The only thing is, we the customer, can immediately vote with our wallets.
Microsoft just reversed itself on the Xbox One because the fan base rose up en masse and said NO WAY
Wednesday’s statement from Don Mattrick, president of Microsoft’s interactive entertainment business, was less mea culpa and more customer relations 101, thanking consumers who had beaten Microsoft like a pinata all over the Web these past few weeks over its locking down the forthcoming console with onerous DRM features.
Then there’s this crap from Adobe:
Which is a very nice feature of Photoshop — but only available on its Creative Cloud.
I have Photoshop CS5 and won’t be upgrading to Cloud Extortion because I don’t want to rent my software for $600/year. Adobe may be hearing but I wonder if it’s listening.
MS and Adobe are pushing hard to move people into subscription models, less for the customer value and more for the guaranteed revenue stream, but at least we can refuse to go along.
Try that with ObamaCare.
That’s the point of view of a particular type of paying customer. From Adobe’s viewpoint, they lose millions of dollars to pirates each year. The subscription model, in their view, makes it harder to pirate and will thus generate more revenue. For them it’s a net-sum game – they can afford to lose some paying light-users, if it gains them some previously-unpaying heavy-users.
This isn’t to say that I agree with such a high-priced model. I think they would be wise to try a cell-phone pricing model, where a novice like me can pay a small fee for a small amount of use per month, but a pro pays a much higher fee, at an albeit higher discounted rate, for a greater quantity of use per month. They will have lured me in – a customer that would have never had enough justification to pay $600, for a year of subscription or a boxed copy.
In Microsoft’s case, I’d much rather see them get out of the consumer space altogether. Apple and Google aren’t their competitors – Oracle, IBM and SAP are.
Sell off the XBox division. Shut down the Microsoft Stores. Put down Bing and the other online services. Re-design Windows Phone to take better advantage of Outlook and SharePoint integration to out-BlackBerry the BlackBerry. Focus on the “Office”, “Server and Tools” and “Client” operating units.
In other words, become a smaller, more-disciplined enterprise software company. If they do that, they might have a future…
The subscription model, in their view, makes it harder to pirate and will thus generate more revenue
Pirates have already cracked it.
That’s not the reason, otherwise Adobe would have just gotten rid of the boxes but still allowed software download with a perpetual license.
With CC subscription, you have to “ping” Adobe either once a month (monthly subscription) or several times a year (annual subscription) or the software you DO get to download stops working.
Curmudgeon
But business stuff isn’t all hip and sexy!!
MS did try to subscribe its Office 365 and got slapped on that, too.
Perhaps not. It can, however, be extremely lucrative. Ask Larry Ellison sometime…
Adobe’s subscription model is ridiculous, but it’s the Cloud, and Obama’s relationship with Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen, that is suspect.
http://tinyurl.com/crjocv2
I said “harder to pirate”, not impossible to pirate. Anti-piracy efforts are not totally ineffective. Some portion of the computer-using population will always have access to an unprotected version of the product, but they can make meaningful strides toward reducing the number of such people. They can also make it need to be recracked so often that it makes it unattractive to many users to deal with, who would have otherwise easily pirated it.
What their doing is a very smart piece of unconventional warfare. They know they can’t win with keys and activation codes. “Keys only keep honest people honest.” So by making the software call home, updating it frequently, and offering intangible benefits such as features, social forums, support, etc., they are making you pay for the things they can control. It’s a pretty drastic change of model – something that incidentally was forecasted as far back as 2003 with Microsoft’s own thinktank document on the “Darknet”.
Now, don’t confuse me with agreeing with what they are doing. I most certainly do not. They are cleverly changing the rules of the game. That’s exactly why we’re mad about it. We are comfortable with the current rules, and can beat them at it easily and demonstrably. The new game is far less certain, and is more difficult to play.
True story.
Several years ago, after boarding an international flight, I stowed my bag in the overhead and settled into my seat.
A nice looking younger woman sat down next to me and opened her laptop and booted up. Within a minute her backround screen came on and it looked surprisingly familiar.
It was a photo that I had taken the year prior in Parque El Retiro in Madrid, Spain.
I asked her where she aquired the photo.
She didn’t reply, just closed her computer, got up and moved further foward in the plane.
