proprietary fonts are so funny
"if I pay you money, I can use this font for stuff, right?"
"no. absolutely not."

@aeva I mean if it is part of a tradedress I guess it make some degree of sense.

@ekg no this is just like every font you have to pay for lol

@ekg like one of them I was just looking at I closed the browser tab when I got to the part of the license where it said I could only use it to make at most 2 "apps"

@ekg and like my "random internet person emulator" says someone is going to say "but how will those hard working font people eat if you can use it to make three apps", which is a good and valid point—I might have paid them for a license that said I could make 3 apps. But their license only said 2 apps, so instead I searched a little harder and found a stellar alternative under an open license and downloaded that instead, which unfortunately means no font people will be eating today. Tragic.

@aeva I liked unitys per download approach, it's easy to measure, and it doesn't suffer from this kind of problem. Unfortunately people didn't seem too receptive to the idea.

@ekg well of course they didn't, you could go bankrupt by shipping a moderately successful game with the plan they outlined. it was a *terrible* idea

@aeva yeah it didn't really fir with how most people sell games. But I thought the plan was only for new titles?, never looked into it to closely as I don't use Unity. Just remember thinking it sounded reasonable, with the caveat that most would have to adjust their business plan.

@ekg @aeva A simple flat fee makes most sense, if one really has to have a fee on a product disconnected from the labor involved.

The funding model for engines should move from trying to make a product to profit off of to paying the service of maintenance and continued development (in other words, the wages of the workers involved) without unnecessary extraneous profit concerns. (Compare with crowdfunding development, for example.)

That doesn't work quite the same for fonts though because much like most static art, they're done once they're made, there's no ongoing labor (unless fonts get updated? Then I guess there is). So it is the inititial payment for the labor of doing it that should be considerable, and then to have it freely released.

@lispi314 you always want customers to pay after ability/willingness to pay.

Fonts does need updating as technology evolves, in the good old days you sold a box of metal types. If we talk about computers, bitmap fonts ( the old standard ) aren't really a thing outside fairly niche applications today.

Releasing something for free only really make sense if the marginal customer has no ability/willingness to pay.

@ekg Why wouldn't one just be commissioned to make fonts and then they'd be released?

And further updates can work on much the same principle.

Physical sales involves ongoing labor in the fabrication of metal types, so that's a distinct thing, but they could be sold at fabrication + distribution labor cost, mostly.

@lispi314 I think you're missing the point. If I have a certain amount of capital to invest, and wants to make a reasonable return on that money. I am not going to commission a font and give it away, I want residuals to justify my investment. Remember I am in this to make money, not the love of the craft.

As long as their exist those willing to pay for fonts, and the legal fiction that allows people to charge for them. Their will exist does that see them as an investment vehicles.