price points and levels of digital product security

by beginner warrior

Posted: 14 years ago 5 replies

INTERNET MARKETING

Hello,

I would imagine it would be sensible to scale the amount of product security to the price point. I'm thinking there are about 4 levels of security:

1) no security
2) low-level security (like PDF stamping to ID the product)
3) mid-level security: passwords required to open the product
4) high-level security: the product is tied to a specific machine, which "phones home" through the internet periodically to check for authenticity, and blocks unauthorized machines.

What price points do you think belong in each of the four above?

I'm kind of guessing that level 4 would be about $300 and above, level 3 would be $100-300, level 2 would be $30-100, and level 1 would be under $30. But that's just a guess.

I know this is a simple study, because it is not accounting for the specific type of digital product and other factors. But I thought it would be helpful to gain a basic perspective on price vs. security for digital download products.

Even if you disagree with the construct of the idea, I'd like to hear a counter-perspective.

#digital #levels #points #price #product #security

Alexa Smith Banned 14 years ago

Originally Posted by beginner warrior

Even if you disagree with the construct of the idea, I'd like to hear a counter-perspective.

Ok ... anything to oblige: I'll try a counter-perspective.

Why not look at it completely the other way round and say that the level of security should be in inverse proportion to the price? The risk factors involved (e.g. risks of people uploading it to subfusc-headwear forums and torrent sites) are perhaps roughly in proportion to the number of copies sold, and you'll be selling far more copies of a $17 product than a $97 product, so there's more justification for heavy-duty security with that one. There's also the fact that you'll arguably have a better class of customer for more expensive products, and they're less likely to spread it around? (Well, maybe!).

Alternatively, why not use the same product protection for everything you produce, on the grounds that once you have a system in place, it's just as quick and easy and maybe even no more expensive to apply it equally to everything you produce? That would be true if, for instance, you used e-Junkie's PDF-stamping toy, or routinely put all your PDF's into a .exe-file shell.

How did I do? :confused:
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- DireStraits 14 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Alexa Smith
  
  How did I do? :confused:
  
  *slow clap*
  
  Though ... "subfusc-headwear"? :confused:
  
  LOL.
  
  I'm nabbing this one, if only for use around here: "BlueFart" is none too flattering.
  
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getsmartt 14 years ago

hmmm....

1) no security - $0
2) low-level security (like PDF stamping to ID the product) - $not sure but I would say no more than $30
3) mid-level security: passwords required to open the product - $0 you can password encrypt the zipfile for free.
4) high-level security: the product is tied to a specific machine, which "phones home" through the internet periodically to check for authenticity, and blocks unauthorized machines. - $99 PHPLicengine - Professional License Solutions
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seasoned 14 years ago

HECK, stamping the product is free and a good idea!

Steve
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- beginner warrior 14 years ago
  
  Thanks for the ideas.
  
  To focus a bit more at what I'm getting at:
  
  The more strictly you protect a product, the more it comes back to you in terms of having to support the protection. So for a $500 software product, it's worth it to have to reset a password/computer for a customer once every few years when they buy a new computer and need the software to reassign the license to the new computer.
  
  But to have to maintain all of that for a $17 product would take up too much time over time.
  
  So I'm trying to find, in a very general sense, where the natural breakpoints are for the different levels of protection.
  
  The PDF stamping doesn't take any time "in theory". But say you have a customer that says "my download is not working". Then if you email them a copy of the product, it won't have their PDF stamp in it. Which means to get the stamping place in, you would have to tell them to "go buy it again with this discount code so that it will equal $0.00 when you buy it". That's likely not to go over very well at all. Or you will have to put the PDF stamp in yourself before you email them, which will take time. Or you have to skip the PDF stamp all-together if you email them a replacement copy. So even the PDF stamping can take up some customer time in unusual circumstances.
  
  Thanks
  
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