The vast majority of available shareware is fully functional, properly documented and completely unpaid for. Shareware is an inversion of traditional market practices. In the normal world, you go into a grocery, look at the products and choose based on the packaging. Because your choice is based on information and the 'look' of the products, as much as fifty, sometimes as high as eighty percent of the eventual cost of the product is reflected in packaging and advertising costs. The commercial software author usually receives, after the packager has taken his cut, about five to ten percent of the price you pay for the software over the counter.
Shareware distribution strips the middlemen away.
The products have no packaging and are distributed electronically, either via sites on the Internet, on CD ROM collections or on Bulletin Board Systems such as our own Opus Networx. The documentation usually consists of a text file listing all the information you would usually find in a manual with minimal slickness or finesse. The author is betting that you will enjoy his product so much you will pay for it. Some authors don't bother with money at all, creating the self explanatory Postcardware, Freeware, Beerware and Emailware. The average 'commercial' shareware author is betting that the ten to fifteen percent of his users who pay will bring him as much or more money than he would make by shrinkwrapping his product and putting it on a shelf.