I'm with ya Gus.

What pisses me off even more is that they are trying to discuss it as some crock for charity, when in reality, the whole thing is about money, for them. Marketing and money.

I'm not sure whether to be pissed that it's an 18 year old kid who gets high when his forum buddies tell him he's 1337, or give him props.

Ah glad I'm not the only dev talking about this, earlier I wrote <a href="http://www.thinkmac.co.uk/blog/2006/12/economics-of-macheist.html">'The Economics of MacHeist'</a>.

I'm so glad others are finally jumping on board with realizing that MacHeist, My Dream App, MacZot, etc. are gimmicks and shams to Mac devs. It amazes me it has lasted this long.

Agreed too.
Won't even go into the whole "locked until we have sold worth $300K bundles" plan for the last apps..

I think I will make this week my own Indie Mac Dev week and buy a couple apps directly from their authors. Given my needs I shouldn't really end up spending a whole lot more than $50.

Wow, I'm away from the indie Mac world for a few months and this sort of crap is what happens? It makes me pine for the old days!

In all seriousness, though, I totally agree with you and everyone else about all the gimmickery in the Mac software world these days. Lame.

I agree with you there. As a punter buying shareware apps, I'm more interested in actually supporting developers as opposed to just getting the cheapest deal possible.

From my POV there is little difference between 5 and 10 bucks, but for a developer across many sales that's a fair chunk of cash.

Bruno, that's a great idea.
Someone should run with that. Would be a great thing for everyone to get behind, just before Christmas, or maybe after Christmas, in a 'lull time' for developers' incomes.....

"The Week Where You Devalue and Fleece A Bunch of Good Mac Devs"

Right Gus. So you're implying that the devs involved had guns held to their heads for this.

You had the chance to be involved here and you turned it down. And we respected that. The devs that got involved did it knowing exactly what they were getting into. And in the end I STRONGLY feel like it's going to help their businesses through the word of mouth that's gained through thousands (or hopefully tens of thousands) of new, happy customers. I know this from experience with my shareware business.

You going on your little tirade here is just classless, IMO. I'm sure we'll see yet another wave of hate and me-too posts like the last round with all the Disco fallout.

Instead of trying to divide the Mac community, which up to recent days has been pretty tight, why not everyone try to work together? That's what we've been trying to do with MacHeist.

I just don't understand the attitude going on here with your clique. But that's fine...let the wave o' hate, envy, and bitterness continue...

John said: "Right Gus. So you're implying that the devs involved had guns held to their heads for this."

You must have skipped the part where I said "I'm certain the developers who are participating in the bundle know what they are getting into, and have good reasons for doing so".

John said: "You had the chance to be involved here and you turned it down."

I turned it down because it was a horrible deal for me. At the time, the deal was 5k to the developer for the rights to sell the app for a full week. I tried to negotiate for a percentage and was told there was no negotiating, the deal was the same for everyone across the board. And at the time there would have been at total of 5 apps. I was also told that you guys need to sell 2k to "break even". Let's look at the math for that and why I turned it down.

49 * 2000 = 98000
98000 * .75 = 73500 (this is the number after charity)
73500 - (5 * 5000) = 48500

And let's just say it was 5k for credit card processing, which is a bit on the high side but that's ok because the numbers make you guys look better.

So that means you guys needed $48,000 dollars to "break even". That set off a ton alarm bells in my head, and they were all shouting that you guys were going to screw me over.

Let's say that you do make 10,000 sales like you hope, let's look at the numbers for that- and I'll even double the amount you guys are paying the devs to 10k.

49 * 10000 = 490000
490000 * .8 = 392000 (charity + 5% credit card processing)
392000 - (10 * 10000) = 292000

$292,000 profit for you guys. Yea, that's fair.

Though I can't deign to say I understand the economics for developers but I will say this, I've been a typical nightmare shareware freeloader. This week, besides buying the bundle, I've went out and bought a couple of apps not in the bundle that I've liked and used but so far just haven't put money into.

The point is that a lot of people, like myself, have used the anonymity of software usage to sucker off the works of others. Things like mydreamapp, macheist, etc. remind me that there's human beings on the other end, working hard and producing this stuff... cool stuff that I like and thus cool people who I want to support. This may not work fiscally here... but it might work better in the long run when it wakes up users like myself.

Gus, maybe the reason you would only get $5,000 is that Voodoo is only worth that much, and that other developers with useful applications get different contracts?

moksha: Yea, that's a possibility. But when I was negotiating with them, they said it was the same for everyone, no exceptions.

You are full of shit Gus. None of the devs were forced into this, they decided it was worth it to them. And I'll tell you, as a user of MacHeist and MDA, that the devs of many of the apps they gave away as freebies got money from me because I liked their app that much. So think twice before you say it is a bad deal for the devs.

The Guy

Hi Gus,
I just wanted to make some notes on your numbers.

First off - if you look at the site's running tote-board you would note that average selling price for each bundle is less than $49. Currently it is $39.20.

Let's talk about the 2k bundles that you used. We don't know any of the details of what the pricing would have been if there had been only five apps so lets look at the eight apps that are in the bundle.

39.20 * 2000 = 78400
78400 * 0.7 = 54880 (25% for Charity and 5% for transaction fees add up to 30% or .3)
54880 - (5000*8) = 14880

The real numbers make this thing look better. After you cut out all the real costs of starting up a business and creating and maintaining all the resources used during the event it is no where near the $48,000 number you quote.

Now on to the target of 10,000 sold. We'll use the bump you used in your math.

39.20 * 10000 = 392000
392000 * .7 = 274400
274400 - (10 * 10000) = 174400

So, if everything went to the ideal target of 10k copies sold it results in $174,400.

-Joe Kavanagh
Stat Monkey At Large

What really sickens me in this "new-era" of shareware developers are not only the developers but also these new Mac users that are so easy to jump on their bandwagon.

A few apps are Disco and AppZapper.

If you've actually took the time to compare AppZapper to a few other apps out there, you'll realize is a piece of crap.

Check out CleanApp (cheaper than AppZapper, does tons more), heck, even TinkerTool which costs like 7$ has an uninstaller, plus a bunch of system utils.

Disco is another app that basically takes all the apple frameworks and bundles them into a somewhat functional workflow. There just isn't a lot of innovation there.

Yet users are piling over themselves to get these apps. I'm not saying the developers shouldn't get credit, but c'mon, do people these days have any idea what real software is? Or do they just buy the crap that's the "most popular" of the bunch.

It sickens me.

"The Guy", read Gus's post again.

You just embarrased yourself.

Hint: Gus never said the devs where forced into it.

The Guy: I never said the devs were forced into macheist, and it doesn't really have anything to do with my argument anyway.

Joe Kavanagh: I'm confused- the website says it's $49, what does the average cost of the apps matter?

JR: Yep. Delicious-Library, FotoMagico, RapidWeaver... all those apps are total crap! There's hardly any innovation! Wow! Why didn't I see it before!?

[/sarcasm]

Sad to see more and more developers are now focusing on marketing more than the software quality (function, usability, etc.) itself.

And mysterious, currently the macheist home page read 1748 bundles sold, 1748 x 49 = 85652, 25% of that should be 21413, but the page shows 17144.

I am sorry but I just don't understand.

Go Gus!

WORD!

I did not say Delicious Library, FotoMagico or Rapidweaver were crappy apps.

In fact, those apps are probably some of the best of the entire bundle.

I was talking about how much marketing an app like Disco or AppZapper gets and nobody wants to try any alternatives. You look at people's wishlist of "must have" apps and when I see things like AppZapper or a few others, it makes me wonder if these people just want these apps because of the marketing or if they really tried AND compared them to alternatives.

I use AppZapper as my example because it's probably the most overhyped under-delivered app I know of. CleanApp 2 is MILES ahead of it, yet CleanApp receives no marketing whatsoever. (Go try it, i'm sure you'll agree).

There are a few other apps, but it seems like there's a few elitist "new-era" mac developers are stealing quite a bit of limelight while leaving other, possibly better apps in the dust. Sure, it's not their fault, and I don't blame them. I blame the users for jumping aboard the hype train.

@ Arsen: Thing is, quite a few people aren't paying 49$ for the bundle, If you buy two bundles at once, you get 2 for 78$, I think you can also buy 3 bundles for 98$. There's also MacHeist bundle discounts if you played through the Heists (up to I think 12$ or something). So basically, if people don't pay 49$ for the bundle (and there are quite a few of them), that means less money goes to charity since it isn't a fixed amount but a percentage of the total value.

IE: I can currently buy the bundle for 43$ as I've participated in 3 heists and saved a whole 6$ off the 49$ price. Meaning only 25% of my 43$ will go to charity.

I decided to start my own week of Independent Mac Developers and buy full copies of several pieces of Mac software this week. I encourage you to do so as well.

More info here: http://carpeaqua.com/archives/2006/12/11/support-developers/

Developers should be rewarded for their hard work.

I think what you all fail to see is that the people that are really profiting are the creators of MacHeist, not the charities and not the devs.

The problems with this is the creators of MacHeist have done absolutely nothing. It's a 18 year old kid who took advantage of an opportunity and started a mac themeing forum when he knew a bunch of people would come over to it. Since then, he's been using it, to get him coverage on Digg. Then he's used that coverage to get PR for crap like this, the sole reason being so "he can profit"

Which, is normally fine, except the weight of his profit compared to the dev's (you know, the people that do the actual work) is totally off.

To me it should be: Dev: 65%, Charity: 25%, MacH: 10%

And again, if you read Gus' post again, he's not upset about the idea, just upset at the fact that they are masking the idea as "something for the dev's" when it clearly isn't.

Justin,

Like Coudal eh?

@Arsen:

The number to charity is lower because the $49 is WITHOUT the Macheist discount. For most people that took part in Macheist, they got up to a $10 discount.

I'll be honest -- I think these gimmicks have been good because they've made me, a user, take a serious look at apps I wouldn't have before. I know some of them I'll continue to buy and upgrade when I wouldn't have before. I do understand where Gus is coming from, but from a user perspective it has worked well.

Also take in account that most of the 'heisters' got a discount, I've been following it along and i basically have $12 discount off the bundle, although I don't think I'll buy the bundle since I already own the ones I actually like or have use for. But part of me feels like sometime I need to pay for an upgrade or a new license for the couple programs I got for free along the way, say Cha-ching which I like the direction it's going.

Guys, I spent 10 years building a software company to $6 million in revenue (it sold for $36 million) and I was the bus dev guy. We did a bunch of "bundle" deals, and what you negelected in your rant were some key items:

1. The "distributor" did get some attention for the authors, which has value. Sure they made some good money, but they only made money if the products sold. What about the people that went directly to the product site and licensed it? The "distributor" didn't make any money, right? He took on some risk here. I'll probably buy an app or two, but not throgh MacHeist (I have been registering shareware since PC Write).

2. You will make upgrade revenue on the bundle versions. Yes, a low percentage of them will upgrade, but it still needs to be factored into the equation.

3. The online press on this was outstanding. I actually read all of the product pages, assuming that these were "best in class" applications.

4. You have to experiment with your marketing, and this was a low-risk and low-cost way to do it. Measure the results and do it again if it worked. If it didn't, don't do it again. But don't be upset about experimenting.

