DigiBuy's extended download service
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I am a shareware author, and DigiBuy is one of the registration services that I use. Whenever a customer writes to me and tells me that he or she lost my program’s setup file, I have always happily supplied them with another file. Back in August, DigiBuy introduced an “extended download service” (EDS), which gives a customer the option to pay $5 ($4 goes to DigiBuy, $1 to the author) and download the setup file again during the next year if they need to. Initially, I didn’t like the idea of taking $5 for what I have been doing free of charge. DigiBuy didn’t announce this service to authors by e-mail but only in their author administration area, and only on the very day they introduced it! So, by the time I learned of it weeks had passed and a fair number of my customers had already paid this $5 fee. So, rather than remove the option from my order form I decided to leave things alone and let the customer decide. A few days ago I wrote to DigiBuy for some clarification on how this system works. I assumed that they would keep copies of the different versions of my setup file that I upload to DigiBuy and would thereby be able to supply the customer with the same file they purchased. Wrong. They simply give the customer a link to whichever version is current. So, this can happen: customer buys version 3 today, half a year from now I release version 4 and upload the setup file to DigiBuy, the next day the customer contacts DigiBuy and asks for a new download link, and they get a link to version 4 without paying for the upgrade. At this point I’m more upset at DigiBuy than worried that customers will do what I’ve described to get an upgrade for $5. I believe that somebody at DigiBuy dreamed up this EDS option as a way to bring in more cash without doing any work to make this system work properly and without any regard for their authors. The fact that they didn’t announce this service to authors ahead of time and by e-mail leads me to suspect they didn’t want author to know and have the opportunity to remove this option. I’ve been very happy with DigiBuy until now, but feel this whole EDS thing was mishandled. I’ve exchanged e-mail with the author support manager and I’ve been told I’m the only one who has brought this up and that they won’t do any of the “extensive development” required to make the system work the way it’s described. Does anybody here use DigiBuy and if so what do you think about this?
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I am a shareware author, and DigiBuy is one of the registration services that I use. Whenever a customer writes to me and tells me that he or she lost my program’s setup file, I have always happily supplied them with another file. Back in August, DigiBuy introduced an “extended download service” (EDS), which gives a customer the option to pay $5 ($4 goes to DigiBuy, $1 to the author) and download the setup file again during the next year if they need to. Initially, I didn’t like the idea of taking $5 for what I have been doing free of charge. DigiBuy didn’t announce this service to authors by e-mail but only in their author administration area, and only on the very day they introduced it! So, by the time I learned of it weeks had passed and a fair number of my customers had already paid this $5 fee. So, rather than remove the option from my order form I decided to leave things alone and let the customer decide. A few days ago I wrote to DigiBuy for some clarification on how this system works. I assumed that they would keep copies of the different versions of my setup file that I upload to DigiBuy and would thereby be able to supply the customer with the same file they purchased. Wrong. They simply give the customer a link to whichever version is current. So, this can happen: customer buys version 3 today, half a year from now I release version 4 and upload the setup file to DigiBuy, the next day the customer contacts DigiBuy and asks for a new download link, and they get a link to version 4 without paying for the upgrade. At this point I’m more upset at DigiBuy than worried that customers will do what I’ve described to get an upgrade for $5. I believe that somebody at DigiBuy dreamed up this EDS option as a way to bring in more cash without doing any work to make this system work properly and without any regard for their authors. The fact that they didn’t announce this service to authors ahead of time and by e-mail leads me to suspect they didn’t want author to know and have the opportunity to remove this option. I’ve been very happy with DigiBuy until now, but feel this whole EDS thing was mishandled. I’ve exchanged e-mail with the author support manager and I’ve been told I’m the only one who has brought this up and that they won’t do any of the “extensive development” required to make the system work the way it’s described. Does anybody here use DigiBuy and if so what do you think about this?
