I'm not sure it fits the free and/or libre software philosophy but I'm a big fan of releasing otherwise free and open source software as a paid version and with some exclusive QoL features in proprietary store fronts.
For example Krita. <a href="https://krita.org/en/download/" rel="nofollow">https://krita.org/en/download/ FOSS but you can buy it on Steam, Microsoft Store, Epic Store, and Apple Store. You get one exclusive feature, automatic updates (and more recently Steam Cloud sync support), and you also support the developers (on the other hand Valve, MS, Epic, and Apple also gets a cut too).
If you read for example the Steam reviews everyone points out that it's a free software but buying on Steam is also a good and very importantly straightforward way to support the devs + the platform itself has such a pull ("buying games you never play") that people buy it just for the case of having it in their library
Yet by the active unique user numbers they have estimated sold at least ~168k copies and maybe upwards ~500k <a href="https://steamdb.info/app/280680/charts/" rel="nofollow">https://steamdb.info/app/280680/charts/ And that's Steam alone. I'd be really curious compared to this how many people click on the Donate button on the Krita homepage.
That's a lot of purchases imo for a project like this. I'm kind of ambivalent about the store cuts but they give a huge enough exposure to any game or software.
haunter · · focus · HN ↗
For example Krita. <a href="https://krita.org/en/download/" rel="nofollow">https://krita.org/en/download/ FOSS but you can buy it on Steam, Microsoft Store, Epic Store, and Apple Store. You get one exclusive feature, automatic updates (and more recently Steam Cloud sync support), and you also support the developers (on the other hand Valve, MS, Epic, and Apple also gets a cut too).
If you read for example the Steam reviews everyone points out that it's a free software but buying on Steam is also a good and very importantly straightforward way to support the devs + the platform itself has such a pull ("buying games you never play") that people buy it just for the case of having it in their library
<a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/280680/Krita" rel="nofollow">https://store.steampowered.com/app/280680/Krita
fph · · focus · HN ↗
haunter · · focus · HN ↗
That's a lot of purchases imo for a project like this. I'm kind of ambivalent about the store cuts but they give a huge enough exposure to any game or software.