FelixG said:
Guy 1 asks Guys 2 who owns property A if he can have a copy as he cant afford it. Guy 2 says sure, go ahead and download it, then teases a bit about feeling guilty, and recommends compensating Guy 2 for it if he enjoyed it.
He understand the concept of lost sales better than you it seems, he knows that the guy who had asked him wouldnt be a lost sale so he doesnt sweat it. The guy didnt feel entitled, he asked and was given permission.
Yeah! That's what I was getting at, and you took the point further than I did.
And for that matter, there's a large section of the public that is getting very annoyed with the steps certain parties take to "prevent" piracy (in ways that chiefly don't work, but do manage to annoy legitimate users/owners). Seeing Notch, who's actually got a really competent product at a decent price, take a stand the other direction is... relieving. It proves there's another way out of this bind, and that there are some businessmen who are willing to take it.
Because there's something to be said for public perception, and it's got its own perks for a business. The effect here is harder to track but it matters.
There's an anecdote - I forget from where - about this kid who went to Disneyland with his family. He and his sister went off and bought a set of glasses for their parents, but accidentally dropped and broke them. Someone said to go talk to the shopkeepers, and the kids said "But why would they do anything? It's our fault." But they went anyway.
The shopkeepers said "We should've packaged them so they could withstand a little thing like a drop," and cheerfully gave them a new set. They didn't have to do this, clearly. But it left the entire family with a very good feeling toward the park's policies, and in the decades after the incident the family spent many vacations there, convinced friends to go, and used Disneyland for certain business outings.
Think of how much money the park made over the years, compared to the cost of that one set of glasses.