I had emailed the photos to siblings and at that time had a now defunct email extension that allowed restricted access photo sharing.
I no longer have photos online, nor on the computer that has online conectivity.
Moral of the story: That good idea you think is yours, maybe not so such.
“I said “harder to pirate”, not impossible to pirate.”
You need to get out more. Third world countries, that’s pretty much all that is available.
There are 3 types of people affected by this:
1.) Those that this change costs more for. This includes people who normally pay less than $600/yr for Adobe products, and those who normally pirate it but the increased difficulty of pirating it now (however trivial it may be to some) will be forced to either buy it or give up using it.
2.) Those who this change impacts trivially. Again, both people who normally pay around $600/yr for Adobe products (e.g. $1800 CS every 3 years), and those with sufficient pirating expertise or patience to be minimally impacted by any “increase” in pirating difficulty.
3.) Those who this saves money. This is people who previously paid more than $600/yr, and those that are now able to pirate it easier (for some reason). At the current pricing, lots of professionals fall into this group.
Only the people in the first category are concerned. Some win, some lose, some stay the same.
I think it’s foolish for them to ignore the first category, since it seems there are other simple business models that would have worked well, and allowed them to increase profits. But this article is crying foul because of the change in the model, not that the model just costs more to the author. What would this article have been about if they just raised the price of CS 3-fold?
Awesomeness
First off, a subscription model … like a club membership … isn’t really “new”. So the idea of exclusive access to some service isn’t what grates, it is that the actual tools being used are being withheld from ownership from the people who actually use them.
It’s as if Home Depot no longer sold hammers, they just rented them to you and didn’t even give you the option to buy them.
For professional builders, leasing might make sense, like medium to large businesses lease copiers & computers.
But what about the people who build playhouses for a hobby?
And I can’t seem to find a clear answer to whether all those photoshop or illustrator projects one creates and stores on the Cloud will still be yours if you decide to go elsewhere.
Awesomeness
Not everyone buys Creative SUITE. I have just Photoshop/Bridge. Some photographers use just Lightroom. Graphic designers might only get illustrator.
If you want to subscribe to just one thing, it’s only $10/month (for now) but the minute you want more than one, Adobe prices it to nudge you into the full suite, where you really aren’t going to use all the bells, whistles and whoopi cushions.
Not everyone upgraded each time Adobe announced an upgrade, for the simple reason, most of the time the upgrades were minimal and not worth the $$$.
see: Vista and Windows 8
Sometimes upgrades are teh suckz. So many just wait a couple of versions until there was enough awesome upgrade to get it.
Scuttlebutt is that CS6 was not worth the upgrade from 5, so I demurred from doing it.
It ain’t about the pirating.
The “official” yearly salary here is/was $3800.00 to $5,000.00 so you can see where this is going. I can recount stories of pirated microsoft o/s on government machines, but why bother.
If they move Flash to a subscription model, and I refuse to pay, my fiendish plan to be free of Flash once and for all will finally be achieved!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
flash is evil and vile
On the Microsoft Xbox issue, the previous direction was an interesting one from a digital property perspective. Effectively the Xbox would be a console version of what Steam does for computers. Theoretically, it would also allow developers to competitively price their games by minimizing piracy and eliminating third parties. The $60 price point for console titles is already an artificial standard price that is more of a convention than a marketing point. Many of the second tier titles could conceivably be sold for $20-$40 instead of $60.
As it is, many mid-sized developers are folding because they can’t make a profit due to piracy and the Gamestop type after-market sales. Microsoft’s plan was a forward-thinking idea that was squelched by a bunch of whining from LIV’s. Sony’s undercutting of Microsoft on the issue was very misleading, because the trade-in option for Sony developers is still an opt-in program, meaning EA can still sell licenses for the online portion of Madden or for the entire game, if it so desires. If Blizzard wants DRM on Diablo 3 for the Playstation, they absolutely can force the issue. What we end up with now is a continuation of a market that rewards sequel spam (Assassin’s Creed 11, coming soon to who the hell cares) and continues to hurt innovative developers because the major developers can afford the attorneys to sue the hell out of pirates when they are caught.
Not saying Microsoft is a benevolent force, just that the video game industry is in pretty rough shape, and whining teenagers on the internet just shut down an honest attempt to bring the console portion out of 1998.
hadlowe
I’m not a gamer, never owned any console game, don’t have Xbox or Playstation.
