As someone said here today,
Or time limits that are getting increasingly short with shareware these days, like 10 days instead of 30 days or even 60 minutes! Didn’t even bother downloading to try ones that had such tight time limitations.
It makes me wonder when I see a program or game that has only a 60 minute evaluation period before purchase is required. Does the developer have such a lack of confidence in the program being able to maintain interest beyond 1 hour, that the evaluation time is cut to such a brief period.
Does the company selling the program, feel that if the user is allowed to use the software for maybe just 5 or 7 days, the novelty would wear off, or the program would appear to be a lot less "polished" if given the opportunity to have a really good look, or "to sleep on it".
Perhaps the program only has a useful life of a few hours. If the user was permitted to run the software for a few days, there would be no need to purchase the software at all?
My pet peeve is utility software (crippleware) that only half fixes a problem (ie. repairs 50% of the errors) - you need to purchase for the program to complete the job... or software that only confirms that you have a problem - and a purchase is required for the software to help you any further (I downloaded the program because I ALREADY KNEW I had a problem)
Perhaps all of this is a reflection of the lack of trust consumers feel is shown by software companies, or is this necessary because ultimately software users are cheap and undeserving of trust?
Is it any wonder that today, so many people when shown a program with some evaluation limits (ie. Shareware) will go out of their way to tell the world about another program that "does the same thing" or "is free" even if the shareware is a fantastic program.