An idea for commercial support for D

[Joakim via Digitalmars-d]

On Thursday, 8 January 2015 at 12:06:18 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad 
wrote:
> On Thursday, 8 January 2015 at 10:37:57 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>> supply/demand curve for his product.  In this variable pricing 
>> model, the customer also takes some of that risk, ie you'll 
>> pay more if enough other people don't also want the product.
>
> Businesses don't like risk. They need to estimate the total 
> cost before starting the project. I don't think you can 
> advertising "less bugs" as a feature. It has to be a real 
> feature like better performance.

Yes, I've already established the risk aspect, this variable 
pricing model is fundamentally about better risk sharing and the 
customer not being very price-sensitive.  As for estimating the 
total cost, the seller also needs to estimate his expected 
revenue, ie how much demand there is and at what price.  With 
this model, you are allowing the seller to get a better estimate 
and more certainty.  Meanwhile, the buyer takes on more risk, but 
if he wants that product to exist, he may be willing to do that.

I have no idea why you're talking about bugs and performance, as 
a variable pricing model has nothing to do with those software 
features.  Maybe you're talking about the paid patches idea I 
laid out earlier, but that's a completely separate concept from 
this variable pricing model.  Suffice to say, paid patches can be 
written for both bugfixes and performance: I never limited it to 
just bugfixes.

> Your assumption is that businesses start on a project and then 
> later discover that they cannot work within the limits of the 
> tools and are willing to pay a premium for it. Sure, that is 
> possible, but your business model is flawed because it is based 
> on your customers having a embarked on a project with a flawed 
> plan in order to become a customer.

I assume nothing about when a business discovers limits.  
Presumably you're talking about the completely unrelated paid 
patches idea here, but if D becomes much more capable because of 
paid patches, companies will be much more willing to come in new 
and use D, regardless of whether they have to pay or not.  Sure, 
the first to pay will be existing companies using D, but you 
could attract a lot of new companies with paid patches, as what 
they really care about is having access to good tools.