It sounds like your talk was partly a sales pitch... in which case distributing it for free actually creates value for you (in terms of this one aspect). By this interpretation, they were reciprocating (in the only way they could, given they have no budget).
"Technical skills make a technical success, but business skills make a business success" - business skills being about how to make your product "easy to buy". For example, a higher price can make it easier to buy, especially if it fits into a category of products that the organization is used to buying - and in the way they are used to buying them. It's part of "positioning" it in the customer's mind. This is all simply seeing it from the customer's point of view. These things don't directly improve your product, but they do help to communicate it to other people, which is also intrinsically worthwhile.
The economy is bad and perhaps also comp sci is finally ending its multi-decade growth phase. There's always a place for anyone who creates value, but perhaps the days of "it's raining soup grab yourself a bucket" are over, and a different strategy is needed (Disclaimer: this is a guess. I'm not yet sufficiently deluded to think I can predict the future).
More generally, I think I have had exactly your dilemma (and still do). I don't have a solution, but perhaps some camaraderie. It's the philosophy of doing whatever does the most good. It feels good (and I think it is good). I believe that if you create value, someone will work out how to pay you. It's a wonderfully inspiring and freeing philosophy - and it makes me feel happier and feel like a pure, innocent person. Also, people want to help you. And for me, it was also inspired by Bucky (his epiphany by the lake - which some spoilsport pedant has apparently debunked as the exact place for it, claiming it's more like a constructed founder's story. Anyway).
The disillusionment for me was in open source: for a developer tool I wrote, people took the help I provided, but didn't give anything back [1] . I did have sales [2], but because there was no pressure to pay, huge organizations would take 3 months to pay [3]. I really hated waiting for the other shoe to drop [4].
Today, I believe that if I create value, it is OK for me keep some of that value. This seems to be right and true... but it doesn't make me happy, and it isn't inspiring or freeing.
I'm currently working on a patentable enterprise developer tool, that I plan to initially sell at a high price to large organizations. As the tool becomes more general, I will lower the price, until eventually it is cheap enough for anyone to afford. I think this is good, and sensible... but it also makes me feel a little sick at heart. So I don't know the answer, but hopefully I've offered some camaraderie. Do let me know if you work out an answer! :-)
[1] which is part of the open source deal - I just didn't like it
[2] dual licensing, like Ghostscript
[3] to be fair: everyone who said they'd buy it, did eventually buy it
[4] I'd much prefer they didn't tell me they were going to buy it,
so I didn't have to worry for 3 months.
Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I do feel a sense of camaraderie. Doing things that are valuable and not receiving value is out of balance. Not being funded to create the next increment of value is seriously wrong (non-optimal for society).
I'm not asking anyone else to fix this for me. It's my responsibility to find my place in this new market in a way that let's me contribute and benefit. I'm glad to know my observations aren't just loony (or at least that I have company).
"Technical skills make a technical success, but business skills make a business success" - business skills being about how to make your product "easy to buy". For example, a higher price can make it easier to buy, especially if it fits into a category of products that the organization is used to buying - and in the way they are used to buying them. It's part of "positioning" it in the customer's mind. This is all simply seeing it from the customer's point of view. These things don't directly improve your product, but they do help to communicate it to other people, which is also intrinsically worthwhile.
The economy is bad and perhaps also comp sci is finally ending its multi-decade growth phase. There's always a place for anyone who creates value, but perhaps the days of "it's raining soup grab yourself a bucket" are over, and a different strategy is needed (Disclaimer: this is a guess. I'm not yet sufficiently deluded to think I can predict the future).
More generally, I think I have had exactly your dilemma (and still do). I don't have a solution, but perhaps some camaraderie. It's the philosophy of doing whatever does the most good. It feels good (and I think it is good). I believe that if you create value, someone will work out how to pay you. It's a wonderfully inspiring and freeing philosophy - and it makes me feel happier and feel like a pure, innocent person. Also, people want to help you. And for me, it was also inspired by Bucky (his epiphany by the lake - which some spoilsport pedant has apparently debunked as the exact place for it, claiming it's more like a constructed founder's story. Anyway).
The disillusionment for me was in open source: for a developer tool I wrote, people took the help I provided, but didn't give anything back [1] . I did have sales [2], but because there was no pressure to pay, huge organizations would take 3 months to pay [3]. I really hated waiting for the other shoe to drop [4].
Today, I believe that if I create value, it is OK for me keep some of that value. This seems to be right and true... but it doesn't make me happy, and it isn't inspiring or freeing.
I'm currently working on a patentable enterprise developer tool, that I plan to initially sell at a high price to large organizations. As the tool becomes more general, I will lower the price, until eventually it is cheap enough for anyone to afford. I think this is good, and sensible... but it also makes me feel a little sick at heart. So I don't know the answer, but hopefully I've offered some camaraderie. Do let me know if you work out an answer! :-)