5. It calls attention to shareware in a positive way. I've been following shareware since the days of PCWrite (one of the first), and it's hard to get credit cards from people who think you're working for free. Anyone that can help you do that deserves a fair share of the revenue.

Yeah, it seems to suck, but I did the Ingram distribution thing with CompUSA, Microwarehouse, etc., and they have all of these marketing programs and "line items" that eat into your margin so you're lucky to break even (if they pay you on time).

I see that you were smart enough to rain on their parade to get some exposure, even though you weren't part of the program. It's all marketing. ;-)

- Mike K.

@Joshua

If you'd taken the time to check out the actual Heists, you wouldn't say that the MacHeist guys did nothing. They created five official (and a couple unofficial) games/riddles/whatevers that people had to solve. Some of them involving putting multiple websites together. It's not a "sit back and fleece the devs" thing. They're trying to bring awareness of the developer community to a bunch of people who didn't know about it. I'm one of those people who had *NO* idea that there were so many awesome applications created by independent developers out there. I'm still a new Mac user, and I just had no clue. But now I do thanks to them.

And seriously, you guys can't get pissy because some people are better at marketing than others. Hi, Betamax anyone? If you want to succeed, you have to have a decent product AND decent marketing, that's how it works... I've been running my own business for nearly three years now, and I know my product is better than some others out there, but they get the attention, because I'm a craptastic marketer... but instead of whining about it, I'm trying to get better at it.

MacHeist provided some developers with the chance to get a BUNCH of publicity. Short term, of COURSE it's a shitty deal for them. I assume what they're all hoping for is that the publicity pays off in the long term.

I, for one, really hope it does.

Honestly, the only thing leaving the bad taste in my mouth at the moment is this post, and you, Gus. These developers banded together and decided to give the Mac community an amazing deal on their software in exchange for some presence and marketing with the community.

Who are you to say it's a "crock of shit"? You didn't participate, it's obvious you didn't think it was worth it, so why do you care? Did that one line strike a nerve that hard that you had to go rant on your blog, and in the process completely lose my respect (and I'm sure many others as well)?

Seeing projects like MyDreamApp and MacHeist gave me a warm fuzzy feeling about the Mac community. Everyone was having a great time, working together, developers and users alike. Completely the polar opposite of the Windows community, really. This post brought my feelings of the Mac development community back down to earth, and it made me realize all it takes is a few scummy people out there to ruin the core.

I'll tell you one thing though. Your immature outbust just cost you a customer. I don't care how much of a "hard working developer" you are, there's something to be said for bringing the Mac community together and letting them enjoy owning a Mac, with software created by that very community. When your definition of "The Week of the Independant Mac Developer" means high profits and to hell with our customer base as long as they pay up, well, let's just say I'm glad I'll never be supporting you again.

Gilmore: Yes, it's an amazing deal; no one is denying that.

However, my definition of "The Week of the Independant Mac Developer" is giving everyone a fair deal. It's not, as you imply, "high profits and to hell with our customer base". I'm not sure where you got that idea from, but it's certainly not how I feel.

Gus, i stumbled to your post from TUAW. I can see your point, but when I look at your math I am somewhat confused.
1. It seems to me that you are assuming that after you turned down their offer that they kept it the same (i.e kept offering 5k to each developer)
2. This is one week of sales. And not even exclusive rights. people who go to your website and want to buy it still can. the website does not say "GET 10 APPS AND SHAFT US BY GOING TO ...."
3. If it was a bad deal the devs wouldn't have done it. or at least they would have put some sort of version\time lock on it. but they didn't (except disco, which gives the same restrictions as buying from their website)

people who are plugged into the community may buy the bundle and get a license. or they may not because they only want 2 apps and will choose to buy directly from the developer.

and not important to your point, but important nonetheless:
3. MacHeist does not look like it was something cheap and simple to put together. they have gone and made five (and soon six) very pretty hard puzzles that made you go around and look, and think, and try to solve. sure you could have cheated, but it does not look like a lot of people did.

The Guy wrote: "None of the devs were forced into this, they decided it was worth it to them. "

Yeah, that's what was said about the low-level Enron employees whose retirement savings was wiped out when the executives drove the company into the ground.

The rant kinda makes MacHeist sound like the Wal-Mart of software apps, which is an absurd notion. These developers were not strong-armed into participating in this new system of advertising and distribution. There are many outlets for advertising and software promotion (e.g., macupdate, versiontracker, MacWorld, blogs, pod/screencasts), these people - not exactly greenhorns - just decided to try a new thing.

In all honesty, I am not too sure what the real complaint is here.
Are you mad that others decided to try something that you chose against doing? Do you feel like the pariah of indie Mac developers?
It seems rather silly that you are insulted - and feel that your works are devalued - because of what other people decide to do with their works.

You must absolutely detest freeware developers.

Gus, thank you for this article on your perspective of the MacHeist event. It gives me (a MacHeist participant) some insight into the developer side of this event, involved or not.

It concerns me that you might have only been offered a fixed payment of $5000 for your software inclusion on MacHeist. I like to think that my $39 paid for the app bundle will have directly resulted in more money going to the developers. That is, as a purchaser of the bundle, if sales made result in $50k going to charity I am rewarded with the license to an extra application (NewsFire). I made my purchase with the impression that the developers also would be rewarded in kind.

As a MacHeist participant I have been influenced greatly by this event.
The greatest effect being that I have purchased the application bundle! -discounted by $10 as a reward for successfully completing the five 'Heists' run over the last five weeks.

Over my lifetime of exclusive Mac usage I have never once purchased software from independant developers like yourself, until now. MacHeist has changed this 'fear' of purchasing independant software in a very meaningful way:

Over the last five weeks I have contributed nothing but my time to the MacHeist event. In return they have given me a very entertaining and enjoyable time while introducing me to what appears to be a wonderful community of developers. Developers who are passionate about what they do, beyond selling a product for money. They have given me licenses to software (17 not including bundle) in reward for participating in this event, all in good faith. Faith being that I would see these developers as people I want to support and a community I want to be a part of.

Community is something that the MacHeist team has created and given to me without requiring anything in return. This community is about Mac software and surrounds those developers involved. This community is something I want and something I don't fear contributing to by buying the software of those involved. It is something I can be involved in, getting what I need and giving what I can.

When I give money to you as a software developer I know that I worked hard for that money and it means a lot for me. I don't know the same for you. As part of a community together, I can see that my hard work is reflected in kind by the developers involvement and contribution to the community, I don't have to worry so much about the numbers and how the dollars balance for me and you.

I think this community should offer the same for you as a developer as it does for me as a consumer.

Gilmore,
Sure maybe MDA and MacHeist bought the mac community together but thats not the most important thing.
The MDA/MacHeist guys make more then any of the developers which is not how it should be if its truely "The Week of the Independant Mac Developer".

MacHeist is NOT a good deal for any developer as gus has pointed out. I'm a developer myself and there is no way id get involved in anything like MacHeist because its not going to bring in a huge amount of extra revenue in the long term (if any at all) and it will costs developers alot of money answering support emails.

If all your intereseted in is something that brings the mac community together then join a mac forum

And a comment for everyone who reads this....
If you want to support developers then buy there apps at full price and give them the reward they deserve.

Ben:
I had to make that assumption, because that's the data I had to go on. However you'll notice that in the 10k copies sold scenario, I doubled the payout to the devs. It would be cool if MacHeist would make their numbers public, but I imagine some developers are getting more than others.

And I never said MacHeist was cheap or simple- I did however point out that they were getting a sizable chunk more of the profits than the developers that wrote the applications they are making money off of.

JR and brandon, thanks for the explaination on the price issue.

Seeing all the apps in the bundle, I decided to wait until TextMate is unlocked or anywhere near it. Probably a bit "selfish", but you cant blame me (or others) for that. I do own some of those apps including the unlocked NewsFire, so I don't really care about them, and I have no friends to give to. I won't be considering buying TextMate if it is not in the bundle, due to its lack of CJK support.

And one more thing, based on my own experience, some of those developers are really "flexible", several years ago when one of the apps in the bundle (not NewsFire) was first released I gave it a try and was quite satisfied with it, but their purchase system failed to charge my credit card, so I sent the developer an email and ask if they have alternative payment method such as PayPal or so, within 24 hours I received the reply email with a free serial number.

I am not saying they do not care about sales, I just think they are doing it in a better way, because they knew I am gonna pay for it once there is a method available.

"That's what we've been trying to do with MacHeist."

John Casasanta,
Only if your making money from it right ?
You or no one else from macheist have said anything about what gus has said about the money so we can only assume gus is right about the amount you guys are making.


JR,
You are completly right. There are lots of apps that are all eye candy over substance being released at the moment. There are much better alternitives to most of them and many are free.
When the developers use viral marketing so heavily though you can only expect that users will get sucked in. If you look at who does the marketing and developing for all these apps you wont be surprised though.

o.k. it seems interesting to me that the devs here are taking a small amount like 5k or even 10k. however, it does not seem like these are small in home developers and they are prob. taking the chance that people will like the one app and buy more from them, or from the links on thier sites. a company like Devon prob. doesnt worry like i owuld if i sat and wrote a program and then let MH sell it in the bundle.

however, the apps that were given away seem like the smaller, simpler, one guy in the basement, type of apps. i would imagine that they got some amount of money (and that would have had come from the MH profit money in your equations). plus i have bought 5 of the 17. full licenses from the devs site (which is what the aim really was). for all we know the authors of the free apps were also all offered 5k for thier program.

its 12:05 and im tired from staying up for MAAD; Earthdesk (which i own, for PC and OS X by the way).

i guess the point of my post here is that the problem is WE DONT KNOW what the MH people or the devs involved know. we dont know if the bundle developers got 10k or 20k. we dont know if the developers of each of the 17 free apps got 1k. until the macheist people post their financials (which they probably wont do) we need to assume that the devs got a fair deal. otherwise why would they do it.

sorry aout the lack of structure in the post. like i said, its late.

Hi Gus,

Interesting take on the topic, thanks for the numbers. However, I think you are being a little naive on the costs of MacHeist. I don't think they take 100% of the money they make as profit. You are not assuming bandwith cost is zero, are you? And I would assume that is not their only cost.

I am not a big fan of marketers, but I have to admit I am very bad at marketing, although I consider myself a reasonably good coder. So, if somebody can chip in their knowledge for marketing, I'd take it. That's what business is, after all, a bunch of guys with different knowledge getting together to make some money.

I got exposed to a number of websites and apps. I am considering a list of them now, and only because I got to know them from MacHeist. Heck, even you benefited, cause I landed in your page and learned about your tool. And you didn't even have to pay MacHeist a single penny.

I'd bet Microsoft, Apple, and every major software company out there spends a lot in marketing every year. I'd bet it is a huge amount, not even close to how much they pay their devs.

Anyway, I still think the discussion is good. It makes us all think about these issues.

Andre

What we have here is a situation where software developers are unhappy with "The Game". "The Game" used to that users of their application that found value in said applications would decide to purchase an application. It was a one-to-one situation, and it was easy to understand and justify. You put the time in, user buys product, user gets support for product in exchange for money. Developer eats, gets roof over head, and is happy. And all the while they can project clearly the effects of their sales. But then The Game changed.

