<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>axg11</author><text>You&amp;#x27;re describing the complexity of achieving the outcome. That is a great achievement - you spent months of work to achieve something technically complex. Congratulations, sincerely. However, to the end user, Lunar is a utility that controls screen brightness. I too am not surprised that many people are reluctant to pay a yearly subscription to control the brightness of their display.</text><parent_chain><item><author>alin23</author><text>It’s not &lt;i&gt;screen dimming&lt;/i&gt;. It is an app to fully control the monitor without using its physical buttons.&lt;p&gt;Lunar can change the hardware brightness, the same one that you can change using the monitor OSD. That in itself required a lot of reverse engineering and research about the DDC protocol.&lt;p&gt;Adaptive brightness, ambient light sensor integration and other automatic features also needed months of non-stop work.&lt;p&gt;Plus, the app is open source, trying to give something back to the community which gave me the inspiration to create this: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;alin23&amp;#x2F;Lunar&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;alin23&amp;#x2F;Lunar&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Even with $23 per license, after taxes I barely make half of what I made at my previous job where I worked less hours.&lt;p&gt;I don’t understand how you can dismiss this so simply.&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    the people pirating your software probably wouldn&amp;#x27;t have paid for it anyhow
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
I heard this argument so many times.. it&amp;#x27;s like saying to someone who just got their bike stolen while they were trying to sell it&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    | the thief would have probably never bought it
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
If you don&amp;#x27;t need the Pro features, don&amp;#x27;t pay for them and don&amp;#x27;t use them. Simple as that. Why does it feel okay to steal them in the software world, but it&amp;#x27;s clearly a crime in the real world?</text></item><item><author>jpalawaga</author><text>Not that you asked my opinion, but $23&amp;#x2F;year for screendimming software--its no wonder people crack this.&lt;p&gt;The only realistic scenario that I&amp;#x27;d pay that is if my employer was fronting the cost. Then again, maybe for some people it really is delivering that much value.&lt;p&gt;Lunar lite and rcmd seem priced fairly. If it makes you feel any better (probably not), the people pirating your software probably wouldn&amp;#x27;t have paid for it anyhow. Or if they did pay for it, would pay for it with things like stolen app store giftcards.&lt;p&gt;In another life, I was quite money-limited, and so I downloaded basically every game, movie, song, and app. I didn&amp;#x27;t feel badly about it either. I was never going to buy the media. I couldn&amp;#x27;t. Once I got old enough and had enough disposable income to not have to pirate things, I stopped. But quashing my piracy would have never equated in more sales. Anyone who sees a pirate download and assume that&amp;#x27;s a lost sale is deluded--its not happening.&lt;p&gt;I think the best methods are trying to get people to pay (who haven&amp;#x27;t already) are probably guilt or a productive-spirited suggestion. If you can detect that someone is cracking your software or doesn&amp;#x27;t have a valid license, put a donation link in the shape of a coffee cup in the corner of your software. At least people have the option to support you. Otherwise--you&amp;#x27;ll never best the crackers.</text></item><item><author>alin23</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m tired of the TnT Russian team cracking my macOS apps. Both Lunar (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;lunar.fyi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;lunar.fyi&lt;/a&gt;) and rcmd (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;lowtechguys.com&amp;#x2F;rcmd&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;lowtechguys.com&amp;#x2F;rcmd&lt;/a&gt;) are now available for free on macOS piracy websites.&lt;p&gt;I made many attempts at discouraging this through anti-piracy measures I learned while working as a malware researcher a few years ago. But if I want my apps to also be available on offline devices, there&amp;#x27;s really no way to combat this.&lt;p&gt;The apps are also targetted more toward power users which are more likely to know about cracked apps. This is really hurting indie devs.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Russia to legalize software piracy</title><url>https://writing.kemitchell.com/2022/03/05/Russia-to-Legalize-Software-Piracy.html</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>AnonHP</author><text>Not GP.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Even with $23 per license, after taxes I barely make half of what I made at my previous job where I worked less hours.
