OK, bear with me here for a minute...
There's just as much piracy on the PC and the
consoles these days as there ever was on the
Amiga. Anyhing that is realeased on the PC (and
probably MAC too) can be had for free these
days. Same with MAME. I don't see any of our
local arcades going out of business, and CompUSA
is always busy when I'm in there. Any software
at Electronics Boutique is available free on the
internet, yet that store is always busy too.
Even the people I used to know who pirated always
bought the originals if the software was good. If it
wasn't, well it didn't ever get used. And give me
a break, remember the C64? There was just as much
piracy there, probably more, than on the Amiga, and
the C64 made it almost TEN YEARS despite being
horribly outdated. Granted, todays overall market
dynamics are much different, but for me it really
lessens the whole 'piracy killed the amiga' argument.
Sorry, but piracy has always existed on every platform.
Commodore died because they never advertised and had
wrecked business skills. And the fact that software
was still being produced at a steady rate almost
three years after the platform died shows me that
there was a decent market despite the pirates.
The idea that the Amiga users at the time were
somehow less honest/integrous overall than the
users of other platforms doesn't stand up to
philosophical evaluation, either.
And before Mountainmyst makes another one of his
lame ass 'we don't like A-Inc's dongle because we
are pirates' comments, I have thousands of dollars
invested into my CD collection, and easily that if
not more invested in to the software I've bought
over the years, so you can just shove it.
The reason why I don't like the dongle is
because A-Inc is restricting my hardware options
as a legal customer. I can only run OS4 on the
A-1. Their philosophy pisses me off, the pirates
will hack the OS to run on other systems anyway,
while people like me who want to buy OS4 and
run it on the Pegasos can't. They have gone out
of their way to make sure that MorphOS doesn't
run on it. They have gone out of their way to
selfishly restrict the hardware. It's a marketing
scam, and because of that I won't buy it. The
Pegasos people, on the other hand, have gone out
of their way to ENSURE that their OS will run on
multiple platforms (except of course the A-1,
becasue A-Inc went out of their way to ensure
that it wouldn't). And that's not being negative,
those are the facts, and no offence at all is meant
to those who have purchased the A-1; it's just
my personal opinion. One things for sure though, I'm
feeling better and better by the day for signing
that petition a while back.
Maybe I'm wasting my time here, but I'd REALLY like
to see Mountainmyst explain to me how A-Inc's dongle
will stop piracy, when the pirates will hack the OS
anyway. And why wanting to PURCHASE OS4 and run it on
the Pegasos makes me pirate. Can you do that? If you
want to keep dodging the issue that's fine, but you
should at least be able to back up your arguments if
you're going to attatch them to insults.
Peace in the East,
-D-
