True. It is entirely possible that this change will make a large percentage of people pay for mIRC. However, that's highly unlikely. Yes, some additional people will. But it's unlikely that it will be a significant portion of those who refused to pay up till now. And all new payments can't be considered as being paid because of the change. You have to consider that there are people who are just picking this up for the first time and paying for it as well. You'd have to look at the percent of increase in payments to see what change there is.
Indeed I would. As would you. As I said before though, neither of us have that information so it's pointless for anyone to try and argue a point based purely on our own speculation.
As far as "other people's money" ... if I was a sole programmer for something and released it for money, I wouldn't put protections on it. Even when it's my own money, my opinion on the matter doesn't change.
Allow me to re-phrase my point then: It's a lot easier to be high-minded about these things
in theory than in practice. I don't know what work you do, but I'm willing to bet a lot of money you wouldn't appreciate it if someone suggested that you shouldn't bother trying to chase down customers who don't pay.
Now, in this situation, this is (I believe) Khaled's only program. As he isn't making any other programs that could bring in money and he only charges people once per lifetime to use it, I can see where trying to find a way to get more money coming in is important. I can't imagine there are that many new registrations these days. Most people who are going to get mIRC have already done so by now. It isn't exactly a new program. It would be different if he were making other programs, he'd have other sources for income, or if he required paying for mIRC multiple times (perhaps $10-20 for each major update -- 5.x to 6.x or 6.1x to 6.2x for example). But the way it stands now, his income from mIRC should be dwindling and he needs some way to change that. I honestly don't see much chance of getting mIRC to start bringing in a lot of income again, though. It's just used too much already. There aren't enough new users these days and that isn't likely to change with IRC use dropping slowly.
Well again that's all assumptions, although it seems rather naive. Internet access is still growing at a fast rate, broadband access is largely replacing dial-up in many areas - which means more flat monthly fees instead of hourly rates, community and city-wide wireless LAN networks are being brought up in in a lot of places providing convenient and cheap/free internet access to millions. I don't see how you could come to the conclusion that mIRC has all the users it will ever get, as if the Internet is 'full' or something.
This whole thread started badly and I can only see it going south from here so I think I'll bail out now.