No longer can you simply define your product sales in this one to one manner with the introduction of these sorts of package deals, if one so chooses to participate. And it leads to a lot of confusion because you have to really understand your userbase, the userbase of these deals, and a million other factors that now play into the cost-benefit of being in one of these sorts of promotions. I'm just going to go off-the-cuff with a few comments on the matter:

1. The frequent promoter - yeah, I'm looking at you, appzapper. Appzapper gets included into every one of these sorts of promotions. It's been given away in maczot bundles, on its own, hell, they even created a site where every 5 minutes they just threw out a serial number to someone. And these promotions are all tied together to the same group, so I'm guessing there is a lot of user retention from promotion to promotion. Being involved in several promotions adds to the cost benefit because after 4 of these promotions, i'd say its safe to say that well over half of the participants already have your application. So thats basically free money, no burdon, no lost sales, etc. While Appzapper somehow made it out of this one, Disco is jumping up into its place, and my guess is they can form some sort of tag-team duo in the price-slashing market.

2. The Audience - MacHeist clearly was geared at a demographic of users that was under a certain age, and I'd be interested in what percentage of these folks would have actually ever bought the app. I wonder how many of these users were running pirated copies of the apps they now have serial numbers for. And I wonder how many of these users have been even exposed to the applications in question. Exposing your app to a new demographic has tons of word-on-the-street potential, and getting money where you can off of users who can't normally afford your apps is hardly unwise. Additionally, I get the feeling that some of the apps in this bundle were hard to market. FotoMagico springs to mind, because looking at it now I can see potential for the average user having a purpose for this application. But prior to today, I wouldn't have looked at it, because the price tag would have scared me away. Getting your App out there is important, and for some applications, this is the perfect way for it.

3. The Re-registered - harping on an earlier point, a lot of these apps may have been previously registered by users. I legitimately bought (no promotion or whatever) Shapeshifter when it came out, and this will be my second serial number. I don't need that, but now, I have it, and Unsanity can get a little free support booster from me. Same with Disco, but I did get that at discount (come on, theres hardly a way to not pick it up on discount).

But now you see where the price margins start working out. I bought Disco for $5 originally. Now its going to make money off a user who isn't going to use a second license. Say it gets $4 for this promotion. Well now they've basically sold me a license for $9. And now its becoming worthwhile down the line.

Thats all im trying to say. The math on these things brings in so many factors that you cant just support it or deny its validity. But this is The Game now. This is what users like to see. And if it becomes the norm, well, its Social Darwinism at work. Adapt or don't, but that inherently means survive or don't. And yeah, its not that big of a deal now, but if this trend continues, then you're going to have to give it a serious look. And that means actually sitting down with pen and paper, and statistics of the registered users, and see whats profitable and whats not. My feeling is if you commit to being on the bandwagon of these bundle deals, your profitability skyrockets, but again, I don't have the research to prove it ;)

Man, opensource is just so much easier...and yet, so much less...profitable :P

One thing that a lot of people seem to be missing is the fact that all these gimmicks just de-value mac software, not big it up. The more you give people super deals and huge discounts the less likely they are going to purchase full price apps in the future.

If EMI started putting out CD's at 10 for the price of 1 then you can be sure the other record companies might have a wee problem with that and I can fully understand why.

Each developer had a choice to join Mac Heist so they get whatever they deserve. But the fact is, the more we see these cheap software deals the harder it is for other developers to sell their software at full price.

Here's the thing. Some of the apps are great, some are overhyped eyecandy. Some people will buy the bundle and be more likely to support indie devs in the future, some people will buy it and just be psyched to shell out so little for apps and will only buy again when they're this cheap. Some people won't buy the bundle at all, but will be more aware of the need to support indie devs by actually donating to free/donationware and paying for shareware (this would be me). Yes, MH and MDA are publicity-hyped. But, many good things have come out of them. The community on MH is great and the apps that will come out of MDA may not revolutionize personal computing, but they'll be fun and (somewhat) useful. It's no one's fault that people like discounts and eyecandy. You can not like it, sure, but it just sounds like sour grapes.
I agree that Disco, Cha-Ching, Tangerine et al are very pretty apps that I'd NEVER shell out for (and I probably won't use Cha-Ching which I got free in a heist), but PLEASE give Mac-users the credit that we are smart enough to know which apps are quality that we want to pay for, and which we know we won't. Also, why can't it be okay that some Mac-users do want to shell out for Disco/Cha-Ching because they like fun eyecandy apps? It seems like it only helps the shareware community in the end. Finally, one conscious decision I have made (us non-devs DO make conscious decisions, btw) is to not support devs who I think are pompous, divisive jerks. I don't buy/use apps when I think the developer has an agenda or looks down on his/her users. Other people think this way, too.
(Sneakin on MH and MDA)

@ Clay,

I do in fact take time to read actual heists. I have been a member of MacHeist since it's inception and have played along with the little games. I have also been involved with MyDreamApp and I was one of the original members of MT and MTF.

I know exactly what I'm talking about and have been around long enough within Phill's "career" and his little helpers to know.

I agree with you, MH certainly isn't "no work," but common, if you are trying to sell the idea that the work they put in to MH is even comparable on a 1% level of how much work goes into an app, then I'm laughing.

No one is pissed that they are good at marketing. What everyone is upset about is that they're doing something extremely good for themselves and trying to make it out like it's extremely good for other people, when really, they are the center of it. Again, if you can't see this, then oh well, but I guarantee you if you saw the numbers on MH or macZOT, you'd be surprised.

It's like a retail chain with a 90% markup. It's absurd. It reminds me of the WalMart scenario, and how WalMart will work extremely hard to get products at their store (promising exposure of course) that often it will negotiate a price that is even below the cost for the manufacturer, in effect putting them out of business to get exposure. The difference with WalMart however, is you don't hear them exclaim "The day of the product manufacturer" on their ads. No, they exclaim "lowest prices," which indeed is correct.

I'm excited to hear that you are an entrepreneur yourself and first focus on making a good product. I beg of you though, in your search to become better at marketing, don't take the MacHeist or macZOT model. Don't lie. In an age where it's lasting relationships that matter, that model may spike traffic, but it's not the way to win raving fans of your product. It's a quick way to score some numbers, devalue a product, screw over a dev, and make some money. Pure and simple.

Gus,

I do understand the reasons for your angry article. However, I would like you to look at what MH is doing from a different perspective:
Any indie developper should look at marketing as an investment and not as a loss. Because the magic word here is "volume". The amount of work you put in your app is not payed by the price per copy, the only important figure here is the total revenue. This is obvious, I guess.

Less obvious, it seams, is that in order to have a big user base you need high awareness. Companies spend big marketing budgets to get awareness, indie devs do not have the money to invest into this. This is why most of them stay small.

The way I see it is that MH produced an incredible awareness for the apps they promote among mac users. It may look expensive for you, but in fact you are paying for marketing cost from your margin. That is, you get exposure without getting money from your pocket.

In this respect it is totally irelevant how much money MH is making compared to the devs. I am a marketing guy and I can tell you advertising and media agencies make huge amounts of money only from communicating to the right potential buyers, with no guarantee that your product will sell. The only important thing is how effective the campaign was. And in this respect MH seems to be doing one of the best jobs I've seen in years.

That said, no one should look at MH as a magic marketing bullet. Awareness may not be enough. (think user minded: awareness->interest->need->buy)Constant marketing effort will be needed after that. But it is a very good kick start for indie devs.

If you sell 100 aps a month and one day you give away 10.000 serials for your app, how much money you lose?
I say nothing, you say 10.000 * sales price.

I'm with you Gus. Let's prey these sites die a quick death. If your app is only worth $2 to you and your users, is it even worth registering?

WTF is up with these sites? Most shareware is excellent value and if you register with the developer, you know you're supporting their continued development.

These sites are basically piracy 'lite'. I can't understand why some of the big-name developers are supporting them.

Well, Gus, your rant certainly made me feel very strongly...about never buying any software from you. That you could not keep your jealousy in check lost you any future business you may have gotten from me or those to whom I recommend software.

Yesterday, after I purchased two bundles from MacHeist, I bought licenses for four other shareware apps, independent of MH. I probably wouldn't have done that had I not been put in a support-shareware mood over the past few weeks thanks to MH and MAAD.

Gus,

First let me say I purchased Voodoo Pad and the upgraded to Voodoo Pad Pro when it went to a new version and really appreciate all the great work you've put into it. That said, Flying Meat benefited from my being more open to purchasing shareware because of the MacHeist style "MysteryZot" things over at MacZot (sure it's only one user, but I'm probably not the only one).

I've been using shareware since I was using a Tandy 1000 TX in the 80s, but it wasn't until recently (and largely as part of the Mac world) that I started buying it. Part of that comes from a culture of supporting independant music and being involved in IT and starting to equate the two. And part of it comes from getting a few shareware apps for very cheap through promotions and realizing how good some of the software is. It's much like the classic drug-dealer cliche... the first hit is free and from then on you pay.

I'm not saying the MacHeist model is ideal, but I don't think it's as nefarious as you've made it out to be.

Thank you again for the great products you put out. I'm still a fan even if I don't agree with you on this.

The only good part I can see from MacHeist is kind of bringing the Mac community together a little more. Example:

"Hey (insert Mac enthusiast here), did you figure out the new MacHeist?"

"No, I couldn't figure it out. Want to help me?"

(also works great as a mac-girl pickup line..


Onto my real post.
You're right, Gus.
And most of the other people who spoke up about this were right as well. Keep on truckin!

Just one little note, which it seems none of you have considered, and is just a basic economics point: these developers get $5k or $10k for one week of sales. Compared to any other week, how many licenses might they have sold? Would they have sold licenses worth $5k? And if they wouldn't, this is $5k they would not have made otherwise, because a lot of buyers would not have bought all, or any, of these apps.
Selling 5000 apps at $5k and perhaps 100 apps at $200 is better than selling 500 apps at $1k.

I'm sorry, but you are all complaining regarding Disco and AppZapper? Have you actually seen and used the Flying Meat applications, VoodooPad, FlyGesture, etc.? These are even more simpler that the ones you complain about. These are NOT very good applications since they have very little utility for the average person, could affect the stability of the operating system, and for VoodooPad, there are better, free alternatives e.g. Smultron, Journler which have much, much more utility for the average user. So I'm sorry, but what is the problem again with Disco and AppZapper?

Just my 2 cents...

Tell it like it is gus.

What saddens/maddens a lot of Mac developers I think is that this is a sign that the marketters are beginning to take over. The Mac software ecosphere used to be a meritocracy, with the good software (VP) floating to the top and the shit sotware (AppZapper) falling to the bottom.

So now we have these give aways and gimmicks and silly assed games and snakeoil salemen. I miss the old days.

And guys. one thing to remember about Gus' post. This is his blog. He can say whatever the hell he likes here...

Support for you Gus.

Let's let today be hug a Mac developer day.

(Not a dev; just an independent Mac SW junkie.)

Aren't those devs afraid of pissing their existing customers?

I mean, if you buy an app for e.g. $30 and see it included in a $49 bundle the next week, won't you feel a bit screwed?