I don’t understand how you can dismiss this so simply.&lt;p&gt;Seeing the odd numbered price of $23, I presume you have tried different pricing tiers and options, since pricing is a matter of elasticity and finding the right price point to maximize your revenue would require some effort.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;   the people pirating your software probably wouldn&amp;#x27;t have paid for it anyhow
I heard this argument so many times.. it&amp;#x27;s like saying to someone who just got their bike stolen while they were trying to sell it
    | the thief would have probably never bought it&lt;p&gt;Actually, that saying about piracy is true many a times. It doesn’t matter that it doesn’t work in your favor either way. Anecdotally, I decide what I’m willing to pay for something and what I’m not willing to pay for something. Have I pirated software? Yes, I have in the distant past. And during those times, I wouldn’t have bought them at those prices either.&lt;p&gt;Maybe you need to change your website messaging to encourage those who cannot or will not pay to use the Lite version and encourage those who want the Pro version to pay. Pricing doesn’t have to be static all the time.&lt;p&gt;I hope you find the best options that work well for you and your customers.</text><parent_chain><item><author>alin23</author><text>It’s not &lt;i&gt;screen dimming&lt;/i&gt;. It is an app to fully control the monitor without using its physical buttons.&lt;p&gt;Lunar can change the hardware brightness, the same one that you can change using the monitor OSD. That in itself required a lot of reverse engineering and research about the DDC protocol.&lt;p&gt;Adaptive brightness, ambient light sensor integration and other automatic features also needed months of non-stop work.&lt;p&gt;Plus, the app is open source, trying to give something back to the community which gave me the inspiration to create this: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;alin23&amp;#x2F;Lunar&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;alin23&amp;#x2F;Lunar&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Even with $23 per license, after taxes I barely make half of what I made at my previous job where I worked less hours.&lt;p&gt;I don’t understand how you can dismiss this so simply.&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    the people pirating your software probably wouldn&amp;#x27;t have paid for it anyhow
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
I heard this argument so many times.. it&amp;#x27;s like saying to someone who just got their bike stolen while they were trying to sell it&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    | the thief would have probably never bought it
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
If you don&amp;#x27;t need the Pro features, don&amp;#x27;t pay for them and don&amp;#x27;t use them. Simple as that. Why does it feel okay to steal them in the software world, but it&amp;#x27;s clearly a crime in the real world?</text></item><item><author>jpalawaga</author><text>Not that you asked my opinion, but $23&amp;#x2F;year for screendimming software--its no wonder people crack this.&lt;p&gt;The only realistic scenario that I&amp;#x27;d pay that is if my employer was fronting the cost. Then again, maybe for some people it really is delivering that much value.&lt;p&gt;Lunar lite and rcmd seem priced fairly. If it makes you feel any better (probably not), the people pirating your software probably wouldn&amp;#x27;t have paid for it anyhow. Or if they did pay for it, would pay for it with things like stolen app store giftcards.&lt;p&gt;In another life, I was quite money-limited, and so I downloaded basically every game, movie, song, and app. I didn&amp;#x27;t feel badly about it either. I was never going to buy the media. I couldn&amp;#x27;t. Once I got old enough and had enough disposable income to not have to pirate things, I stopped. But quashing my piracy would have never equated in more sales. Anyone who sees a pirate download and assume that&amp;#x27;s a lost sale is deluded--its not happening.&lt;p&gt;I think the best methods are trying to get people to pay (who haven&amp;#x27;t already) are probably guilt or a productive-spirited suggestion. If you can detect that someone is cracking your software or doesn&amp;#x27;t have a valid license, put a donation link in the shape of a coffee cup in the corner of your software. At least people have the option to support you. Otherwise--you&amp;#x27;ll never best the crackers.</text></item><item><author>alin23</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m tired of the TnT Russian team cracking my macOS apps. Both Lunar (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;lunar.fyi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;lunar.fyi&lt;/a&gt;) and rcmd (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;lowtechguys.com&amp;#x2F;rcmd&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;lowtechguys.com&amp;#x2F;rcmd&lt;/a&gt;) are now available for free on macOS piracy websites.&lt;p&gt;I made many attempts at discouraging this through anti-piracy measures I learned while working as a malware researcher a few years ago. But if I want my apps to also be available on offline devices, there&amp;#x27;s really no way to combat this.&lt;p&gt;The apps are also targetted more toward power users which are more likely to know about cracked apps. This is really hurting indie devs.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Russia to legalize software piracy</title><url>https://writing.kemitchell.com/2022/03/05/Russia-to-Legalize-Software-Piracy.html</url></story>