Note: For technical reasons integrating EtreCheck with PayPal, it is no longer possible to provide a donation button where you can choose your own amount.
What are you seeing as greedy? Is it the fixed donation amounts (the "technical reasons" explanation seems to be a strange explanation) or the fact they might be forced to shift the development to iOS if there is not enough support?
Rather than fly off half-cocked about such a serious matter in a public forum I called PayPal, and the customer service rep to whom I spoke told me that the above quoted "Note" is
A FLAT OUT LIE...that there's no aspect of the PayPal platform under discussion that prevents sellers from offering "Pay what you like" as an option, and that if the option isn't offered it's because of
a SELLER decision.
And needless to say, she wasn't the least bit pleased by the fact that EtreSoft's statement (which borders on, if it doesn't actually qualify as, fraud) casts PayPal in a bad light as the bad guy.
All considered, I'll ride the theory that a conclusion was reached, perhaps even with the help of an actuary, that the CA$10 minimum
justified by the "Note" is a palatable way to squeeze money out of EtreCheck, the theory being that enough small contributors would acquiesce to the roughly US$7.50 minimum to significantly overbalance those who'd be put off by it and give nothing. (I doubt that the data's available, but it wouldn't surprise me if the "technical reasons" and "no longer" portions of the "Note" pertain to the Canadian dollar's decline over the past few years.)
The way its donation options read, EtreSoft is getting the best of all worlds by remaining a benevolent donationware seller while avoiding, although approaching, shareware status, thus leaving the door open for eternally grateful users whose butts it's saved to shower them with $$$.
And call me a conspiracy theorist if you will, but I suspect that there's no donation link on either Etre... website in order to to keep their spurious "Note" away from the eyes of the curious public, reserved for those of only people who've already downloaded and used the software and are less likely to question or be put off by it. (Note that EtreCheck's status as donationware is 100% hidden until after you've run it.)
Don't misunderstand me: I realize that many donationware developers either need or just appreciate payment for their work, I support them with donations that I base on their apps' contribution to my situation and my fiscal means (
*), and I don't regret a single penny I've spent over the years doing so, but in this instance I've got to balk.
EtreCheck... EtreCheckmate!
(I don't find it objectionable when developers suggest a donation amount based on their perception of their app's value, because that at least gives me the opportunity to weigh their perception against my own and proceed from there.)
(
*) It's an entirely different issue, but I never make donations to developers, like EtreSoft, who don't accept US$.
After further investigation it appears that Paypal cannot be setup to receive donations of variable amounts and instead requires fixed amount contributions. At least if you go to the
Find Your Cause all of those are only fixed amount donations as well. I suspect that is Paypal's way of handling charitable contributions so that the charity does not have to have a "
Merchant Account" with their bank.
That's not pertinent to the present discussion, because it applies to sellers' elections to donate a portion of their proceeds to charity, NOT to the donations they solicit for their products...an entirely different part of the PayPal platform.