I feel like there's a fundamental disconnect going on here. It seems that somewhere along the way you're assuming that you're losing money by gaining customers? The people who buy the bundle are not necessarily people who would purchase VoodooPad at full price. I should know; I'm one of them.

I like VoodooPad. I think it's an attractive, well-designed and extremely useful application. That being said, I simply can't afford the $30 license fee. I would use VDP Lite, but it doesn't have the feature set I want.

I was _really_ hoping that VoodooPad would be in the bundle so I could own a license for your app and support you as well (in what little way I can right now).

And it's here where I think the MacHeist model starts to work: hook me for cheap, and I'll be your (full-price paying) monkey forever. Just because I can't afford it now, doesn't mean I can't *ever* afford your app.

I will likely come back to VoodooPad sometime in the future, but right this minute there's a bad taste in my mouth.

Hi Gus,
$39.20 isn't the average price of each piece of software in the bundle. It is the average people are paying for the bundle. There are two things reducing the price for people:
1. They got discounts for completing each heist
2. They get discounts for buying more than one bundle
And people are taking advantage of both.

I hope that makes more sense,
Joe Kavanagh

We've been trying to get Mac Indie folks to advertise on our website and in our magazine for over 4 years now.

It would be really sweet if you guys and gals (Mac Indie Developers) went ahead and bought space, so we could set up a "Mac Indie Software" page in our magazine. And our advertising fees are probably the lowest in the business. We deal!

Contact Wayne Lefevre at wlefevre at maccompanion dot com, since he is our marketing and advertising guru.

We've been championing the cause for years!

Uh I hate to say it Gus but you're sounding remarkably like someone who is pissed to not be part of macheist after the fact.
Good PR and good marketing is part and parcel of today's development process. If you want to make money making software you can't just exist on word of mouth. Sure some of the recent apps have had better marketing than design. Great whatever. Insulting hard working people who crafted an original design to their puzzle site, drove traffic to a lot of developers that hadn't had any PR and made money for charity is something to admire.

Your anger times as it is, is nothing more than a pale transparent attempt at getting some publicity for yourself. Also I'd recommend if you're going to be on your high horse that you take a moment and get an original site logo rather than the retreaded flickr logo. Pure imitation is plagiarism not flattery.

Andre said "I think you are being a little naive on the costs of MacHeist. I don't think they take 100% of the money they make as profit."

I never claimed they did. They've obviously said that 25% goes to charity, and an unspecified amount goes to the devs and MacHeist.

I think another unspoken aspect of these promotions is the fact that while it may be the "Week of the Independent Developer" its independent developers who had their own little network of connections. I can think of at least half a dozen developers [myself included] who had no knowledge, no opportunity, and no possibility at these 'marketing' events. It's nepotistic in its nature, honestly. Beyond that these put even more pressure on small developers to meet ever-increasing standards of pricing, marketing, design and hype that they can't afford and they continue to languish in the shadows of VT/MU/etc. despite their quality or dedication. Am I bitter at them... no, but I do think the proper weighing of the situation as Gus and others have done is incredibly important and instead of personal attacks on him or his work, others should provide an equally reasoned response.

The economics of this are pretty simple (for me at least).

I never would have bought Delicious Library. It's a neat application, but as I've seen others see elsewhere, I have this neat dashboard for seeing my book/DVD collection -- it's called a bookshelf.

Potential revenue from me - $0. When you bundle it, similar to a cable company bundles a bunch of channels I'd never watch, I end up paying something for it. The costs associated with supporting me on this app will be nil, I won't use it enough to need support. The developer is still making money off of me where he/she wouldn't have before.

I'm not making a quality judgement on any of the software here - I think they're all great apps, just not my cup of tea. Same's true with ShapeShifter -- I won't use it, but I'll still pay for it so that I can get a copy of Disco, RapidWeaver, DevonThink and potentially TextMate.

The other trick is that upgrades come along, which unlike others, I don't have a problem paying for if there's something significant. If you give me an app, and I become a huge fan (who knows, maybe my great Uncle Henry will die and leave me his 4,000 DVD collection...) then I'll be loyal to delicious library.

I've used Voodoo pad, it was neat, but didn't do it for me. I've decided that I'm not going to buy it. If it was bundled in MacHeist, I would currently be using it though (I have lite installed). I LOVE FlySketch, and will likely be buying that in the near future.

Everyone involved in MacHeist chose to participate willingly. The developers who jumped onboard did so without being forced, and likely found that the increased exposure and the sheer number of people who would purchase this bundle made it worth their time.

If they felt they were being harmed, they ought not to have agreed to participate. It would logically follow that given all the information available to them at the time of making their decision to get involved, they felt that their total revenue and exposure would meet or exceed any further costs and missed sales they would incur, either in the form of increased time spent supporting their applications, or missed future sales from those who discovered these apps through MacHeist and would have otherwise paid full price. Considering the highly-visibility nature of some of these applications and the largely-obscure nature of MacHeist, in tandem with the fact that MH's user community by nature is well-traveled in the Mac shareware landscape, there can only be so many of those people.

For these reasons, these developers concluded that they are better off participating in MacHeist than not. Furthermore, the website operators profited for their efforts to bring this event together, and some money also goes to charities that would otherwise likely not have made this money. In short, everyone has benefitted from this experience, because all of those involved elected to participate willingly.

Re: AppZapper is crap and there are better alternatives. When I took a look at the app uninstallers, I only found two, AppZapper and CleanApp. Since then more have popped up, but back a bit there were really only those two.

I downloaded both and took a look at them. For me AppZapper did what it promised and no more. CleanApp did do much more, but it did stuff that I don't care about. AZ is simple, pretty and functional. And has an Automator workflow, so I can just right-click and Zap!

So for me that was $10 well spent. Although CleanApp has added more functionality, none of it is of any interest to me.

These days I am all about finding simple apps that ONLY do one thing, but do it well. And I want apps that look pretty. And I am willing to pay for it.

Just my 2 cents.

On Dec 12, 2006 at 07:44 am, Chris (http://corourke.dreamflicks.com/) wrote:
"Also I'd recommend if you're going to be on your high horse that you take a moment and get an original site logo rather than the retreaded flickr logo. Pure imitation is plagiarism not flattery."

While hoping not to derail this every so polite and restrained thread I would just like to say that Gus' flickresque logo is (channeling the spirit of Gus) intended to parody. It was created using a web 2.0 banner generator (which was all over the web a month or two ago: http://www.google.com/search?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&q=web+2.0+logo+generator). If you can't spot the parody in the missing e in Mueller and the 2.0 rosette then you really need to step away from the computer and go for a nice long walk.

Oh SNAP- I bought the bundle both cause I liked the charity hook AND because, altho I already owned 3 of the programs, I had NO INTENTION of buying the others except that this deal made them more reasonable for my small prospective use of them. Now maybe I will grow to use them more and then maybe later on, when the inevitable update/upgrade fee comes due, I will spend more $$$ and maybe not. But as far as MY business is concerned, these other developers got more of my $$$ than they ever would have otherwise.

I don't think it's really appropriate or necessary to question to intentions of the MH developers. They state what how much is given to charity, and don't claim to be a non-profit organization.

All this talk of Enron and comparing MH to software piracy is gonna give me a headache. It's about as ridiculous as saying VoodooPad Lite somehow promotes piracy of the full version.

Whether it's a good deal for devs, is up to them to decide. It is nice to see some estimated numbers, and such discussion is good. But destroying the software community? Marketing 'taking over' software?

Like I said, discussion is good. But instead of pointing fingers (I'm not referring to Gus but to some of the ridiculous comments here), go market your software.

Welcome to the real world, Gus.

People that can sell will always make more money than people that can do. You can call it unfair, you can cry and bitch about it on your blog, but it's the truth.

As for the rest of the developers jumping on the bandwagon, are you honestly suggesting that people are falling all over for these "eyecandy" apps and not your own well-coded, more robust, apps? People like what they like, they buy what they want, who are you to tell them any different? If you want it to sell better than AppZapper, you have to convince US it's better, not yourself... which you already seemed to have accomplished.

Again, people like what they like, I certainly take offense at any suggestions that we're mindless sheep, drawn by the carnie barker to empty our pockets.

Couple of potshots, in no particular order:
On Dec 12, 2006 at 06:37 am, Jonathan Wight wrote:
Tell it like it is gus.

What saddens/maddens a lot of Mac developers I think is that this is a sign that the marketters are beginning to take over. The Mac software ecosphere used to be a meritocracy, with the good software (VP) floating to the top and the shit sotware (AppZapper) falling to the bottom.

So now we have these give aways and gimmicks and silly assed games and snakeoil salemen. I miss the old days.

And guys. one thing to remember about Gus' post. This is his blog. He can say whatever the hell he likes here...
--
Uh... on your website you take a shot at Disco, how it does less than Disk Utility, but dig into the app to steal the Smoke effect and suggest other developers steal/repurpose it for their own profit/amusement.

On Dec 11, 2006 at 08:53 pm, Joshua wrote:
To me it should be: Dev: 65%, Charity: 25%, MacH: 10%
--
Joshua, then why don't you set up your own MacHeist style promotion and split the profits exactly the way you think it should be.

Well I just started buying stuff on these bundle and promo pages, and my buying has tripled (maybe even quadrupled) over the last two months. What I do is: I check out these pages see software that could be useful read some comments on them and eventually buy software I would never had bought otherwise. Some of them I didn't even had time to test :) or use for that matter. So it ended up being good for the developers. The apps that I really need have been bought already (textmate for example). What it actually did for me was get me far more used to buy shareware and I think thats a good thing.

Good for you for not participating in MacHeist. All they are doing is robbing money from naive Mac ISVs. At least someone stepped up to the plate to let the bullshit be known.

If a developer is clearing, on average, $2 per license, I just can't see how that's a win for anyone who supports his or her own software.

Every single license sold comes at a cost -- because every single support email you have to answer costs you time and money -- even the ones that say, "My license key doesn't work," because the user transcribed characters, or confused a 0 for an O. Say it takes you five minutes on average to answer a support case (some will be quicker, some will take a lot longer). Say half of the license fee ($1) goes toward paying for that five minutes -- which means you are not so much a developer, but essentially a help desk wonk making $12 an hour -- this means you're making $1 "profit" on your software. (A whole WEEK worth of ramen!)

Instead, if the developer had fewer licensees (or more profit, thus able to pay people to help do support) and could spend that hour working on a feature that makes the software better, more appealing, and more marketable (or even more self-supporting!), well, it seems like that's a better use of a developer's time, isn't it?

Looking at it this way, it's remarkable to me that any developer who answers support email would settle for a "deal" such as MacHeist.

Good grief. I can't believe someone on this thread suggested Disco was a high class application with more functionality than VoodooPad. It doesn't do anything you can't do with your Mac already. VoodooPad adds functionality not found in the system to begin with.

On the marketing aspect: Apple would never participate in the kind of marketing going on here... while Dell and every other PC maker has been doing this for ages. Flying Meat != Apple... but perhaps FM doesn't gain from being in MacHeist because it is not the type of user-base that would be in the long-term interest of FM. Someone else already suggested here that MacHeist is targeting a much younger and thriftier segment of the Mac community...

