On Demanding Free Awesome-Software

If...perhaps you had been sitting under a chair hiding from your coffin-death-sled this week (Oct 3), the peeps behind the wonderful app Growl released their new itteration on the Mac App Store. If you happened to click on the previous link, you would have realized that Growl has transitioned itself from something free to something worth $1.99. With most transitions of this manner, there has been a metric-shit-ton of user outcry.

Growl(an extremely short history) has been the defacto OS X(it does function on windows), that's "Macz" for all you nubs, notification software since August of 2004. Most people forget that the app was a preference pane tucked away in system preferences. In many cases, Growl came packaged with other applications that installed it to handle their own notifications. Thereby relieving the user from ever having to worry about whether it(Growl) was installed or not.

However, now we need to download it from the Mac App Store or MAS if you like acronyms...and you need to PAY FOR IT! Holy SHIT, like for realz? Pay for it? For all of you who feel like you are entitled to awesome software, and Growl falls under this moniker, for free...you're not. Not-Sorry.

These moochers are the same asshats who jailbreak their iPhones to simply download apps without paying. Although, there are plenty of really great paid apps on the Cydia store. They spend hours of their time searching for free versions of applications that cost them 2.99. The real problem, before I go over the deep end, is: these developers are not Adobe.

They are a small team of good friends who have banded together and spent a lot of time, sweat, and tears to build something that they hope can turn into a miniture business. They might have shitty jobs, hard families, or whatever but, they are there to make an attempt at bettering their overall living situation. You consistently stealing their apps isn't assisting them in any way.

In addition, people should be pining to pay for this software, especially Growl, because it truly is kick ass. It should be your honor and giri to pay for these great products. The minimal payment helps feed the developers and allows them to focus on the software that you have paid for and love.

Make a budget per week, pay for the software that you love, revel in the fact that you have helped someone reach their dream and someone might reciprocate on it when you near yours.