However, was it whiney teens? Really? Or that MS was trying to do too much control?
Regional lockout? Really? I carry my Kindle across country and can read my books anywhere, whether I’m connected to the net or not. My books live “on the cloud” but I can have them in my device, too.
Don’t underestimate the power of “ownership”.
GIMP is free.
It has a different workflow, which can be a problem if you’re using Photoshop with a professional team.
For an individual, it’s just as good. It just takes a little while to get used to the new UI.
— Proudly Adobe-free since 1998.
Who do you think is putting the most pressure on GOP Establishment for Craprehensive Immigration Reform? Corporate America is way into Amnesty. So are the Koch Brothers. When they say “bipartisan” it is mostly about bipartisan crony capitalism. http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/2013/06/whos-paying-for-those-wall-to-wall.html
Adobe: I’ve been a loyal paying customer for 15 years, and with their switch to CC they’re never seeing another cent from me. It’s not about the $600 per year; I’d be pissed-off if CC was free.
It’s about ownership and control. I must own the things I use; I can’t be dependent on remaining in Adobe’s good graces – or there even still being an Adobe. If Sears goes out of business — which seems likely enough these days — all the power tools I have in my woodshop will still work. And that’s just my hobby! It’s unacceptable to not own the tools I actually use to make money.
Another critical point for me: I can’t have other people deciding when to ‘upgrade’ my tools for me. I’ve got CS4 (and an unopened CS5), and I still routinely do work in my 12 year old copy of Photoshop 7 — I’ve got it set up just the way I like, and don’t like PS CS4 enough to be bothered trying to get it configured acceptably. That PS7 as moved with me to 4 new systems over the years. If CC had existed all that time, that wouldn’t have been an option: I wouldn’t have a physical copy to install from, and the only thing they’d let you install (in all likelyhood) is ‘the current version’. Which I don’t want.
XBox: The XBox original and the 360 have been my primary consoles for the last 10 years, and Microsoft lost me with the XBox One announcement, and the walk-back isn’t going to work. I’ll get a PS4 next generation, if anything. Again: it’s about ownership. I have ever single videogame and console I’ve bought, going back to the Atari 2600 — probably 1000-2000 games, total. Any of one of those, I can load up in their respective system today; or sell, if any of them eventually become collectable. What are the odds that you’ll be able to play your XBox One titles 10 years from now? Less than 100%, that’s for darned sure!
I also refuse to use a Kindle, either. Same reason: you don’t really ‘own’ your purchases (at any moment Amazon can cancel your agreement, brick your device, and effectively ‘steal’ all your ebooks). And they’re generally more expensive than the Marketplace used books… such a deal!
I love my Kindle. Free books are everywhere on the interwebs. I have hundreds of them.
[…] Make no mistake — Corporations, like Adobe and Microsoft, can be just as amoral, envious, grasping… […]
– I always love it when this annual “ownership” disscussion arises. Like it or not, software has never been “owned” starting with DOS1.01, unless you mean outdated versions that essentially have been abandoned by the OEM. Current software that is actively IP protected is leased, no matter what the model seems like. Read any UA and you’ll see the language is carefully coached to maintain legal ownership with the SP. If you doubt that, name a software that allows you to modify it for profit. NADA.
– We favor those things that seem to provide ownership, so when a provider gets heavyhanded about the true situation it simply pisses us off. Nothing has actually changed until the OEM jetisons copyrights.
– Oh, and McGehee, you need to work some “Mwa’s” in there if you ever want to be a true nemesis.
“If you doubt that, name a software that allows you to modify it for profit. NADA.”
Anything released under the MIT license, which includes tens (possibly hundreds) of thousands of pieces of software, including such prominent packages as jQuery and Ruby on Rails.
Hardly “nada”.
Here’s a list of a few of them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Software_using_the_MIT_license
Here’s the text of the license. Note that modification and reselling are explicitly permitted.
http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT
You own your (tangible) software in the same sense as owning any other copyrighted item. You can’t ‘modify’ your DVD of The Princess Bride, or your CD of Bon Jovi’s Greatest Hits either. So what? In all three examples you own your copy of the work in question.
