Needed: Dollar-a-Day Donation Scheme for Freeware

01Feb08

There are all these wonderful software gizmos in the world. So many of them are free, and so many of the free ones are so useful that it is just a shame to let their creators go without significant financial compensation.

There needs to be a freeware registration scheme, available for software (including e.g., Firefox add-ons) and also, perhaps, for other free works (e.g., e-books made available without charge), that will facilitate pay to those creative types.

This is an honor-system arrangement. I honestly do want to give those people a little something; I just don’t get around to it, or it seems like I might already have paid this guy once, or I’m not sure how much I’m supposed to donate, or how much payment is justified for my level of usage.

A little application, running on my computer, keeps track of how often I use the program. If I keep using it, say, several times a week, over a period of a month or more, the app asks me if I’d like to add the program’s creator to the list of people who deserve a little something from me.

These settings are all user-configurable, though I also have the option of just saying to hell with it, charge me $1 per day (or 50 cents, or whatever) and send it to some worthy soul whose stuff I have been using shamelessly. A list is kept somewhere, and I have the option of checking it and revoking payment in case a certain item turned out to be useless after I paid for it. (The deduction may have to come from some later user’s payment.)

In short, I sign up for the program, I designate my contribution level, I install the tracking app, I check the log once in a while, to see who I’ve been paying, but otherwise I contribute to the development of freeware without having to devote any time to it. Just the thing for busy but well-meaning people.

Filed under: Needed   |  2 Comments
Tags: automatic, compensation, downloads, freeware, pay, paypal, reimbursement