Naturally, by this point, the conversation is beginning to go toward non-core issues, such as the color of a logo. Why focus on whether the developers are getting anything other than the advantageous deal they sorely deserve (even a good agent will only take 15%), when we can talk about a joke logo.

I am just surprised at the vehemence. Sure it creates a sense of "cheapness" around the utilities, and if I was the owner of a lauded app, I would either include an older "complete" version or not participate. But if I had an app that I wanted to promote and didn't have the marketing savvy of this kid, then it might not be a bad idea.

For example, on macappaday, they had YummyFTP which I think is far superior to Transmit, but never gets any press. Maybe this way they get a couple more people to hear about it and spread some good press.

And it does strike me as paternal and a bit over-the-top to be so critical for something the developers agreed to be a part of. Sure, your app might compete with them and now they are offering it cheap, but that is competition and how it works.

okay, if we can get out of the developer circle-jerk for a moment here, am i the only one who likes the fact that some of this is going to charity? maybe i am... i've had to rely on one of them in the past. but apparently everyone's just hopping on the gruber-inspired bandwagon of "never charge too little for your app) crap. well, some of us aren't cheapskates... we just don't have a lot of spare cash to spend, but we have wanted to buy these apps for a long time, but couldn't afford the wallet-drain (and plus, there's just the barrier of entry of buying multiple items on separate sales... but having it all in one nice bundle helps that too). plus, it gives me the opportunity to be on the upgrade path for some apps that may see significant improvement in the next versions (like disco).

but this reminds me that everyone seems to have an opinion of what i am looking for in an app... like the early example of competitors to appzapper (or gruber's comments long ago about how appzapper fills a need that shouldn't exist if developers wrote their apps correctly... i HATE this response... it's like the ass reply when i ask a question on a forum of how to do something, and someone says "don't do that" or "why would you want to do that?" instead of either a.) listening to me and what i want and replying or b.) leaving me the hell alone).

so seriously, if you're taking a huge amount of umbrage to the MH group hijacking the mac shareware developer banner for a week, please get over yourself. i have looked at voodoo pad, and i don't like its gui. could it change my whole life? maybe. would i try it if it were dirt cheap or bundled dirt cheap? maybe, and maybe after extended work, maybe i would change my mind. or maybe not. and you don't have to ever do that if you don't want to try to get folks like me to bite. but a lot of developers fall into a trap where they think that, with software, someone can make an educated decision, and build a loyalty to, an app over a time-limited (or featured-limited) demo. maybe that works for others, not for me. i just find a different way to do it.

ah hell, i'm rambling. gus, calm down. don't like it? either don't get involved, or do and have some say in how it gets happens. but monday-morning quarterbacking is just annoying... and i'd just ignore it, except rants like these, in the wonderful echo-chamber that is the tech and mac community, ends up landing spittle on damn near every blog i read.

Seems to me that if I were a developer (and I admit I'm not) that it just might be worth the "investment" of using the MacHeists, MacAppADays, etc. for no other reason but to get 5000+ new sets of eyes viewing your current project and now with email addresses and names in hand 5000+ future project potentials. Or you could just setup your site in some remote corner of the internet and hope someone stumbles on it.
Using a loss-leader isn't exactly unheard of either. Ask any grocery store why they would sell Coke or Pepsi for $.79 and they'll tell you because it works. Sure they make squat on the 2 liter but they're looking to a much larger picture.

Hello Gus

you forgot to link to Bill Hicks on marketing <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo>

'if you're in marketing...kill yourself...you are Satan's little helpers...'

Let's hope that these marketing groups don't insert themselves successfully between the devs and the users and use their leverage...

'ooh, the anger dollar...'...'the trapped dollar'...

Good luck to all the developers. I buy your stuff - when I like it and need it - and hope it all keeps flying for you all.

Chris,
I doubt gus is annoyed not to be part of macheist because if you look at the figures and support costs from the point of view of a developer then you will realise MacHeist is simply not a good deal.

Brian Ganninger,
Very good comment. Maybe MacHiest should change it too "Week of the Independent Developers who happen to be friends of ours" or "Week of the 10 lucky Independent Developers, and who cares about the rest"

Alright, so it seems we've got a large cross section of opinions here, unfortunately, I've yet to see one from an Indie that licensed to a 3rd party. I have, and he truth is, these guys that did MH are getting screwed, but no worse, than they would should they have published using a larger third party. For those of you in the game market, you should know what I'm saying if you've ever talked to a publisher about your game :-).

If an author (book, software, game, etc) chooses not to self publish and self market, they are usually looking at between 3-10% on net (not gross). So let's say you write a technical book, and it's Amazon price is 29.95, the wholesale price on that book to Amazon is roughly 19.00, and the manufacturing cost is about 7.00, so net revenue per book is 12.00. Let's say you are an awesome negotiator and you got a full 10% deal (rare). That's 1.20 per copy, with the editor getting a percentage and the publisher taking the lion's share, to the tune of about 10 per unit.

This holds true in software as well, I just think there has been less exposure to it in the smaller Mac market.

I licensed a piece of work to a company that was probably dead without it, as they didn't have a Windows product, and the platform they had was dying. I got a good deal from them, and the owner of that company is a true gentleman who takes care of the people he works with, but even that deal was structured that he would make the most money, but he was also exposed to the most risk. Today, his company is doing very well, and though my compensation from the product has certainly diminished, the ROI was good.

That's the issue here though.

The MH guys are prepaying a lump sum, and taking the risk that they can earn back enough in unit sales to cover that initial investment. Because of this, they are also planning that should the risk be covered the reward is sufficient to justify the risk.

Gus, with you doing your own publishing and marketing, you are assuming that risk, and thus expect that reward, and you are gambling that your revenue for the week will be greater than the guaranteed income of that lump sum payment, thus your risk/reward election is different. Each developer has to review that balance for themselves.

You tell it like it is, Gus.

One can quibble about the payoffs for developers who participate in these kinds of bundles. There's lots of room for speculation about how much a bundle might help or hurt sales, about support costs, and about the value of publicity.

But it's pretty clear that these bundles DEVALUE software and the work of independent developers. Never mind the economics - I would hope that a developer would walk away from this kind of sleaze-fest, just out of self respect.

Gus, I totally agree with you. There are a lot of things wrong with MacHeist & all these other little things that Phill & the gang have put together, and it is essentially just a small group of people. Here are my thoughts across the board.

First off, it isn't indie anymore. These guys have teamed up and set up as a small company and are just feeding into it. Most of the apps, especially AppZapper, are a part of pretty much everything that goes on, so there is nothing independent. Just because Panic is a small company, doesn't make them an indie developer. They do develop amazing applications AND make a ton of money, but you don't see their software involved with these over-hyped projects. Panic develops the great apps and built their community and loyal user-base based on their style. So everyone thinking that this is indie group, helping indie developers, it's not. It is the same group feeding into the same group. How is Austin Sarner (maker of AppZapper) an indie developer if he has a marketing guy, a site developer, a person in front of the camera and who knows what else? All these folks are involved together and are a COMPANY helping software from other developers in the SAME COMPANY. Just because they throw in a few other apps into the mix doesn't mean that they aren't benefitting far more than the other "outside" developers. They are using the other apps to legitimize their own apps and marketing project.

Another note. A lot of folks have mentioned Walmart. I am a businessman and have dealt with Walmart on a number of deals. Don't be fooled folks, THIS IS EXACTLY HOW WALMART OPERATES. Let me give you a real life deal that happened with Walmart. A pickle company got a distribution deal with Walmart for their "premium" pickles. They get the product in the stores and they were doing alright. Then Walmart told them that they should do a "non-premium" pickle pack at a far lower price, promising that the volume of sales would more then make up for the loss in margins. The pickle company hesitantly agreed, thinking that Walmart knows best. Remember, these guys were a small company trying to grow and they thought the Walmart route would be the way. They start selling the pickle pack and it is selling like hotcakes. They can barely keep up with the demand. Their volume of product going out the door was 10x what they were doing before. So you're thinking, "they must be rolling in the money now because more people know about their product and their volume is so much more." You are wrong. The company is now out of business....SOLELY DUE TO THE WALMART DEAL. See, this is how it went down. Even though their volume went up, their higher margin product got alienated and wasn't selling at all. The actual cost of bundling and packaging the "non-premium" pickles was more expensive in the long run despite volume then getting the "premium" pickles out the door and onto shelves. Volume doesn't mean anything if you margins end up dropping too low.

How does this relate to MH? Here's how. Just because these developers might be making 5-10k per week (disclaimer: I have no idea what is being made but I guarantee that it isn't proportionate) for the next 2 weeks, it doesn't mean that it is to their benefit. Their support cost goes up. Managing all the new users and their requests and issues grows astronomically. Now if the person wants to actually continue developing a new version or updates to the product, then something has to give. Either one of three things will happen.

a) They will neglect support requests due to sheer volume
b) Support response times will increase (different then point (a) where they might actually miss support requests)
c) They bring on some help.

None of those is a good thing. It doesn't benefit the developer or the end user. It also doesn't benefit the shareware community. Less innovation happens, less frequent updates happen. It also hurts the other developers that aren't in the same social circle as the MacHeist guys, even though their app might be better. The MacHeist guys didn't have an open call to developers of other apps to choose what would actually benefit the Mac user base. They choose apps their friends developed. There are a lot of other things that can adversely go wrong as well but that gets my point across.

In the end, this is a shady MARKETING business shrouded with "helping" developers or getting money out to charities. If they promoted themselves as a marketing company, people would be crying fowl left and right, but in the end, that is all they are...a shady one at that.

Don't get me wrong, good marketing is a hard to come by, but this is just hype. It is more like vapor-marketing(tm). MacHeist and the guys behind it are in it to make a crapload of money and nothing else. If they really wanted to help, the split would be more in favor of the developers and the charities. Something like this wold be more reasonable.

Developer: 50%
Charity: 35%
MH: 15%

Now I realize that putting this operation is not done magically and that their is a fair amount of effort put into it but in the end, MacHeist making 15% is more than fair considering it takes nowhere near the time to develop MacHeist than it does that actual apps that they are selling.

I love my Mac and the Mac shareware community. I buy every single piece of software on my computer and I do it at full price even with things like MacHeist and macZOT being around, so don't try and say that I don't care about the developers. I think they are the ones ultimately getting screwed the most out of this, and the ones that I am talking about are not people like Austin Sarner who is part of all of these projects and is good friends with Phill. He is making more than most, I'm sure.

(let the flaming begin)

I think a lot of people are angry about apps like AppZapper and Disco after the Rogue Amoeba article.

However, I think that a lot of people are missing the point of these apps. Disco and AppZapper aren't great application because they provide a good practical purpose (although they do). For me, I like these apps because they're fun to use. I enjoy zapping my applications, and burning my discs with Disco.

I'm going to re-iterate Mark's point earlier in this comment thread: "The more you give people super deals and huge discounts the less likely they are going to purchase full price apps in the future."

That's not just theoretical, folks. Ask the font foundries about this. Back when Windows 95 was introduced and Microsoft was pushing TrueType, they did what they thought was a great thing: they licensed a few dozen high-quality fonts from big-name foundries like ITC, and released a couple "font packs" for users, each well under $100. Given that a *single* high-quality font family (i.e., the same typeface in regular and italic, usually in two or three weights) could easily retail for $100, that was revolutionary.