Yes, the ‘ownership’ has hooks in it: you can’t play the Princess Bride DVD in an auditorium for your closest 100 friends, so it’s not the same as owning a hammer. (Which just proves that the lawyers at the hammer company aren’t earning their keep.) But if one is willing to remain within the “acceptable” uses of the various media, it is owned in the sense that you can use the thing in perpetuity, ‘they’ can’t take it away from you (without sending armed goons to your door), and you can give it away, or resell it as you see fit.
(And yes, I realize that a lot of newer PC software has changed the model when they went to the (accursed) ‘activation’ route. For example, the current version of Sonar sells *me* an activation – explicitly prevents reselling or giving away the disk… which doesn’t exist anyway. My argument is about proper older PC software, and current console video games, before the software people decided that, for some reason, their products are ‘special’, and should be protected from competition with older or previously purchased versions of themselves. Bet the car, microwave oven, and hammer manufacturers are kicking themselves over that, wondering how they can get a similarly sweet deal!)
Every nemesis wannabe goes “mwahaha.” It’s like being Elvis and saying, “Thankyouverymuch.” Or Nixon and saying “I’m not a crook.”
Feh.
While I’m firmly of the opinion that filthy commie Richard Stallman can go suck a dick, he’s at least correct * with regards to the “cloud” shit.
—
* i.e. “agrees with me”
If you really feel that way, John, maybe you should stop using free software.
Such as WordPress, for instance. Or anything that runs on a free Unix or Unix/Linux-like web server. Or anything that uses the Apache web server. Or any web site that uses PHP, MySQL, or Rails. Or Android phones. Or any Google product.
Stallman is an extremist, but he’s not forcing you to do anything. All he is is a guy with a loud voice.
This discussion cries out for an executive summary for busy imbeciles.
Sometimes you just forward an email to legal and hope they use simple terms to explain it back to you.
Met with a graphic artist today. I could tell she was on the level because she had dreadlocks.
We talked about brand identity and then the awkward silences began.
Color. What do you have in mind for color palettes?
Answer: Uhhh, hmmm. I never, ever think about color palettes. I don’t even really know what that means.
There was part of the discussion about how vectors create scalable graphics and I thought that was sorta cool but I was paying by the hour so I didn’t ask a bunch of questions.
As an employee of a company whose products are software-as-a-service, I feel compelled to point out that such things have their place:
* When frequent updates are desired, or even required (for instance, in an industry where the regulatory environment is constantly changing).
* Where the service component adds significant value (for instance, where the SaaS provider is rendering significant configuration or customization assistance as part of the service).
* Where you need to collaborate with widely dispersed users (for instance, MMO games, github).
The problem with the Xbox One or Adobe CC is that there doesn’t seem to be compelling added value to the base software. The general rule is that if they offered you a choice between the cloud version and the non-cloud version, would you choose the former? For our software, the answer is unequivocally yes: I can’t imagine anyone buying software in our market without at least an update subscription, and we specifically use service as a differentiating factor. For Adobe and Microsoft, the answer seems to be no for a lot of their users, and since they don’t want to give them a choice, it makes it seem like they know this is the case too.
And a singularly unpleasant one at that (having encountered Mr. Stallman at a conference in the late 90’s – I hear he’s gotten worse since then).
benzeen
I have no real objection to a subscription model … for many people, leasing their cars rather than owning them makes more sense.
But I haven’t seen auto makers or dealerships run the model where buying your car is now forbidden. Lease only!
I want to spend time creating, not getting used to new versions and not paying for forced upgrades for things I may not even need.
Hardly “nada”.
– Yes NADA. You are paying for a license, or it might be free, but in any case you are being given the option to modify by the true owner. You still don’t “own” the IP protected material.
– So your exceptions are without a difference from my point. You own the mechanical storage device. You do not own the IP protected material stored therein, even if you are given permission to modify same.
– BTW, there’s an example of this long standing absolute legal position of IP protected material that is most interesting.
– Way back when Gates and his homey and his Prof decided to rewrite CPM as DOS1.01 his lawyer informed him that if he didn’t obtain ownership of CPM from Seattle computor he could be held liable for copywrite infringment. This, even though CPM was a shareware public free modifiable package. Seattle still retained all copywrites.
