How many people steal Quickbooks? How many people steal ERP or CRM software?<p>Now how many people steal Photoshop, Microsoft Office, and computer games?<p>Its overpriced for the market, based on the added marginal value. The supply is greater than demand (especially for digital products - versus services - supplies are virtually unlimited), and people are correcting it by downloading it off the internet for free. These people probably wouldn't have bought it anyway - so its not stealing. And its not wasted resources by the these firms so they can't count it on the books as a loss.<p>This is economics 101. A supply curve goes up with cost, a positive relationship with price. As price goes up, demand goes down, and the market price is where they meet in the middle.<p>Because it cost virtually nothing to copy bits, the supply goes up. As the supply curve shifts up vertically, the demand doesn't necessarily change (demand curve shifting to the right) to compensate to keep it at the same price. Since demand is still at a constant rate (a certain number of people want to play these games), but supply is practically unlimited, ethically people can talk themselves into stealing it for free (correcting market price).<p>As software developers I think HN is a perfect forum for audience polarization, but the fact of the matter is both arguments have their merits and can coexist without mutual exclusion.<p>After reading the article then looking at the comments I was actually very surprised. But I'm merely adding my portion to the discussion.