I suspect it's true in the NH bubble, but I strongly suspect that very few pirates then go on to buy the product.
When I've wanted to give some money to the author of a book I've downloaded it's really easy; I just go to a store (or Amazon, where buying stuff is really easy) and buy any book from that author on the same publisher. But for digital stuff it's often harder, with annoying websites, weird cart checkout systems, a stupid bit of credit card security theatre thrown in, some spammy email checkboxes to remember to click (or not click), etc. And this is when you want to buy it - that's too much friction for most pirates.
> I suspect it's true in the NH bubble, but I strongly suspect that very few pirates then go on to buy the product.
I think that in other conditions where pirates never go on to buy something they've pirated (gawd, "pirate" is such an awful term for this -- there are no eyepatches and cutlasses involved), they just wouldn't fucking buy it in the first place if they couldn't pirate it.
> But for digital stuff it's often harder, with annoying websites, weird cart checkout systems, a stupid bit of credit card security theatre thrown in, some spammy email checkboxes to remember to click (or not click), etc. And this is when you want to buy it - that's too much friction for most pirates.
That's a bad business model, and in no way contradicts the notion that people who pirate would like to buy later a lot of the time. Reduce the friction in the purchase process, and you'll make more money. It's almost tautological. Keeping the hurdles to purchase high then blaming the results on piracy is completely asinine.
I suspect it's true in the NH bubble, but I strongly suspect that very few pirates then go on to buy the product.
When I've wanted to give some money to the author of a book I've downloaded it's really easy; I just go to a store (or Amazon, where buying stuff is really easy) and buy any book from that author on the same publisher. But for digital stuff it's often harder, with annoying websites, weird cart checkout systems, a stupid bit of credit card security theatre thrown in, some spammy email checkboxes to remember to click (or not click), etc. And this is when you want to buy it - that's too much friction for most pirates.
I'd love to see some decent research.