– Unfortunately for Gates his lawyer informed him AFTER he had sold modified CPM to IBM. Fortunately, and to the puzzlement of Seattle comp, Gates was able to convince them to sell CPM to him before anyone found out. The rest is history.
i’m still not buying an xbox cause of how the piggy piggy nsa spy fags are all up in it
if i want to become a hardcore gamer I’m a get a Ps4 and one of them cards what let you buy the medical marijuana
that should be plenty hardcore i think
If you really feel that way, John, maybe you should stop using free software.
Way ahead of you on that one. Though I’d point out that my complaint is with the Open Source definition of ‘free’. There are some perfectly fine bits of software that are ‘free’ to use (possibly with some restrictions, like ‘personal use only’), but A) do not give you the right to distribute modified versions, B) the author maintains ownership of same, and C) the author reserves the right to charge money for.
My objection to Stallman is on a moral level; he’s convinced a generation of mush-headed freeloaders that software must be Free and Open, and it’s a religion – that it’s wrong and evil to ‘own’ something that you’ve created, or to charge money for same. It’s a poisonous ideology, rooted in “common good” Leftism. I’ll note that all the books and seminars and conferences support and whatnot produced by the various OpenSource entities are typically not Free (or free) — which is fine, folks got to get paid. But they’ve helped destroy the ability to make a living selling software, in certain arenas.
(As an aside, I note with some amusement the huge new market for 1-man software development: the phone apps. Decidedly not open or free, and (apparently) all the rage with the kids these days. Which is keen if you want to write a phone app, I suppose.)
Some free software that I know about:
http://www.openoffice.org/ An office suite
http://www.blender.org 3d modeling, animation
http://www.gimp.org/ bitmap editor/photo retoucher. Not good for print.
http://inkscape.org/ vector illustration package
http://www.activestate.com/komodo-edit Web code editor
http://www.bloodshed.net/devcpp.html C++ compiler and IDE
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ Sound editing/production
BBH: “Yes NADA.”
Don’t give yourself a hernia moving those goalposts. What you said was ““If you doubt that, name a software that allows you to modify it for profit. NADA.” I named some. You were wrong. Own it.
John Bradley: “Way ahead of you on that one.”
And yet here you are. This blog is running on free software. If you use the web at all you use software dozens or hundreds of times per day.
“that it’s wrong and evil to ‘own’ something that you’ve created, or to charge money for same.”
That would be why Gnu software is copyrighted, right?
Nothing in the GPL prohibits selling software, and in fact the monetary factor doesn’t even enter into it.
I think your problem is more with the cartoon version in your head than the actual phenomenon.
“Decidedly not open or free, and (apparently) all the rage with the kids these days.”
You are decidedly wrong. Some of it is free (either sense), some isn’t.
Other than that, great point.
“This blog is running on free software.”
To be even more specific, this blog is running on free software (WordPress) written in a free programming language (PHP), running on a free operating system (Linux).
So who, exactly, is the freeloader here? Hint: not the people who wrote all that stuff.
“But they’ve helped destroy the ability to make a living selling software, in certain arenas.”
Nonsense. Sheer nonsense.
Software that’s free to download, install and use, and copy, and redistribute for free, and install on multiple computers, etc., is still copyrighted by the author and therefore owned by the author.
Your copy is owned by you, subject to the terms of the EULA, which contains (if the lawyer drafting it ever wants to eat lunch in this town again) a long and thoroughly described listing of things you, the end-user, MAY NOT DO with the COPY of the author’s intellectual property that YOU OWN.
I rather suspect from John Bradley’s description that Stallman objects to the author retaining the right to tell an end -user what he can’t do with/to the author’s software. Having some interest in intellectual property law as an occasionally paid creator of IP, I agree with John.
WordPress has an EULA. PHP and Linux almost certainly do as well. OpenOffice and its cousin LibreOffice (which I use) do too. As a rule, if you’re not paying for a service — and that would include software-as-a-service — you’re not the customer, you’re the product. For what I gain from using the few I trouble myself to use, it’s a worthwhile tradeoff as long as I know what’s expected of me.
If any of these services went to a subscription model that abolished my EULA rights to all previous copies, I’d simply find a replacement. But disgruntled Adobe users should examine the last EULA they agreed to; it might offer them grounds for some kind of recourse if you didn’t take the last pre-subscription upgrade.
