Quote:
Originally Posted by tbhausen
Market forces, if unspoiled by outside influences like piracy, dictate the value proposition. If something's overpriced and the value proposition isn't there, that seller will perish or adjust accordingly. Piracy skews this equation, by driving prices artificially high.
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That scenario seems to assume perfect competition, whereas in reality some of these big software companies wield monopolistic pricing power. And, actually, monopolistic power drives prices artificially high.
Bootlegging of software could very easily drive the market price
down to a more-reasonable new equilibrium price as a monopolistic firm must compete with the cheaper substitute good -- the pirated software (which is not truly zero-cost, as evidenced by the fact that many people would buy the legitimate copy instead if it were priced more reasonably).
I'm not advocating piracy. But there is certainly a distinction that needs to be drawn between bootlegging a massively-price-gouged program from a piggy, multi-billion-dollar, monopolistic corporation, and bootlegging a very useful and inexpensive program that some tiny startup company developed on a shoestring budget.