A post on turning pirates into customers by the creator of Minecraft.
“Large parts of the culture these days exists in a world where copies are free. Copying a physical book costs money, but copying a digital movie is free. […] No resources are lost, nobody loses any money, and more people are having fun. […]
All of society and economics is based on an old outdated model where giving something to someone would rid the original owner of their copy. […] For example, for every wheel in the market, someone had to make that wheel. With digital copies, you only need to make the wheel once. […]
If someone pirates Minecraft instead of buying it, it means I’ve lost some ‘potential’ revenue. Not actual revenue, as I can never go into debt by people pirating the game too much.”