MacHeist "Week of Mac Developer" Causes Schism

ernesto99 writes "MacHeist began selling a software bundle of ten highly sought-after OS X applications last week with the stated goal of raising the profile of Mac shareware developers. 25% of the money brought in goes to charity. The bundle sale will go down as possibly the biggest success in Mac shareware history, as total revenues are approaching $650,000 after only six days. But some observers, including Daring Fireball's John Gruber, have called into question the ethics of MacHeist. MacHeist advertises itself as 'The Week of the Independent Mac Developer,' yet the MacHeist organizers stand to make vastly outsized gains relative to the very developers they have championed. Gruber calculates that MacHeist will record double, if not triple, the profits of all ten participating developers combined. (In fact the promotion has done so well that the promoter-to-developers profit ratio now stands at about four to one.) In an interview, Delicious Library developer Wil Shipley defends his involvement in MacHeist, saying that the publicity and reach of MacHeist has already paid him dividends. The whole affair has created a heated dialogue, resulting in a direct clash among some of the biggest names in the Mac community."

Comments

Re:I fail to see why there is any controversy

[ShaneThePain]

I also fail to see controversy. Does anyone actually PAY for software anymore?
I dont know about you, but I steal EVERYTHING. If its not physical, then there is no crime.
You may disagree, but whatever.
But seriously, why would anyone that works for a living spend perfectly good money on something they can download with a bittorrent?
Dont give me that ethics garbage, software piracy hurts no one.

Users too

[mccalli]

I purchased a few of those apps at full price. I now find that the amount I've been charged was inflated, because clearly the developers are happy to settle for less. Now, were this a drop of 10%/15% or so I'd just shrug my shoulders and go ho hum. But such a drastic devaluation leaves a bad taste with me - particularly when followed up with comments such as:

"So I'm not really sabotaging my sales; I'm supplementing them. Seriously, if you came to me and said, "I'm going to resell Delicious Library to customers on the moon, who you've never met and can't reach, for $1 a copy," I'd say, "Go for it!" I don't care if I only get a penny if it's a penny more than I would have gotten on my own."

Differential pricing eh? $40 for me, $1 for someone else so you can get an extra $1? Just doesn't sit right with me.

Cheers,
Ian