever reasons and bought the product. The second one is the group that wasn´t (resp. still isn´t) willing to pay for this product for whatever reasons (including that they cannot afford it although they may need it).
2. There are indeed two prices according to these groups: the price p of the product and the current price, which is 0!
3. One may criticize 2 because there is great time span in between. Why I don´t consider time as a factor? The only thing that happens thanks to time is the devaluation of the product due to general price processes in economy, due to new products etc. But you would agree that it´s unreasonable to think that the product has devaluated to 0. Acronis True Image 10 has always been an outstanding piece of software, it´s well compatible with Vista and probably with Win 7 as well.
4. Still, why is this price discrimination? Because by this campaign Acronis wants to make those customers, who weren´t willing to pay for their older product, willing to buy their new product.

Now, the reason why this scheme doesn´t really fit in the classic price discrimination frame is that we deal here with two different products. However, notice that Acronis is advertising their new product by offering their old product for free, that means their old product is not of a less quality (it may include less features but it´s nevertheless supposed to impress new potential customers). In the end of the day, in the market segment of home backup software there will be two groups: those who have already bought a product of Acronis and those who will buy the new product of Acronis.

And now, actually, comes the point of dsvochak: Acronis campaign is indeed a well-modified "dumping", it is unfair towards the competition. It also steals consumer surplus (simply consider the present value of version 10 and you get two different prices).

Just my two cents, probably worth less than 1,

Marin

EDIT: Eh, well, this was somewhat long shot...

[RealBlackStuff]

Personally I am not too upset by the "new" low price of V10.
I bought my official Acronis TrueImage V10 on 6/13/08 and paid only $8.51 with free shipping!
Got it off eBay from user overstock-sellers (currently nothing on offer).
He must have made a profit on that, so perhaps Acronis started shifting "old stock" cheap or free already last year!

[Marin85]

Personally I am not too upset by the "new" low price of V10.
I bought my official Acronis TrueImage V10 on 6/13/08 and paid only $8.51 with free shipping!
Got it off eBay from user overstock-sellers (currently nothing on offer).
He must have made a profit on that, so perhaps Acronis started shifting "old stock" cheap or free already last year!

Well, I guess that makes things less dramatic from an ethical point of view

Still, just a question: Suppose version 12 has a price of 50 € (the number is not so important) and Acronis pays 10.000 people from all over the world (and interested in computers stuff) 10 € to each one of them to use version 10, would you then consider such a campaign as OK with respect to "loyal competition" (the question is to every one, not only RBS, I´m interested to hear some opinions )

[dsvochak]

1. Distributing a product gratis isn’t generally a method “to maximize your revenue in the given situation”.

2. Time, new technology and products, and economic pressures are not factors that can be ignored. These factors can easily devalue to a product or service to 0. (As examples, look at the FS’s in the marketplace here or consider the plight of a blacksmith shoeing horses after the rise of automobiles).

3. Distributing a product gratis while simultaneously attempting to sell a newer version appears to be competing with yourself as opposed to unfair competition with another company.

4. “Stealing consumer surplus” is not a phrase with meaning in this context. Very few (or perhaps “no”) purchasers of Acronis products paid more than the purchaser decided was a fair price for the product. Given the availability of competing products, each purchaser made a choice to buy the Acronis product. Now, after time, product improvements, economic pressures, the product is being distributed free. While the product may have a value to the end user, it may not have a value above 0 in the marketplace.

5. “Ethics” isn’t a consideration in this context. The original comment appears to assume that, by accepting payment for the product, Acronis has some duty, perhaps in the nature of a warranty, to ensure for an indefinite period of time not only the usefulness of the product but it’s absolute value. Simply not the case. And the lack of, or failure to assume, such a duty isn’t unethical. It’s just life.

[Marin85]

This thread is getting interesting

Ad (1): I didn´t state that either. "Maximizing the revenue" refers to my example of classic price discrimination. I believe Acronis marketing campaign is non-classic example of price discrimination for the reason given in my previous post. Ok, I see your point. To clarify myself: I consider distributing this product for free as a marketing campaign for reasons I believe are already obvious or will become obvious within my further reply. A marketing campaign always aims in the end of the day to optimize your expected revenue at some point of time. I guess I should have specified this earlier (though I think it´s obvious. As you pointed out, distributing a product gratis has a revenue of exactly 0).

Ad (2): I don´t ignore time, business cycles etc as factors. But I believe that their influence on this specific software product is not so great that the product has been devalued to 0. Acronis True Image v10 is still an outstanding product, with competition strength, compatible with latest M$ OSes. It has a full set of features and hence is in position to induce utility to a consumer as much as any other similar program on the market. Therefore I wouldn´t say that it has been devalued.

Ad (3): I partly agree on that. But if this is so obvious, why would Acronis do that, especially before/during the release of their new product of that line? I believe the answer is "for marketing reasons". Although this campaign may appear contra-intuitive, its marketing potential shouldn´t be underestimated. There is something that very much distinguishes Acronis campaign from other competitors marketing strategies. In most cases you receive a 30 days trial version, often even not fully featured. Now, receiving TrueImage v10 for free, you receive so to speak an unlimited, fully featured trial of their product, so you will be able to evaluate their product for longer time. In particular, for this reason you would prefer to give a try to their "trial" instead to any other. What is more, there are two psychological effects here that shouldn´t be ignored:
(a) By getting something for free, the consumer feels richer and thus is disposed to spend more.
(b) Giving away a quality full featured product for free is considered by many customers as a sign of "good manners" and generosity. Hence such an act contributes to the popularity and positive image of Acronis among interested customers. Moreover, by such an act many customers feel the necessity to give something back (for example: buying Acronis new product, being loyal customer to the company, including stopping downloading pirated Acronis software etc)

And to finish the picture, the consumer will see what a nice product TrueImage v10 is and will then think "well, version 12 is newer, has more features and hence it´s even better than that one! I want it!"

