Shareware

I had this flashback to being ten, maybe eleven, and driving with my mother to a shareware center about 45 minutes from my house. At the time our dial-up was on a pay-per-minute landline and the 2800 baud modem took ages to bring down anything meaningful.

So my mom in all her amazing nerd glory brought us to a stripmall shareware place. I suppose it was more convenient than dial-up, but not as convenient as the mall. It fixed a problem and get us what we need.

But the real memory was seeing her write a check to the author of the disk utility she needed. I asked her if it would stop working and she said no. I asked her if it was better or cheaper than DOS utlity package they sold at the store closer to us. Again, no. You sometimes have to ask the right question, so I asked her why she chose to drive a little further and then mail a check to a stranger. She told me that someone worked hard on it, it did what she needed well, that the author set a price, and she paid it happily because she knew it was going to help that person who solved her problem.

Fuck yeah, Mom. That’s how you teach a life lesson.