This may not help you but thank you for the long descriptive narration you have provided concerning your problem. I am about to release my first "shareware" application, and would hate to have something like this happen. There are unscrupolous people out there, but I must admit if I had something like "Installshield" (Don't know if you can get it through Digibuy) and a major point release or upgrade came out I might be "extremely" tempted to get the upgrade for $5 instead of several hundred dollars. I believe they should have notified authors, look in their ToS I bet their is a disclaimer that states they have the right to make changes to the system without notifying any of the authors. Most ToS have these. Code4Food ---- "There is no try; only do or do not" -Yoda
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I am a shareware author, and DigiBuy is one of the registration services that I use. Whenever a customer writes to me and tells me that he or she lost my program’s setup file, I have always happily supplied them with another file. Back in August, DigiBuy introduced an “extended download service” (EDS), which gives a customer the option to pay $5 ($4 goes to DigiBuy, $1 to the author) and download the setup file again during the next year if they need to. Initially, I didn’t like the idea of taking $5 for what I have been doing free of charge. DigiBuy didn’t announce this service to authors by e-mail but only in their author administration area, and only on the very day they introduced it! So, by the time I learned of it weeks had passed and a fair number of my customers had already paid this $5 fee. So, rather than remove the option from my order form I decided to leave things alone and let the customer decide. A few days ago I wrote to DigiBuy for some clarification on how this system works. I assumed that they would keep copies of the different versions of my setup file that I upload to DigiBuy and would thereby be able to supply the customer with the same file they purchased. Wrong. They simply give the customer a link to whichever version is current. So, this can happen: customer buys version 3 today, half a year from now I release version 4 and upload the setup file to DigiBuy, the next day the customer contacts DigiBuy and asks for a new download link, and they get a link to version 4 without paying for the upgrade. At this point I’m more upset at DigiBuy than worried that customers will do what I’ve described to get an upgrade for $5. I believe that somebody at DigiBuy dreamed up this EDS option as a way to bring in more cash without doing any work to make this system work properly and without any regard for their authors. The fact that they didn’t announce this service to authors ahead of time and by e-mail leads me to suspect they didn’t want author to know and have the opportunity to remove this option. I’ve been very happy with DigiBuy until now, but feel this whole EDS thing was mishandled. I’ve exchanged e-mail with the author support manager and I’ve been told I’m the only one who has brought this up and that they won’t do any of the “extensive development” required to make the system work the way it’s described. Does anybody here use DigiBuy and if so what do you think about this?
CyberSky wrote: So, this can happen: customer buys version 3 today, half a year from now I release version 4 and upload the setup file to DigiBuy, the next day the customer contacts DigiBuy and asks for a new download link, and they get a link to version 4 without paying for the upgrade. This is piracy. They can't do this. Sue them and collect more money than your shareware will ever make. My latest article: SQL Server DO's and DONT's[^]
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I am a shareware author, and DigiBuy is one of the registration services that I use. Whenever a customer writes to me and tells me that he or she lost my program’s setup file, I have always happily supplied them with another file. Back in August, DigiBuy introduced an “extended download service” (EDS), which gives a customer the option to pay $5 ($4 goes to DigiBuy, $1 to the author) and download the setup file again during the next year if they need to. Initially, I didn’t like the idea of taking $5 for what I have been doing free of charge. DigiBuy didn’t announce this service to authors by e-mail but only in their author administration area, and only on the very day they introduced it! So, by the time I learned of it weeks had passed and a fair number of my customers had already paid this $5 fee. So, rather than remove the option from my order form I decided to leave things alone and let the customer decide. A few days ago I wrote to DigiBuy for some clarification on how this system works. I assumed that they would keep copies of the different versions of my setup file that I upload to DigiBuy and would thereby be able to supply the customer with the same file they purchased. Wrong. They simply give the customer a link to whichever version is current. So, this can happen: customer buys version 3 today, half a year from now I release version 4 and upload the setup file to DigiBuy, the next day the customer contacts DigiBuy and asks for a new download link, and they get a link to version 4 without paying for the upgrade. At this point I’m more upset at DigiBuy than worried that customers will do what I’ve described to get an upgrade for $5. I believe that somebody at DigiBuy dreamed up this EDS option as a way to bring in more cash without doing any work to make this system work properly and without any regard for their authors. The fact that they didn’t announce this service to authors ahead of time and by e-mail leads me to suspect they didn’t want author to know and have the opportunity to remove this option. I’ve been very happy with DigiBuy until now, but feel this whole EDS thing was mishandled. I’ve exchanged e-mail with the author support manager and I’ve been told I’m the only one who has brought this up and that they won’t do any of the “extensive development” required to make the system work the way it’s described. Does anybody here use DigiBuy and if so what do you think about this?
I've never used Digibuy, so feel free to ignore me if I'm talking rubbish, but wouldn't it be possible when you release a new version to just list it as a seperate product I.e. MyApp 1.0 is released then you make a new version, to which people have to pay an upgrade. You'd list this as a seperate entry MyApp 2.0 That way people who've paid for 1.0 can only re-download 1.0 -- Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit!
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I've never used Digibuy, so feel free to ignore me if I'm talking rubbish, but wouldn't it be possible when you release a new version to just list it as a seperate product I.e. MyApp 1.0 is released then you make a new version, to which people have to pay an upgrade. You'd list this as a seperate entry MyApp 2.0 That way people who've paid for 1.0 can only re-download 1.0 -- Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit!
Yes, what you describe is possible. The DigiBuy author support manager offered to let me add new products without paying the normal fee. The only drawback is that a new version would have a different product number so the ordering links in older versions of my program's Help file would still point to the ordering page for the previous version. I can disable ordering of that product, though, so this might work out just fine.