Is piracy beneficial for online stores, or 'what's the big deal?'

The main point of the article will focus on the pragmatic aspect, or rather just a part of it; otherwise, the article would be too extensive or, as some say, "too many words." Therefore, in simple terms, we'll consider one perspective in the form of "what it gives" and "what it takes away."

Imagine you need to build a store from scratch or add functionality to an existing one. You are faced with a choice. You can install a "conditionally free version from pirates" or purchase a module. It doesn't matter whether the total cost is a lot or a little. What matters is the essence.

In this case, most people associate piracy with its only advantage — being free. However, all the downsides that automatically follow this advantage are completely overlooked.

Let's consider two options, in accordance with the proposed choice.

Option 1

You downloaded a module from pirates; it is virus-free and does not contain shells or anything similar. In other words, it's perfect, like a unicorn. You happily install it in your store. Sales grow. Everything is great.

Time passes, and you need another module. But, as it turns out, there is no such module. Well, no problem, such things happen.

You go to a freelancer and are surprised to find that the cost of the modification is not 300-500 units but significantly more, by a factor of 10-20. Moreover, this is not even a full module but a patch for your store version.

You have a reasonable question — why is this happening? Where are all those eager module developers? Where are the suppliers of freebies?

It turns out that a certain author, Mephistocles (instead of always saying Vasya and Vasya, let's be a bit intellectual), once wanted to write a similar module, but the sales of his other modules dropped. Consequently, he decided to postpone this endeavor and focused on other projects, as he needed to eat every day (that's just how nature works).

It also turned out that those pioneers of the hundredth wave who have recently appeared simply do not know all the nuances of the engine, so they cannot do anything like it. And if they do, you'll have to deal with the consequences of their mistakes yourself.

Option 2

Grinding your teeth and fighting your greed, you still allocate some of your hard-earned money to purchase modules that are relatively cheap compared to their real cost.

Some time passes, and you need another functionality, and you are surprised to discover that Mephistocles has scratched his head and finally created a module with the necessary functions. Simply because not only you were grinding your teeth.

You're hesitant, the wolves are howling, but again you have the opportunity to either purchase an alternative version of the module or buy it.

Let's summarize the above options.

The whole point of the examples is in the very possibility of an alternative version and the possibility of purchasing a module. It is important to understand that, in the second option, the total cost of the online store in the long term becomes lower since modules with the necessary functionality are usually sold at very democratic prices. To simplify, two modules for 500 or one free and one custom-made for N thousand units, where N usually starts at 2-3.

You should look at the big picture. Many authors with a bunch of modules have some that turned out to be failures and uninteresting for online stores, some whose sales more or less covered the invested time, and some that eventually started bringing in profit.

If you look at these modules separately, you can draw quite incorrect conclusions. Just as online stores evaluate efficiency not by the super sales of a single product but by the overall volume, so do module authors evaluate efficiency by the overall financial picture.

Therefore, logic like "what's the big deal, the module is already selling well, so I can download an alternative exclusive from pirates" usually brings harm in the long run to these active search engine users who are looking for freebies.

It's like the famous example about the media and farmers, where it looks one way but happens differently. I'll explain for those unfamiliar.

There were two farmers. A hurricane came. What did the media show? The first farmer — devastation and horror. The second farmer managed to grow a giant apple. The latter is shown next to the apple with broad smiles.

In reality, it turns out that the first farmer's affected area was the part where the crops were damaged, but it was only 20-30% of the total mass, so instead of rabbits in cream, they had to settle for pork in tomatoes. The second farmer's crops were almost completely destroyed, and only the giant apple managed to survive (just because of its size).

The article is not propaganda or an artifact of ancient civilizations, so it does not require flame wars in the comments or outpourings like "pirates are representatives of an ancient profession." It's just one of the examples of different points of view. In this case, one of the pragmatic ones.

devimirochnik

P.S. from the site: we had a small article on a similar topic "About Freaks and People"