From another perspective, we can look at "Pricing alone"

However, we can look at the problem of "independent pricing" from another perspective, that is, "eliminating knowledge barriers ".

First, software is closer to a knowledge product than hardware, or an intermediary product that obtains knowledge ". In regions with different income levels, the price of such "intermediary products that acquire knowledge" is consistent, which may damage the ability of people in low-income areas to acquire knowledge.

For example, in Beijing, a primary school student may spend 2000 yuan a semester, but if we use the same price in rural areas in northern Shaanxi ", therefore, due to inherent limitations (Children in Rural Northern Shaanxi cannot choose their own birth conditions), they can only choose not to study, which completely denies them the right to acquire knowledge, their inherent limitations also impede the development of the day after tomorrow, and they will not have a chance to reach the level that children in Beijing can achieve in the future competition. Therefore, to implement "9-year compulsory education" in China is actually to lower the threshold for people with low incomes to acquire knowledge, so that they can enjoy the right of high-income people to acquire knowledge under certain conditions (of course, they cannot fully enjoy it ).

Another example is Jeffrey Richter's "applied Microsoft. the original price of Net Framework programming is 49.99 USD, more than 400 RMB, but domestic Publishers cannot sell such a high price in China, and the price of the same domestic printing plate is 138 RMB. Because programmers in China are limited by inherent conditions (their income is lower than that of American programmers, but Chinese programmers cannot choose their own nationalities), if the cost of obtaining programming skills is consistent with that of American programmers, therefore, a high knowledge barrier will be formed, which damages the right of Chinese programmers to acquire knowledge. The future level of Chinese and American programmers will grow farther and farther. Therefore, in order to ensure that low-income Chinese programmers can obtain knowledge at a cost close to (not equivalent to) a relatively high-income American programmer, domestic technical books must be priced separately.

So return to the original argument. If people in low-income areas need to obtain software at the same cost as high-income areas, the right to use the software will be compromised, that is, they lose the right to use software, learn through software, and acquire knowledge through software. In the long run, they may damage their competitiveness in the future. Therefore, for "intermediary products that are in a special position to acquire knowledge" (education, books, Internet, software ...), all countries have their own policies that allow the people to get at the cost of their regional income. Therefore, many countries have a large number of subsidies for people's education. Therefore, many countries have symbolic charges for Internet access. Therefore, many countries (and schools) have announced the massive deployment of Linux, the goal is to reduce the cost for people to acquire knowledge and ensure their competitiveness in the future.

In fact, this is the Free Software camp (and software cracking organizations ?) People's deep-rooted view: software should be free, and everyone has the right to access and use software.

Of course, this idea is not necessarily recognized by everyone (and I don't fully agree with it), so commercial software can flourish. But why doesn't commercial software accept this idea in part? For example, "separate pricing" is implemented ".