Honour System

Recently, I bought a new camera which records videos in .mov files. Unfortunately, Windows Movie Maker (WMM) can't edit .mov files. This meant that I would either have to buy new editing software (one that is able to edit .mov files) or buy conversion software to convert my .mov files to .avi files which I can then edit with WMM. Alex pointed me towards a couple of sites to start my search and I finally downloaded a conversion software called The RAD Video Tools (TRVT). TRVT turned out to be a pretty good software. It was easy to use and it converted my files perfectly every time. And, best of all, The RAD Video Tools was free! TRVT works on an honour system. If you download the tools and like using them, then you are free to make a donation, or not. And if you have no use for their tools, then you wouldn't have spent any money on it.

I love this system of payment. It seems to me to be the right way to conduct business, where people only pay for things that work and which they find useful. But it also makes me wonder if such an honour system will work? How many people will actually make a donation after downloading and using the tools. The cynical side of me says that most people will not. But the idealist in me goes... wouldn't it be nice if people could be trusted to be honest? I'm rooting for the latter.