Why? Affordability beats enforcement.
Fast forward to 2024. I’m a tutor in Kerala with 28 years of experience. I teach income tax and accountancy. I earn ₹250/hour (~$3). Let's talk numbers:
Adobe Acrobat Pro? Over ₹1,500/month.
Zoom Pro (desktop)? ₹1,450/month.
A 2004 Amitabh Bachchan DVD still costs ₹400.
ChatGPT Plus? ₹2,000/month. That’s 8 hours of teaching for me.
How are educators in rural India or small towns supposed to survive?
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So yes, I pirated software:
Icecream PDF Editor Pro — for 5 years, to teach during COVID.
Zoom — free version for 4 years.
Adobe? Couldn’t touch it.
Only recently, I realized Zoom Pro on Android is ₹439/month — with nearly all desktop features. I immediately paid. Because I could.
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You want to reduce piracy? Try pricing software like:
Canva, which exploded in India because it's affordable.
Swayam, where IIT professors give free courses to lakhs of students.
Kinemaster and Notion, which quietly offer discounted Android Pro versions.
Microsoft? Still charging enterprise rates for solo users in small towns. ChatGPT? ₹2,000/month is normal in SF. It's heavy in India.
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When tools are unaffordable, people don’t turn evil. They turn resourceful.
Price your software like you're trying to build users, not just revenue. If T-Series figured it out in 1995, what’s your excuse in 2025?
not_your_vase•8mo ago
I used to sail the high seas also, back when I was still a Windows user. I switched to Linux completely, and I don't feel the need to pirate anything. I don't even remember when was the last time I pirated any software. Anything I needed ever since I could either install from my package manager, or compile it myself from source.
rainygoodwill•8mo ago
I love open-source and recommend it to my students. But here's the ground reality:
Most Indian educators, especially older ones, are still on Windows
Switching to Linux isn’t just a tech decision — it’s a mental and cultural migration
And when you’re balancing 4 tuition sessions a day just to earn ₹1,000, you don’t have the bandwidth to learn GIMP when Canva just works
That said, I’m starting to move toward open source slowly (LibreOffice, Notion alternatives, Obsidian). If there’s a solid open-source PDF editor you recommend that works well in low-end systems, I’d love to try and promote it.
Appreciate your reply — this is exactly the kind of discussion I hoped to spark