Unfortunately, it was a "revolution" which made Windows users *expect* fonts for that price. Foundries couldn't really drop their prices to that level to make consumers happy--Microsoft was essentially subsidizing those low-cost font packs. So what happened is that a lot of cheaper, crappier font knockoffs got created and TrueType, despite arguably being a better font format than Adobe Type I, became associated in the prepress/printing industry with "absolute crap." By making a big happy value bundle, Microsoft inadvertently relegated their chosen font format to second banana status.

I don't have the same level of antipathy toward MacHeist that Mr. Mueller does, but there's a basic point he made here that's also worth re-iterating -- the MacHeist people are going to be making a lot more money off this than the developers (or charities) are, and that's true even if you use Joe Kavanagh's numbers. It's certainly gotten a lot of attention and in a sense MH has been really cheap marketing, but one has to wonder whether sending a copy of your app to a couple influential Mac bloggers wouldn't actually bring greater return than selling your app at a fraction of its list price. I suspect one "this is a cool thing" mention on Daring Fireball's Linked List is much better marketing than being in a grab bag.

I decided that, based on these messages, today would be a good day to break down and register MailTags 2.0. I'm a pretty regular "independent" software user -- in addition to MailTags, I have about a dozen other registered shareware apps (and a few others under consideration).

Economic issues aside, I just find the whole Macheist/Zot/Disco mafia to be pretty crass marketeering that does nothing but devalue the entire Mac shareware ecosystem.

Delicious Generation, indeed

As one who purchases (way more than I should) independent Mac software (including most of the apps included in the Heist), the whole concept leaves a bad taste in my mouth. My tools are important to me, and I don't want my developer's support time filled up with a bunch of guys who bought the software because it was cheap rather than what it actually does.

Now, I'm going to have to wade through the forums at Devon Technologies with all the dopes who bought it and wonder why it's not more like Yojimbo. And at TextMate and wonder why it isn't more like BBEdit. Or at Delicious Library and wish it was more... wait: I've never had to search forums for Delicious Library. Let 'em come.

My software are my tools. I use them for my professional livelihood, and I don't want these cheap bastards wandering around whining.

@Bill: if $30 is too much for you to afford, you simply don't deserve a voice. It's like voting. If you don't go to the polls, you don't deserve to whine about your politicians. But now, what's this? We're giving votes to dogs, cats, hamsters, and goldfish? The cost to enter no longer requires actually liking the app or needing the app. No, it's that you're a cheap bastard who gets off using the Cheapest Possible Thing. I dread the future.

Finally, it's a myth that software has no volume costs. Every user costs, not in physical product, but in support. Every user costs. These developers *are* making a bad move, and they will lose money for it. If (and it's a big risk) they get enough exposure that there's secondary sales which provide a net profit (which allows them to provide the same or improved support in the future), then wonderful. But as it stands, MacHeist does a great job marketing to cheap, young guys who wouldn't spend the money anyway.

I just wish MacHeist was full of the crap these things are usually full of: AppZapper, iClip, and a bunch of crap I'd never heard of. That this really is good software makes me depressed and angry.

Gus, when it comes down to it, you're _really_ saying: "I didn't take the 5k because the other guys would make 10k by selling _my_ software. These people don't deserve that kind of money, because marketing isn't a real job". I think that attitude isn't conductive to increasing your success in business. We live in a society where ideas have values. MacHeist was a smart idea, and very well carried out.

Other commenters opined that the devs weren't getting their 'fair' share, implying that creating the software itself is in fact the most important step in the whole process. Fact is, we're _just_ the developer. We have no idea about how to sell this stuff. If someone can make me 5k by selling some software I wrote, it really isn't important how much he pockets himself, if the alternative scenario is that I _don't_ make 5k. I would guess you don't earn 5k every week. (For myself I'm certain I don't!). Sometimes what feels wrong is actually just smart thinking. Life is counter intuitive.

Market economies revolve around consumers, not producers (all those experiments failed). Buying software shouldn't be about rescuing developers from the dole, but about getting the best bang for the buck. The popular attitude amongst developers that discounts endanger their livelihoods makes me think that instead of coding and improving their products, maybe they should be starting a macdev union and start a picket line outside the MacHeist headquarters....

Initiatives such as MacHeist are a clear sign that interest in buying software is picking up, new users are entering the market, and the market as a whole is growing. Instead of lamenting the fact that people with other talents are getting a piece of the cake, let's be thankful that they think this is a cake worth eating. Remember: merchants can sell anything, but for some reason they seem to think that selling Mac software is a growth industry.

For the first time in how many years?

"And it's here where I think the MacHeist model starts to work: hook me for cheap, and I'll be your (full-price paying) monkey forever. Just because I can't afford it now, doesn't mean I can't *ever* afford your app."

I find this argument particularly unpersuasive - $30 is small enough that it's a question of priorities rather the ability to pay (and anyone who, despite having a Mac, internet connection, etc. still simply can't afford $30 for VoodooPad certainly can't afford to spend $50 for any other software). If Gus dropped the price he'd be subsidizing the spending decisions of a few people by forgoing a lot more profit from the majority of computer users who *can* afford them and are willing to pay for useful software. In absolute terms we're only talking about the cost of a meal or two, a week of lattes, etc.

Gus,

I am a registered user of FlySketch and VoodooPad and I love your software. But I think that your attitude is wrong on this. If the other developers choose to lessen the value of their products that is there decision. I don't see how this affects you at all. People will pay for great software. Recently your tone has been very sour. Why can't we have eye-candy software such as Disco and functional software such as VoodooPad. In fact, I would really be happy if the two aspects could be merged together.

On Dec 12, 2006 at 12:27 pm, yen lai wrote:

"Uh... on your website you take a shot at Disco, how it does less than Disk Utility, but dig into the app to steal the Smoke effect and suggest other developers steal/repurpose it for their own profit/amusement. "

Wow. Someone else missing the ability to spot parody.

You have to give Phil (the 18 year old kid behind macheist) a boatload of credit for haviing the smarts and ambition to pull this stuff off. Making money off other people's work, well, that's as American as apple pie.

My concern is that this kid has his fingers in resexcellence, my dreamapp (awesome idea), and macthemes as well as macheist. With the exception of macheist, none of these pages have been updated in a while. And his partner has been pre-announcing the next version of iClip for many, many months.

These guys are stretched thin. Very, very thin. And it's a shame, because if these cool ideas were done right, it could be a real boon to mac developers and users alike.

My guess is that you won't see any dream apps come out anytime soon. (It took well over a year for them to turn around a shapeshifter theme from the contest they had for that). Resexcellence will die a bit slower, but will never be back to its glory, and you won't see a macheist 2 anytime soon, either.

My guess is Phil will have a job at Apple in the next year or two, in the marketing department, and we won't see much more of this "new generation of shareware developers" after the unavoidable burnout that's about to happen.

Phil Ryu is nothing but a slime-ball. All he's done has started a blog, get his posts on digg for a week, and then used that to kick start his marketing crap. Look at his blog now, it's been nothing but advertising and promoting his various sites (MyDreamApp, MacHeist, etc) for months now. All he cares about is making lots of money off other peoples hard work.

whatever the end of this discussion turns out to be i have to admit it's absolutely refreshing, theraputic and cleansing. As an end user that rarely enters into the chatter on most sites this whole discussion is turning out to be extremely honest and deeply heart felt. I find it enlightning to hear both sides of the developer/marketing issues. Kudos to all that have participated. Your candor and openess is what I've come to expect from the Mac community and this was/is what helps keep the Mac arena THE place to be. I've enjoyed reading the head to head. Thanks.

The people against MacHeist and similar things have never tried to buy exposure or ads or build a brand using traditional methods. MacHeist is not a new concept by any means, its just new to the Mac dev community who have, apparently, be squirreled away from the big bad world of real business.

$5k for the exposure you get out of a well promoted ad campaign that takes place over time (as opposed to a one-time placement in static media, like a newspaper or magazine) is just a good deal.

When you pay for advertising, you usually don't get any profit directly from the advertiser. When was the last time you were <b>paid</b> to place an ad?

Has the New York times called you up and offered to pay you $5k to place an ad in their media? I do not think so.

Granted this is not the exposure of the times, but considering that its getting you directly to your target market, $5k is a sweet deal, considering that they're paying you, not charging you $5k for the exposure and branding.

Whatever you may think of the quality of apps like Disco and AppZapper, Mac developers would do well to look at their business strategy.

The problem most Mac devs have is that they have no idea how to turn exposure into profit. They are one trick ponys. Build one good app and sell it. That works for the time being, but a savvy business person would look at this opportunity and say "wow, okay, how can I leverage this into profit? If this type of exposure isn't profitable to me, what can I change to make it so. I'm being paid to advertise. This is f'ing cool."

And, last, but not least, commenter Mike K. hits the money with this comment to Gus:

"I see that you were smart enough to rain on their parade to get some exposure, even though you weren't part of the program. It's all marketing. ;-) "

Come on, if these things make you angry I think you really need to go back and re-evaluate your business. Take an honest look at way being exposed to 1000s of new people who are very likely your target market isn't profitable for you. Because if that's the case, your business strategy is crap.

@ Kevin: Buying an ad is not the same thing as giving away your flagship product for free or heavily discounting it. You'll just burn the customers who paid full price and train your new customers to wait for the next sale. Really, really stupid move.

I don't have any issue with the users who bought the bundle at MH. They're just hunting for a deal (good on them).

I don't have an issue with the developers participating in these deals (although I'd urge them to rethink their position).

I do have an issue with MH claiming to be the saviour of the indy scene, burning everyone involved, then running off before the 1000s of support emails land.

And as others have pointed out (well done "S", loved your post), long term this could cripple small developers and worse support for users.

I HAVE NEVER HEARD OF VOODOOPAD. BUT I HAVE HEARD OF DEVONTHINK and I Am more likely to buy that because of macheist and macappaday than your program. Why??
I was Exposed to their software. Yours I only found out about as you complained about an idea that you wish you had thought up. You missed out expecting that 25,000 people would find your program. I do know that without macheist and macappaday I would never even thought of using these apps. Now I love them and might even upgrade them. More money for the developers less for you.. Get it.

John (and the MacHeist team),

Your team has polarized the Mac software community for or against you. You claim the Mac community was tight before, and this is largely true. But here are the issues I think are important:

a) You misinterpret the publicity you'll receive.

You won't hear at all about MacHeist unless you're into Mac shareware and Mac news to begin with. What this means is that the percentage of Mac users who already know about the apps in the bundle is eXtremely high compared to the Mac mainstream. It also means that the "publicity" that you think you're gaining isn't anywhere near the level you might expect. In the end, John, you're claiming that giving away shareware for free will increase the future sales of your app, but I have yet to hear of any substantial financial proof of this from ANY developer. And since you're already developing iClip 4 for many, many months now, and you're very close to releasing it, why not give away iClip 3 for free? Don't you want to drum up sales of iClip 4? Will you eventually give away iClip 4 for free because iClip 5 will come out?

And are you sure that you wouldn't have helped indie developers unless you gave away their software for free? A detailed review with a serial good for 30 days wouldn't cut it?

b) You have a bad track record for consistency.