Ad (4): Yes, I agree with you on this, it was my fault, I had to be more precise and say "Stealing future consumer surplus" since we are talking about a marketing campaign. Leading such a marketing campaign aims - directly or indirectly - to optimize expected/future revenue (at some point of time).

Ad (5): I believe the original comment was:

However, I see a small ethical problem with that: there are many users that had purchased this product, now Acronis is giving away copies of it for free

I didn´t specify in what way this interrelationship is unethical. I didn´t make such an assumption as the one you are referring to.


Thanks,

Marin

[RealBlackStuff]

In short, whether ethical or not, GET IT WHILE THE GOING IS GOOD!
Any freebie versions of such products are more than welcome.
C'mon Micro$haft, stop $hafting us and start giving Windows XP away for free!

[Marin85]

C'mon Micro$haft, stop $hafting us and start giving Windows XP away for free!

I´m telling the same thing regarding Win 7. I think all Vista users deserve free of cost upgrade to Win 7 (and I mean the real Win 7, not the lousy beta floating around that is anyway free of charge...).

Marin

[TheRedFox]

not to interrupt your idealistic conversation, but I have a few questions.
1. Where can I find this deal?
2. what functions does TrueImage perform? is it just backup, or can it do more?

[Marin85]

not to interrupt your idealistic conversation, but I have a few questions.
1. Where can I find this deal?
2. what functions does TrueImage perform? is it just backup, or can it do more?

Please refer to Get Acronis True Image 10 Free

Cheers,

Marin

[dsvochak]

While it's always nice to get something for free, why should MicroSoft start giving their products away?

[Marin85]

While it's always nice to get something for free, why should MicroSoft start giving their products away?

I don´t think they should start giving away all their products, but I think they should offer Vista users a free of charge upgrade to a corresponding edition of Windows 7. While I consider Vista to be improvement over XP, I think Vista is a failure as a product: it has some not-negligible problems that M$ seems to be unwilling to correct. Even after SP1 these problems are still present. In my opinion the presence of such issues is more than unacceptable for an after-XP-OS. (Not to mention the fact that Vista is far not the cheapest OS...)

Marin

[basketb]

I'm probably missing something (again), but MS is making most of its money with selling an OS. So, if they give away an OS for free (even if it's only for Vista users, which are only all the people who bought a new computer in the last two years), wouldn't they be out of business fairly soon?
Isn't what you are saying like saying Lenovo should give everyone who bought a T400/500 etc. a newer Thinkpad for free (when they come out) because the keyboards of these machines currently suck big time.

Slightly off-topic (disclaimer, I've never used Vista, but): Vista can't be as bad as you make it sound because you are still using it (voluntarily, I presume, as you could switch to XP or Linux).

[ajkula66]

Marin85 wrote:

While I consider Vista to be improvement over XP

Would you care to elaborate on this? I respect your opinions deeply, but would disagree with you on this one tremendously...

[Marin85]

I'm probably missing something (again), but MS is making most of its money with selling an OS. So, if they give away an OS for free (even if it's only for Vista users, which are only all the people who bought a new computer in the last two years), wouldn't they be out of business fairly soon?

Well, yes, that´s the problem Hence my request is nothing else but utopic.

Isn't what you are saying like saying Lenovo should give everyone who bought a T400/500 etc. a newer Thinkpad for free (when they come out) because the keyboards of these machines currently suck big time.

Nope, because they are willing to exchange the keyboards unlike M$ who is (just my assumption) indirectly using these little annoying issues to promote Win 7 ("Vista is such a nightmare! Wow, Win 7 is so great, so superior to Vista, even as beta! I must have it!" and these are not just the customers who are never happy...)

Vista can't be as bad as you make it sound because you are still using it (voluntarily, I presume, as you could switch to XP or Linux).

Well, to be honest, I can´t and I don´t want to switch (back) to XP because I found XP to be a nightmare for me. Also, I find Vista to be overall superior to XP despite its flaws which BTW I believe weren´t present in XP... I think it´s the details in the everyday use of an OS that make it an OS (from an user standpoint). Vista and XP are simply different concepts (also as problems) and cannot be compared that easily in my mind. As for Linux, actually I had and I´m still having the intention to switch to Linux, but as of now I´m stuck with windows for "technical" reasons...

[Marin85]

Would you care to elaborate on this? I respect your opinions deeply, but would disagree with you on this one tremendously...

Yes, in principle I would but I´m afraid that this might turn into an OS war But to clarify myself: it´s my simple everyday user experience that makes me see things that way. My experience with XP was so unfortunate no matter how many times I tried to give XP a chance that I finally gave up on XP.

Marin

EDIT:@ajkula66: I´m going to sleep now If you still want to continue this off-off-topic discussion later, I´ll be here

[ajkula66]

Marin85 wrote:

My experience with XP was so unfortunate no matter how many times I tried to give XP a chance that I finally gave up on XP.

Sounds like me and Vista...

[Marin85]

Sounds like me and Vista...

Since OS discussion is anyway off topic here, I´ll send you a PM when I´m back later.

Cheers

Marin