Giving away your software isn’t a new idea .
Paint shop Pro was originally Given away of the cover of PC magazines… On a 3.5” Floppy disk.
it was a much less developed program at that point,.
PK Zip (later to become WinZip ) was given away in the same way. for years…
Both products were purchased by bigger companies,... Both products now retail for a price.
Those were not unique cases,.
I was a working adult when skateboards appeared, and they weren’t new,. or even a new idea, but they were marginally better than a slab of scrap wood, or a large book (the Broons or Oor Wullie Annual) sitting precariously on top of a roller skate. which you would sit on , and roll downhill, usually crashing in a heap halfway down.
Skateboards were the next Hoola hoop,. the next fad, and like many products, they disappear but emerge as “Retro”, given enough time, and a manufacturer eager to cash in.
History is always repeating itself,..
By offering a product cheaply or free, you attract new customers. Some will play with it, and give it up,. some will love it and become your customers for life.
the Romans knew this, and would give FREE bread, with every basket of fish, simply to move the product,.. quickly.!
if your product improves, then you’ll gain more customers.
If it doesn’t they’ll go elsewhere. ....to avoid the fishy smell,.
It’s not a case of , we don’t have the development resources, so we’ll just sit back and watch our customers walking away.
if you want people to buy what you sell,.. you need to constantly make it attractive to them.
On the economy point,...
Greedy wealthy industrialists caused the first stock exchange crashes, and greedy wealthy bankers collapsed the western economy. and that lead to global meltdown.
History is always repeating itself.
The longer you’re around, the more you’ll see that.
I really can’t see where Carrara’s market lies in the future. And honestly I don’t see a real market for it. When there’s free software that does the really cool stuff much better (Blender), and free stuff that does essentially the same thing (DAZ Studio and Hex and Bryce),
as you say,. Things change,.. but some things remain constant.
Customers change. Buying habits change.
but,.. You’re parents bought a car, and so will you, and so will your children.
some things remain constant.
History is always repeating itself.
There’s no guarantee that somewhere down the line Blender won’t start charging, or won’t disappear. or be bought by a BIG company.
or that Daz won’t release an I phone app that will earn it a bucket load of cash.,..
or that Daz Studio, Bryce and Hexagon, won’t be sold again, instead of given away to promote Daz’s core business,
selling content, .created by users,.. for users. while taking a cut for retailing it.
That’s always been Daz3D’s core business,. Not developing software,. or marketing software. that’s a recent addition. but the core business model remains the same.
Having your OWN software product, frees you, as a company, from any reliance on another company’s development strategy.
and Carrara , Studio, Bryce and hexagon are all part of that overall strategy.
enabling more users to become creators and sellers of content, as well as remaining buyers of content.
One sales strategy which is tested and proven,... is to give some of your product ,.. (or an offer of a discount) ..inside a magazine.
This promotes your software,. gives you advertising / editorial space,. ..while providing a purchasing incentive for the magazine buyer.
Both the software seller, and magazine seller,.. benefit from that arrangement.
Yeah, I know…I’m mean and cruel and blah, blah, blah
I don’t agree with this,.. I don’t think your deliberately being mean and cruel,. after all, ...what’s the point in that. ?
I think that sometimes,. you’re assuming you know something,.. perhaps wrongly,. or just misunderstanding what someone meant.
Those are things we all do from time to time.
but,.. it’s about how the individual reacts to someone who is obviously feeling attacked by what they wrote.
do they continue the attack or do they stop and think about what’s going on.
there’s a difference between a debate, and an argument.
We all Live and Learn ,... hopefully 
