I happened to notice the above when I installed the newest version of TextExpander.
I’m sorry, did you say 5.39 HOURS?
Now, mind you this is over a pretty long course of time. It’s not like I’m saving 5 hours a day or week, but still, 5 hours is 5 hours.
Let me also say that I’m not a fast typer by any means. I can get by, but I’ll never make the secretarial pool. Given that, I think “at 400 characters per minute” should be “at 400 correct characters per minute” since I don’t have to worry about typos in those character blocks either.
Like many people (or at least a few loud ones), I was annoyed when the free Textpander became the $30 TextExpander, and not just because of the weird random capitalization thing in the middle of the word.
I was annoyed for the same reason I’m always annoyed when free software becomes pay-only software… and it has nothing to do with what our friend calls the “freetards” argument that “Information wants to be free!” which is actually (usually) just code for “I don’t want to pay for anything, ever! If I think it’s good, I’ll pay for it. Honest. Really. I will.”
No, what annoys me is this: If you want to make improvements on a piece of free software and charge for it, great. Have at it, carry on and good luck.
However, leave the free version alone.
If the free version is good enough for me, let me use it, and let me re-download it if I need to. Don’t make me keep a local copy of the DMG or installer for your free program just because I may need to reinstall someday and I’m afraid it will be gone. If you’re afraid the existence and availability of a free version is going to effect the sales of your commercial version, that’s probably a good sign that you aren’t really adding as much value to it as you think you are.
However, TextExpander has come a long way since then, especially with the use of .Mac syncing, which I ♥♥♥ and consider absolutely necessary if you use more than one Mac.
TextExpander is one of those things your fingers needs to be able to just do without thinking about it, and if I sit down at the iMac and try a shortcut I only have on my MacBook, that makes me think about it. .Mac syncing to the rescue!
So is $30 too much for TextExpander? I thought so when it first came out ($20 was my target price) but even at $30 / 5.39 hours = $5.56/hour. What’s your hourly rate? Mine’s more than $6/hour. Assuming I actually did anything productive with at least a couple of those hours, TextExpander has paid for itself… and will continue to do so to the point where I might even make money by having it.
We often hear talk about gadgets, software, etc making our lives easier, saving us time, etc. Here’s a case where it’s actually demonstrably true.