A while ago, I decided to purchase a copy of Microsoft Office. At over three hundred bucks, it was quite an investment. And what did I get for that investment? A CD.
Yes, on that CD were four great applications. But to learn how to use them, I needed to read the manual. And where was that manual located? On the CD.
I had a choice: Sit in front of my computer and scroll through page after page of digital text. Or drop a ream of paper into my HP Deskjet and print everything out. Needless to say, neither option sounded very appealing.
Of course, there are benefits to these PDF manuals. They lower the costs for the manufacturer. But more importantly, they make it much more convenient to bootleg the software. Rather than photocopy page after page of the manual, it’s all included right there in the installer CD. Which means, there’s absolutely no reason to purchase the software legitimately. Well, aside from a little bad karma. Digital Documentation sucks.
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