– Tell you what SBP. Go ahead and modify any software you care to name that has reserved all copywrites, and then see if the OEM has the right to come after you should he decide to.
– If you bet your house on it you won’t have to worry about a hernia as mush as being homeless. The point you seem hell bent on missing its the originator can maintain all copywrites by law, regardless of any permits he assigns to the work.
– Just be sure you bet your own money and no one elses.
Photoshop is alienware to me. All’s I need is teh Gimp. I’ve managed a few tricks over the years.
Loved how the ISS slapped down Microsoft few weeks back…
“Tell you what SBP. Go ahead and modify any software you care to name that has reserved all copywrites”
Tell you what, BBH: how about you stop moving the goalposts and just admit that you were wrong?
P.S. it’s “copyRIGHT”. It has nothing to do with writing.
– A few typo’s do not change the rights of authors to own their work.
– If you think so go ahead and test it dumb ass.
People seem to be forgetting who the cranky one here is supposed to be.
I mean, it’s in my name, for frel’s sake.
who’s frel?
Sorry for continuing the off-topic discursion into the Evils of Open Source, but… from the Open Source Initiative:
So yes, under their terms, you (the author) can copyright the software, in the sense that have no control whatsoever over who copies it, or what they do with it. And the very first point would seem to preclude any ability to ‘sell’ the product, if any third party can give it away without royalty or fee. Point 6 prohibits any sort of “free for personal use” limitation; you’ve got to give it away for free to everybody.
You call that ‘owning’ a thing? I sure don’t. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with someone writing a thing and deciding they want it to Give it To the World because that’s how they get their rocks off. It’s the expectation and mindset that “all software should be Free” and that non-Free software is somehow immoral and/or a necessary evil. It’s a religion to many.
“Giving away your (software development, and only software development) labor makes everything better for everyone!”
Also from OSI:
There, they come right out and say that you can sell all sorts of things other than the work you, the author, have already done. That, you have to give away. But hey, you can always write and sell books and documentation, so I hope the program is sufficiently hard-to-use to justify that particular revenue stream!
And yet here you are. This blog is running on free software. If you use the web at all you use software dozens or hundreds of times per day.
Yes, and we’re awash in socialism, too. Doesn’t mean I’m a big fan of that, either.
And I reject your use of ‘use’ in this instance: what I’m using is “Protein Wisdom” (which is decidedly not capital-F ‘Free’), the technology behind it is a black box which may or may not be built on Free software. Not my decision or concern. If the Free software didn’t exist to power it, it’d be running on some similar non-Free software… which would be more likely to exist in the absence of ‘Free’. The market abhors a vacuum, but it’s darned hard to compete against lower-f ‘free’ in any of its forms.
“You call that ‘owning’ a thing?”
open source implies that many independent folks worked on the creation of the software. how could anyone “own” it?
Actually, I’d argue we’re talking the Evils of the GPL – There are a lot of “Open Source” licenses, some less pernicious (i.e. BSD, MIT, etc.) than others.
This gets right to my number-one pet peeve with the entire “Open Source” movement: There is no incentive to improve the product so that it doesn’t require extensive customization and or consultant support. Unlike Microsoft, who dislikes consultants and contractors with a passion, and would much rather code the deployment expertise in the software itself – to varying degrees of success, I’ll admit.
Exactly. In a more capitalistic world, PW would be running Sun/iPlanet Enterprise Server on Solaris. And probably work a lot better.
It’s the one thing I’ve always admired about Oracle (for all its other myriad faults): The notion that if something is worth using, it’s worth paying money for. On the other hand, Linux, Apache, etc. are only “free” if your time has no value…
“On the other hand, Linux, Apache, etc. are only “free” if your time has no value… ”
how about firefox, open office?
“Frel” is the f-word in Farscape, like the place “frak” holds in the rebooted Battlestar Galactica.
is his sake any good?
Again, just because you’re not paying to use it, doesn’t mean it’s free. By letting you use it, its owner realizes some kind of reward even if it isn’t money out of your pocket. Supporters of open-source principles can pretend otherwise, but nobody does anything without an incentive of some kind. They especially don’t do anything for strangers without some kind of known incentive, however obscure it might be to others.
I prefer my incentives simple, TYVM.