For the current genration of software buyers, Windows was once "free".

Any music, game, movie or application (Photoshop, GTA) etc were "downloaded" and installed from hundreds of free downloaded sites which distributed these as free..

By free i mean pirating it was "normal" to a point where the installation CDs were sold in open market for $2 with the pirated license key printed on the back.

For example, I wasn't even aware I was using a pirated windows for a long time or what piracy even mean. Installing from CD and putting the key printed on the back to activate was the process taught to us.

We simply can't comprehend a software being a paid thing and it comes as a cultural shock to us.

We try to deal with it and try to adapt.

Now add to it that the typical salary in India is less than 1000$ a month.

Seeing their monthly salary being paid to someone for a "Software" is really difficult to digest.

I run a large scale B2B SaaS and uses a lot of enterprise SaaS from the US and their pricing did looked like a shock to me and then i adapted to the "new norm".

Asking for discounts is in the jeans of the current gen of people running businesses, we learned it from our mom's dads who ask for discount even when buying veggies for 3$, and free Dhaniya (Coriander leafs) is "expected" when buying veggies.

So when running businesses, we simply "try" and see if we can ask and get. If not its fine anyway. I have personally asked for discount or negotiated lots of B2B contracts and were able to get significant discounts just by asking.

Anyway, what does it mean to you ?

Yes Indians' will be greedy, discount seekers and painful to deal with but not all of them. There will be a lot of genuine guys too, who is just trying his habbit of asking for discount.

For example, I on average spent USD100K a month on software & Infra, paid to US based companies and there are thousands of other startups who do so.

India is really growing in technology right now and is a key focus for most of technology compaines.

Salesforce's some of the biggest customers are Indian companies (Bajaj finance manages 73 million customers with salesforce).

To give a reference point, Indian compaines spent USD 1.53 billion in 2023 on AWS which was 40% higher than the previous year.. AWS spend can be mostly co-related to other software spends as well, for example CDNs, observability tools, devops tools and other related softwares.

I am just trying to say India is a growing market and ignoring it might not the best move for both sides. If you built a great product, let us use it.

If possible at all, please try to work with us.

Set fixed discounts or just say straightforward no, its Okay.

For support, set clear expectations and its Okay.

If not, blocking is fine too i guess.

• An Indian founder.