#Want Ads
Right now, I'll just jump on the business about sending out freebie
"review" copies. I've seen this from both sides: I derive a fair
amount of income from my writing, too, and that sometimes means
asking for review software. I also take the phone calls from
j-random people asking for free 3D-ROMs or InterChanges.
Of course the people doing the asking always have the greatest
justifications for the donation: they're important, they can read and
write and speak English, they can operate a computer. 🙂 They're
utterly confident that this freebie will cause a dramatic increase in
sales, make my whites whiter and my brights brighter, shine my shoes
and bring home the bacon. They never consider that their particular
publishing venue might have little to no effect on the world, or that
we might've already reached their customers before.
(Hey, I've seen Jerry Pournelle drunk at 8 am COMDEX press briefings,
complaining that he doesn't get enough free computers and software,
that he can't pile the stuff higher or deeper, and that he's running
out of camp follower friends to give the excess to. This is what
endless freebies can do: warp your brain, disengage the value of
software from its price, etc., and otherwise encourage suck-ups.)
Please at least allow me to exercise some discrimination in handing
our freebies! No, I'm not going to hand over stuff to any transient
net denizen who claims to be writing a newsletter or magazine. At
least let me wait to see if they can deliver one issue! I'm not going
to make money by handing out two copies for every one sold. (And
this discussion has nothing to do with the size of Autodesk's
advertising budget for 3DS versus the sales revenue from 3DS. 🙂