When i first wrote Tumblripper, it was for my own usage. At the time i didn't have 4G on my smartphone, and i looked at different tumblr's for photographic inspiration. So i quickly made a small ripper. Couple of months later, I decided to polish it up a bit and release it. I think i just posted it on CNET and one or two other sites.
To my surprise it started popping up a lot in google searches, with couple of blog posts about it, and guides on how to use it.
If i recall correctly, there has always been a DONATE button on the site (because i already had it made for chrome/firefox extension), but it never got any action.
Bug reports and feature requests started rolling it, so i thought i might as well ask people to donate to motivate me on updating this piece of software, so i made an updated version, which could only be downloaded if you had donated (you'd get a special link). Let's be honest here, the old version worked fine, the new one was maybe 20% faster and had a couple of options more, that's it, let's call it an "Advanced" version.
Donations started coming in. Most were at the minimum amount (classy), and some people even managed bypassing the minimum and sending even less (very classy, those had their licence cancelled though). Over the following month's i increased the minimum from 1euro to 2euro to now 5euro. Simply because the PayPal fee's are almost the samen and the software has become much more complex.
Anyways, that's just a brief history, but what i wanted to talk about, is the principle of Donationware.
Personnally, i like it . Usually it's for completely free software, and you give a little something if you feel like you should contribute. (I do for a lot of free software i use).
In Tumblripper however, i decided to lock part of the software for supporters. I wish i didn't have to, but otherwise i'd get nothing back.
Most donations coming in have the minimum amount, but sometimes, sometimes, i get a different amount, and that makes me smile.
Let me explain,
On my site, to donate, you have to select the amount between 5 and 20€.
For every amount in between those values, i have set a little text which basically explains to what you are contributing in my life .
What it says when you select a different amount, even just a euro more, it's like sending a hug, saying you care , and it makes me smile for the rest of the day.
Should i drop the donationware model, and go straight to a price ?
Maybe. I know from bug reports some users have hundreds of blogs sync'ed using TR, should they pay more ? They are obviously using it "professionaly".
Should i make different licences with different prices, again, maybe i should.
I did receive a couple of donations with the maximum amount, so some people ARE honest and donate regarding the value of TR for them.
I'm not making this software to make tons of money. I don't think it has the potential to anyways. Userbase is quite small and unless i'm selling it for over 100€ it's not going to pay rent :)
Right now it pays for my monthly google play licence, and i can buy some stuff on ebay once in a while, it doesn't change my life that much, but it's nice to feel acknowledged.
