Is the real MacHeist on the developers?
We have been covering MacHeist here at TUAW because it is a heck of a good deal. A good deal for users, but what about the developers? Gus Mueller, the man behind Flying Meat software, doesn't think that MacHeist is good for developers. Why? He did the math and it turns out that each developer takes home something like $3.67 (if they split the profits evenly between the developer, the charity, and MacHeist themselves). All of this outrage (oh, and there is some adult language in that post) stems from the MacHeist team declaring this week, 'The Week of the Independent Mac Developer.'One must remember that all the devs participating in MacHeist are doing so out of their own free will, and there is that darned charitable part of the whole enterprise (it is hard to criticize someone for donating something to charity). With that said there is the little matter of 'perceived value.' If you give something away, people think it is worth nothing. Charge a little money for it, and suddenly people see the value in it (the classic case here is bottled water).
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We have been covering MacHeist here at TUAW because it is a heck of a good deal. A good deal for users, but what about the developers? Gus...
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real link this time:
http://daringfireball.net/2006/12/iniquities_of_the_selfish
I agree with Jacques. Now that we all know that there was a flat fee it changes everything. Some devs were offered $5k-$10k for a fews days of an open sell. It is true that jumping into a flat fee agreement will not cash the devs a lot of money, but, do this tiny apps sell similar figures as a standard selling basis for one week? I think not. Till this day 16,821 bundles have been sold, and I bet many people went to the apps own website to know what this app are.
Frankly, I've never heard a word of 7 out of 10 of the apps in the bundle, but by dropping by into their website put them in the map of good shareware apps to look at.
Maybe $5k is not a great deal, but I hardly believe they could generate this amount of money selling their apps on their own. And of course, devs have not pay nothing for maketing issues, web banners, etc. This has been a a week of full exposure that otherwise couldn't happened. That is for true, priceless.
I did not buy the bundle, but I am considering to buy 1 or 2 apps shown in the bundle. I think many people who have missed the bundle offer, will probably buy directly to the developer, now that people know they exist!
But still you can read this link, just another point of view. http://daringfireball.net/2006/12/iniquities_of_the_selfishto
If you haven't read what Gus Mueller had to say for yourself, please do - I just re-read it and can say with certainty he did not "bash" hard working developer's. I cannot for the life of me understand how anyone could read what Gus had to say and, by any stretch of the imagination, conclude he was "bashing" hard working developer's? All I could see he was bashing was the inequity of the MacHeist deal as it relates to Independent Software Developer's, of which Gus is a member! Another misconception was the developer's received x amount per bundle sold - they do not - they were offered a flat fee regardless the number of bundles sold. Please don't take the word of someone else as fact, read Gus's comments under "Week of the Mac Independent Developer" for yourself here: http://gusmueller.com/blog/
December 17 2006 at 1:16 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplySo I read through Gus' notes, and he keeps on saying that the fact that Devs are doing this on their free will isn't a part of his argument, but that doesn't really make any sense. He was given the opportunity to join in, and I'm pretty sure all of the other Devs did the same math that he did. So most likely they made a conscious choice to work with the MacHeist group.
When you look at it that way, isn't it possible that some developers are just nice people and want to spread the use of their software while also supporting charity? On the other hand we have developers, such as Gus here, who counts his pennies and just wants to make a profit. I'm not saying that this is a bad thing, but I don't think he should sit there and bash hard working developers who are charitable.
Actually when you do parody it tends to work best when you're not jumping onto a auto generation bandwagon. That makes the joke fall flat and worse yet seem incredibly trite given his arguments.
December 12 2006 at 12:53 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply"It certainly doesn't help him at all, that is site logo is a rip off of flickr."
It's a play - a sarcastic bit of parody - on the "Web 2.0" logos. He likely used the "Web 2.0 Logo Generator" http://digg.com/design/Web_2_0_Logo_Creator
For what it is worth, I have bought more Mac applications through MacZot (and now MacHeist) in the last 6 months than I have in the last 2 years.
I am not sure how developers *who actualy particpated* in this type of marketing feel about how things are going, but I have been suckered into buying and have laid out much cash.
I think Gus is just having second thoughts about saying no and desperate for some attention. His math and his arguments are both shoddy and immaturely argued.
It certainly doesn't help him at all, that is site logo is a rip off of flickr.
P.T. Barnum once said there's no such thing as bad publicity. In this case Gus proved the exception to that rule. Indie Software needs good word of mouth. Puerile tantrum posts just look bad.
In addition to the money that these developer make from people who normally wouldn't buy it let alone know about you, you also set yourself up for a much larger audience for upgrade licenses. It's the old razor blade model.
December 12 2006 at 9:23 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyJacques,
Why ChocoFlop is not in MacHeist?
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