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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."
If the individual developers have agreed to the terms and conditions of participation, and said terms and conditions were clearly stated, what's all the rucus about? I'm failing to see how this is newsworthy....
I normally do not spend money on Mac shareware, but MacHeist offers one price for a bunch of apps which makes it worth it, because the odds that I'll end up using frequently one or more of them is high.
On the other hand, I would not have bothered to download and try each of these sharewares individually, because I hate using crippleware. I don't think crippleware (unpaid for shareware) really gives me a good idea whether I'll use it or not. In fact, normally I won't use crippleware because it is annoying.
I bought the bundle and I'm very glad. It was clearly worth it for me.
Like me, I suspect most people who bought the MacHeist bundle would not have bought the software on normal terms. I think that the developers should be glad, since it brings them more revenue without any expense on their part.
Speaking as a devoted Mac user and advocate for the platform, this whole affair has shown the worst aspect of the Mac community and why so many people continue to write off the platform (an assembly of particular hardware and software) because of a small percentage of the user base (an assembly of people who use the hardware and software).
Ultimately, though - and I say this as a more-than-daily reader of the Daring Fireball website - John Gruber of Daring Fireball is to blame for this. He is the one that posted the initial exposé of what he perceived the financial situation of the MacHeist promotion to be, even though he admitted multiple times in the article that he didn't have any first-hand knowledge of how the thing was actually structured. John is often a fine voice for the Mac-core community, which is why I read his site, but this is one of those times (and there have been others) where his sharply-worded articles have done much more harm than good.
Ultimately, it benefits no one for developers to be running around calling each other four-letter names because of perceived injustices. Both sides - but especially the anti-MacHeist side - need to stop talking at a volume and profanity level that makes casual observers think somebody is being tortured. Perhaps both sides should just stop talking about it period.
One thing is very clear from this: while the Mac-core constitutes probably fewer than 5% of all Mac users, they continue to give a bad name to the entire assembly of very well-designed and nice-to-use software and hardware. As they've done practically since day one. Am I the only one that thinks they sound like televangelists sometimes?
But, why? You obviously were willing and able to pay the price you did for a product you felt you needed. If in a week he offered a sale, would you be as outraged? What about if in 6 months he has a new version but continues to sell the old version for half-off? Differential pricing doesn't hurt anyone (at least for this type of product and this type of differentiation).
Video game consoles sell at a premium when they first come out, and people are willing to pay that premium. Later on, the price goes down, people who wanted it but couldn't afford it before pick it up. The manufacturer still turns a profit, but a smaller one. They still get more product out into the marketplace.
What if he sold at a different price to China, Zimbabwe, and the US? It it still as heinous?
Problem is, what if your application is made well enough, that you hardly ever get any support requests? Yes, it happens - especially when the application comes with well made and thurough documentation.
Then it still costs a fortune to make, but we're not supposed to charge for that.
Still costs next to nothing to make copies of (disregarding the cost and time of burning to a media or traffic for downloads)
Still costs next to nothing to support.
Where are we supposed to make money?
If our application costs $100,000 to develop, implement and document, and we expect 10,000 users, and expect maybe one percent of our users requirering our support, are we supposed to charge them $1,000 for support, just to break even? Or should we be allowed to charge $20 per copy/licence to make some money?
Charging for support can be profitable I suppose, but I believe it also breeds an artificial need for bad documentation and buggy software. After all, if the documentation is perfect and the software hardly in need of support, where are you supposed to make your money?
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.