People developed software and marketed it through fairly consistent channels. The new methodology is to move to different marketing channels as quickly as is feasible. This has come at the cost of your other projects. iClip 4 has not been released for many months, MacThemes has not been updated since May, ResExcellence still looks like it's only in the planning stages, Widget Machine STILL only carries only two pages of widgets, zero updates have been given for the My Dream App winners, and work on older apps is essentially nil. Menuet and xPad, which was heavily promoted through MacZOT, come to mind. ShapeShifter is another example of software developed at a snail's pace; other Unsanity apps have been updated much more frequently. Meanwhile there are lots of new marketing schemes (WasteAWeekend, MacAppADay, MacHeist, "MacHeist Successor," etc.). Not all of them are directly yours, but it is the common spirit and approach of the events that links them all together.

Totally your right to do such things, and yet it is unbecoming developer conduct to do what you're doing, in my opinion.

c) You degrade the overall quality of the Mac software community by promoting bad software.

Traditionally there are only a few competitors in each category of software application, and the stability in competition is due to the fact that they are i) usually high quality and ii) the apps are separated from each other by GUI paradigms, fundamental designs, etc. (Text editors, for example.) There is no doubt, however, that bad software exists on the Mac. This bad software is usually weeded out by the community, who is typically more discerning when it comes to software quality and will usually choose the (overall) better app. Good software gains popularity on its own.

You generally create hype through marketing, not application quality. Although you aren't part of it, MacZOT still ends up falling in the same group as you - there are tons of crappy apps that are marketed by MacZOT all the time, but they get significantly more exposure due to your discounts and etc. I completed every heist and have 17 pieces of software sitting in my loot, but I wouldn't use all of them even if you paid me. I refuse to do MysteryZot anymore because I just don't have the cash to drop on useless apps I won't use.

Again, it is your right to market as you wish. It may aid those few indie developers. But it hurts the Mac community because it easily pollutes the pool with bad software. I bought AppZapper and Disco; AppZapper can't find disk images spelled differently than the app, and Disco burned two coasters for me where the Finder worked perfectly. For Disco to be promoted as a Toast replacement and then use a nonstandard GUI and not let me name a disc with more than 20 characters because the window isn't large enough... to me, they are both pieces of bad software. But they receive so much "publicity" solely based on the hype that is provided, not on the quality of the software. This artificially elevates them to the status of mature, developed apps - even though they're still version 1.0 apps! You've also provided no response to AppZapper and Disco and repeated disappointment at the software quality. Again, it's not formally wrong, it's just informally wrong.

d) You don't work with the entire Mac software community.

All of your communication is done in secrecy. You might claim to do this to ensure good publicity, but you also alienate those who want to participate, as Brian Ganninger above and others have alluded to. It is the same people - Phill Ryu, Austin Sarner, John Casasanta, Jason Harris, and other "Hubert"-related developers - working on every one of your software promotions. You also subject the developers to your rules and regulations. A real "uniter" would have given Gus the chance to bargain for percentage-based profit sharing.

Furthermore, you classify disagreement with MH/AZ/Disco as "hate," and you use the few inflammatory remarks from various developer blogs to prove that people against you are all just "haters," as if they're all evil or something. MH/AZ/Disco/etc. have drummed up significant discussion, with many interesting points to consider. (At least, hopefully you find them worthy of consideration.) In all of this, however, your team has failed to provide real, factual evidence that your approach is significantly helpful. Currently, the evidence that people have come up with suggests that it is not so much the week for indie developers as it is your week to make money, and your team has provided zero data to the contrary. That's fine, making money is something everyone wants to do, and of course you have the right to not talk about your financial status. But your apparently altruistic goal of "working together" is starting to turn sour when multiple people are pointing out the negative effects, and that in the end you are not "working together" when you grab the overwhelming majority of the revenues. Your continued silence, though it is still your right, ends up being tacit confirmation that it is true.

And I have repeatedly stated in this comment, you have done little to convince the other "clique" to come to your side, providing little feedback regarding Disco, AppZapper, MacHeist, etc. That is not the work of a "uniter," as you claim you are. The Mac software community was apparently tight before you came, and is now apparently broken up once you arrived. This leads me to my last issue.

e) Your attitude towards this is less than charming.

Not that Gus is a delightful saint, obviously. But your word usage "your clique - hate, envy and bitterness" is just wrong. Do you or do you not want to convince others that your approach works? FYI this "clique" is a lot bigger than you think it is, given the amount of blog posts and comments this topic has been getting. People are angry because you claim things you haven't proven, you're taking (informed) advantage of developers, and you're amassing some bad karma from the quality of your team's operations (released software, etc.). And as I posted on Rory Prior's blog after your team commented on his post concerning MacHeist:

"Anyway, what really annoys me more than anything else is the fact that Phill, John and Austin all posted here, all within a few minutes of each other. It means that they poke around RSS feeds for criticism, and then pass stuff on to each other when they find something juicy, i.e. negative and/or full of emotion. Even though I'm sure they'd deny it, their tactics imply a very large superiority complex, and it's really grating. It's like middle school, where the cool kids talk condescendingly to everyone else."

You can either stand up and lay it all out and get everyone on your side, or you can continue to smirk and laugh at this and other comments. Again, you don't HAVE to do anything. But being clear and honest, and addressing criticisms, would still be a good idea.

Hm.

Me thinks those calling shenanigans on Gus have no clue how much it costs to support software. That is.. to provide quality support. Sooooo, if there's a huge influx of support calls without a huge influx of income what's going to happen? That's right. Support will suffer. A developer only has so much time and money to keep doing what he's doing and any major shift will greatly affect the quality of the application and/or support for it. And that sucks for the folks that paid full price. It's in my best interest as a shareware customer to support developers that aren't participating in events like MacHeist, MacAppADay, MacZot, etc...

What happens to most sites that are slammed by hits through digg/slashdot/boing boing/other popular sites? They rarely benefit. Instead their costs shoot through the roof. Same basic idea with all the Mac shareware giveaways. The tiniest percentage of those downloading the free apps will actually stick around to fork over cash while the rest will pile on support requests without ever considering the time and effort the developer has put into the app and that he just might need that cash to stay in business so that he can continue with improvements and support.

Don't be cheap. If you find a particular shareware application useful register it. Today. Or as soon as that next paycheck comes in. Quit putting it off. And quit freeloader on other peoples hard work.

Anon 12345,
That is the best post ive seen about the topic and about phil and the gang in general. I think you have got it spot on and we can only hope that other people read your post and realise that they are not as great as they make themseleves out to be.

Points b and c you make are both things ive been thinking about for along time now but due to my job i cant comment about them directly(eg on my own site) but i will say that you are completly right about them promoting bad software and the fact that most of the things they are involved in are virtually dead now. It seems they worked out which one of there projects would make them the most money and as a result the others have all gone to hell

And in regards to them not addressing criticism and the like.... It's all about the money ;)

Geoff Taylor,
Nice post. Alot of people (ie non developers) really dont get how much it costs to provide support. A huge influx of support emails after something like MacHeist or MacAppADay can really hurt developers and tie them up for several weeks in some cases. Especially if its a 1 or 2 man team as its virtually shuts down development.

Just want to voice my agreement with Gus, really. I looked at the bundle at MacHeist, and was tempted, I admit. But then again, I realised that some of the apps I've checked out before (Shapeshifter, for example) and some of them I'm not interested in (Disco), others I might never use, and in the end…

The problem is that everybody loves a bargin. A number of people said they hoped that these sites go away quickly, but they're deluding themselves. There are just too many people who love getting stuff for next to nothing - sorry love getting valuable stuff for next to nothing.

Take the charming guy above who said that he'd never bought a piece of shareware in his life, and because he'd bought the MacHeist bundle, Gus was wrong about it being bad for developers. Like this guy was ever going to pay for a real full-price app. Some people really can't see beyond the end of their noses.

These sites are going to be around for a long time. And my guess is that the only solution is serious, professional developers boycotting the scene. If the bundled apps are all eye-catching rubbush, then maybe the buyers will kick themselves afterwards. And even though it's Christmas, I'm tempted to hope that the serious developers invloved in the current deal are starting to kick themselves too.

Hey guys,

I don't realy get the point. Yes, AppZapper and Disco have a use, and they're shiny and new. And Disco even burns ;-) Whats the point with it? Not everyone needs Roxios Toast to burn some CD or DVD, but still wants some more than Apples built-in burning functions. I personally love Disco!

If you don't want to participate in MacHeist, it's up to you. It's your money, or your development or support time if you want so. But don't always step down on the other developers that jumped on the train get more publicity for their apps. And thats why they're participating. Publicity, new customers, gain some money for building new apps...

User will always buy what THEY want, not what you want us to buy. And we can test the apps before buying them, so we don't buy crap we don't use... there are still trial versions out there to test. Otherwise we could still just buy the app we want and leave the MacHeist unordered... but through MacHeist, we know these apps are out there.

"Get your hand outta my pocket!"

There are two camps here - those who participated in this endeavor, and those who didn't. Within each camp you will find different motivations for and individual's participation (or lack thereof).

At the end of its run, and in the subsequent months, we will see if MacHeist was successful, and who exactly benefitted from this success (both short-term and long-term).

IMHO, the true litmus test will not be the "numbers" generated from MacHeist. It will be the appearance of MacHeist 2 (or whatever name whoever decides to call it). Or non-appearance of it.

Gus, with all due respect, all you have done is generated a lot of ill-will with your post. I understand it is your right to speak you mind, but that doesn't change anything. You chose not to participate, for legitimate reasons, and that is fine by me. But who does your post serve? Obviously not MacHeist. And certainly not the appdev-participants - as you have stated, they had their own reasons for participating, no one forced them, and so I think it is safe to say they certainly don't need or want you speaking for them. But does your your post serve developers such as yourself? I think from the feedback on this board alone, your post has done as much to hurt your position as help it.

Muckraking with good intentions is still muckraking.

As for the other posters, some of you have voiced your opinion how the apps being pushed by MacHeist are "3rd-class" apps, and that the developers are using marketing (booooo! hissss!) to push these apps. Yet in the very same breath you claim compassion for these very same developers who are BOUND to be INUNDATED with support requests for these cheaply-purchased applications. Make up your mind folks. You can't love them and hate them at the same time.

I am a "end-user" participant in MacHeist. For the most part, I found MacHeist to be way too gimmicky for my taste. As far as the applications are concerned, there are none that I would consider using on a regular basis, let alone pay for. At the end of the day, my pocketbook will speak for me. (And just in case you are wondering, the last app I actually paid for was SketchFighter.) But I recognize and appreciate the concept of MacHeist. From the POV of MacHeist, they are out to make money. (booooo! hissss! for shame!). The developers get exposure for their products, and if a product takes off, they will have motive and incentive to further develop and improve and application - or fall by the wayside. The end-user gets exposure to applications they may otherwise not have known about or declined to try.

And Gus, let's be honest - all other bullshit aside, what we are talking about here is not ethics, or even the quality of the apps involved - it's all about how much a piece of the pie you get out of a deal.

@Matthew Harper

"Take the charming guy above who said that he'd never bought a piece of shareware in his life, and because he'd bought the MacHeist bundle, Gus was wrong about it being bad for developers. Like this guy was ever going to pay for a real full-price app."

