HACKER Q&A
📣 EdwinLarkin

Would you find antipiracy telemetry intrusive?


I am interested in how much revenue I am losing due to piracy. I have a pretty liberal pricing model and no DRM. I dont enforce a strict license agreements and if the user decides to use the copy of the software on many more devices instead of buying a teams license i have no way of knowing.

I am trying to add more value to the more expensive team license so the customers can justify spending that kind of money.

However I would really like to know how much money I am losing because of piracy or people not really caring about the fair use of the license they bought.

I dont have a subscription model and I dont plan to introduce one.

  👤 bediger4000 Accepted Answer ✓
Why, yes, I would find antipiracy telemetry intrusive, and I would avoid it at almost all cost.

First: the "telemetry" will necessarily opaque, and I won't know what's being returned to the "antipirates".

Second: the "telemetry" will be using network connections that I pay for, and will almost certainly be a pig because the "antipirate" will have no motivation to be careful.

Third: the "telemetry" will have bugs, bugs that will mysteriously take down some of my network connections or hardware.

I will personally avoid all such rubbish attempts to make me bear more than my share of the costs, and further, like installing ad blockers, I will do what I can to thwart such "telemetry" on networks I control.

I relinquish my time.

👤 wprapido
Absolutely!