But this is exactly the kind of customer everybody loves! He paid 49$ he would otherwise not have spent on software. Everybody gets money and nobody loses a regular sale. Perfect!

Over the last year, a lot has been made of the concept of the 'long tail'. Since copying software costs virtually nothing, why not offer deep discounts and make it up in volume? Usually, when you wait, prices drop. Shrinkwrapped software gets reduced over time (still making money!), why shouldn't the same happen with downloadable software?

The attractiveness of the MacHeist bundle to the developers must also be the bundle price. All but one (FotoMagico) products cost less than the bundle price if bought individually. So if you really like only one program, you can save money by _not_ buying the bundle, but instead buy directly from the developer. These will be really new customers that didn't know your product before, too.

I bought Disco at a discount through MacZOT, knowing full well that it didn't really do anything (I'd ever use) that the Finder didn't -- except smoke. For $5 -- less than the price of a latte in the UK, given the current exchange rate -- I figured I could just have some fun with the smoke. I have a Mac Pro, which doesn't support the smoke. No fun for Andrew.

So, I'm a tad disappointed, but that's all. Hell, sometimes they only have the cinnamon sprinkles and not the chocolate. I like chocolate sprinkles, even on a latte. I'm wrong, but I can accept that.

But it's a bit galling nonetheless to be told that I'm wrong on a deeper level to have bought Disco; that in doing so I made God kill a kitten. That in buying the app, through MacZOT, having visited My Dream App and read Phill's blog, I'm Part of the Problem. That it's users like me, who would consider actually paying for eyecandy, and who appreciate a bargain when they see one, who laugh and piss on Mac developers in general.

My paid license for NetNewsWire is ruined by this. My paid license for SubEthaEdit is ruined by this. My paid licenses for TextMate, GyazMail, SpamSieve, Desktop Transporter, Packrat, SnapzPro X, SuperDuper and Posterino are ruined by this. Gosh, I'm scum.

"But this is exactly the kind of customer everybody loves! ... Everybody gets money and nobody loses a regular sale. Perfect!"

Only if you never hear from him again. Then its just $2 (or whatever you make on the bundle deal) in your pocket. The problem is that he's not bought the "cheap" version of the product, he's bought the full blown package and has a reasonable expectation that he'll receive upgrades and support.

"Since copying software costs virtually nothing, why not offer deep discounts and make it up in volume?"

Because its just not true in general. The software costs nothing mentality is a outgrowth of the open source movement, where it is actually true. The trick is that in open source software technical support is often either ad hoc or pay-as-you-go. There's nothing wrong with that, but that's not the typical expectation of actual Mac shareware users. Once money changes hands for the software the user's expectations for support go up substantially.

"Shrinkwrapped software gets reduced over time ..."

"Shrinkwrapped" software is a slightly confusing term these days since much downloadable software can also be bought in boxes in retail stores. I'll assume you're talking about "big" apps from Adobe, MS, etc.

The short answer is that the markets are different, primarily because of user expectations. For starters, big companies frequently restrict your free support to a limited number of days after purchase. I can't imagine shareware customers accepting that type of restriction.

Second, and perhaps more important, most of those shrinkwrapped apps are on a yearly paid upgrade cycle. Witness, for example, Adobe's policy for the upcoming Universal binaries for Photoshop, etc. Many shareware authors, on the other hand, pride themselves on producing free upgrades for extended periods. Certainly not all shareware authors do this, but its definitely something users prefer.

All of which is not to say the shareware market can't change. I've no doubt that the developers participating in MacHeist think they can make enough to cover the support and upgrade costs. I believe what many here are expressing is a concern that users may not understand where the near-zero bundle price pressure pushes the market in general.

The simple fact is that the most interesting part of MacHeist isn't the final bundle, its the non-upgradable one-off versions they offered along the way. There's a business model there, no doubt. You can sell lots of copies very cheap if you don't have to support or upgrade them later. Selling software that way is a culture shift, maybe one that's inevitable.

But the thing to bear in mind as a user is that it also means a change in what developers provide. Upgrades to Universal, Leopard compatibility, etc. won't be free. Additionally, making upgrades a paid process introduces very poor incentives for developers to fix as many bugs as possible in each new release.

I, for one, am not enthused about a shareware market where paid upgrades become the norm.

Gus, you're quite right, this MacHeist thing is a bad deal for the developers involved with it, as is the similar MacZot.

@Patrick:
"But this is exactly the kind of customer everybody loves! He paid 49$ he would otherwise not have spent on software. Everybody gets money and nobody loses a regular sale. Perfect!"

Well not really, no, because the developers aren't being paid per-copy any more. They're being paid a fixed $5K fee for one week; the best thing that could happen for them is that they sell *no* copies whatsoever during the period... every copy they sell is a *disadvantage* for them, incurring as it does ongoing support costs and also future discounts on upgrades.

@Kevin:
"The people against MacHeist and similar things have never tried to buy exposure or ads or build a brand using traditional methods."

Sorry to disabuse you of this notion, but I'm against MacHeist and MacZot and I *have* bought ads, both on-line ones (directly, and for thousands of dollars) and print ones (indirectly).

MacHeist and MacZot are not advertising, they're promotions, and there's quite a big difference. Promotions can be a good thing, but in this case it looks like MacHeist are fleecing the developers involved by pocketing the lion's share of the profits themselves.

My only problem is (assuming the numbers are correct or even close) is that the amount of money the MacHeist people are making compared to what the software devs are making is questionable to me. I really think it should be more equitable for the devs. I run an Internet based business and understand the marketing angles and the cost of getting this sort of thing running and "well-known" but the numbers don't make sense. Why give so little to the devs...I'm all about making a profit but the devs have to feed their family (or pets) as well.

It's as simple as this: the more copies of the bundle MH sells, the less the developers get (in percent), due to the flat share. The whole idea of _not_ giving the developers a percentual share of the sale is what makes MacHeist absurd.

I really recommend John Gruber's post on this: http://daringfireball.net/2006/12/iniquities_of_the_selfish

Sean: All he [Phil Ryu] cares about is making lots of money off other peoples hard work.

Welcome to Web 2.0. Really, find a talented community and exploit it for your benefit through advertizing. Go read the so-called blog on what used to be ResExcellence.

To those who ignore software support costs: you haven't done any real support. As someone who had to reply to 2k+ e-mails over a weekend, I tell you software cannot be cheap unless it's unsupported.

Give a little to get a little.

As an indie - in any kind of profesion - you sometimes have to show the color of your underwear. It's you who decides when, where and how much. Some people are very good with this and know how to flirt and sell without ever becoming ordinary. Some have so much luck that they get really good sales without *ever* showing their colors. Some confuse ethics with economics and take stands.

You decided not to do this one because it was too blatant. Good for you, I don't like these schemes either. Then you decided to blog about it. Good for me, I like to read about this.

But whether or not either of these two decisions were good marketing decisions, no one can tell. I sort of doubt it. You may or may not care about this, I don't know, but I would have let others do the public stuff.

Gruber for instance, who sells opinions and interests and doesn't have to worry too much about adverse publicity influencing his real activity. Having opinions IS his real activity. Yours is selling software (I think).

Cheers and good luck.

WOW... Whoever Anon 12345 is... hit the nail on the head from 150 yards away.... in a hammer throwing contest... with wind... at night.

Seriously...

I gotta stand with Gus and with Anon 12345.

This is sad, but I am not at all surprised by it. As one of the "fans" who "voted" in his "Dream Ap" contest, then became somewhate of a critical voice when I began to suspect some "home brew" activities, which finally cumulated in a "winner" that was not determined by the actual vote of the "we the people" but by Philip himself after he alleged there were fraud votes and discounted some...

Well, all that left a pit in my stomach and now I hear this mess and it requires no doubt on my part to believe the old line that says "There he goes again".

I hope the community quickly exposes and deals with the obvious self promoting parasites that try and make their living off the good hard work of others.

Most Sincerely,

RFA

The thread that keeps on giving. It must be the holiday season!

25% of Profits are donated to charity. That can be interpreted to mean 25% after expenses. So we don't really know how much is going to the charities. We just have to wait until it is done and see what comes of it.

1. I pity the poor charities that will get their money from such a devious scam. The macheist team are simply using the charities as a tool to deflect criticism. Such a shame to see the normal well-meaning poeple that give to charity tarnished by this scheme.

2. All this web 2.0 viral marketing stuff has in my mind a very nice analogy. It is a bit like the current terrorist threat we are facing as compared to the cold war. At least back then we knew who the enemy was. Now it could be anyone. Anyone of the goons that Phill Ryu has bought the loyalty of by the hand-outs of a few free product licences. Who now think that they are in the clique, when in reality they are nothing more than a financial asset to him to show off the "community" he has created to garner potential investors. They will all be arguing his case on the popular forums and websites under the delusion that they are "in-on-the-joke". In reality the only one laughing is Phill Ryu.. all the way to the bank with his free money.

@ L Cantero:

I don't think Gus has generated ill will towards all the developers in the bundle at all. He's called MacHeist to the table, and the crew associated with. That a large overlap occurs is their onus, not those that take issue.

And love & hate can co-exist. Deploring someone's behavior, while sympathizing with the consequences, happens on a daily basis - it's the simple application of, as you stated, ethics and also empathy.

Im participating in MacHeist and enjoy the "game".
When I read this (and several other related articles/bloggposts/forumposts) I feel that this is just the voices of developers who didn't participate in the MacHeist.

For me, participating in MacHeist has been fun and I have:

1. Found a couple of Apps I didn't know existed.
2. Found a couple of developers I didn't know existed.
3. Decided not to buy any software from flyingmeat.com or rogueamoeba.com only because the authors are crybabies.

Of course, the MacHeist promotion of apps won't be a good thing/economics for all developers. But then just say no to the offer and stop whining about it.

Gus, maybe the opinion of someone whose actually doing the bundle is more valuable - http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2006/12/13/6275 . Wil Shipley seems to be fine with it, and he has some good points.

@alastair
"the best thing that could happen for them is that they sell *no* copies whatsoever during the period... every copy they sell is a *disadvantage* for them[]"

Right, they just want to pocket the 5K (or more..), and they don't want any new customers. It seems those greedy bastards are just out to scam the poor MacHeist people out of their money!

A number of people have tried to analyze the economics of the (supposed) deal between MacHeist and the Developers, but did so with the current knowledge that sales would reach about 10000 bundles.

When you look at the deal in a different light you see a number of developers, who are given the opportunity to cash in on the good reputation they earned with their software over the last few years. Furthermore the deal is structured in such a way that beforehand nearly _all_ the risk was on the shoulders of MacHeist. The developers would always walk away with money, whereas MH started with a considerable debt. Because they took a bigger risk, it is not unreasonable that more of the profit flows to the MacHeist team. (economics is all about risk). The mechanics of this deal are similar to buying a stock call option.

"Because they took a bigger risk, it is not unreasonable that more of the profit flows to the MacHeist team. "

Are you really suggesting that MH taking a potential 70% share of the profit over the developers is fair?

And how do you know the terms of the contract didn't stipulate a minimum of purchases before paying out the (alleged) $5,000?

"Decided not to buy any software from flyingmeat.com or rogueamoeba.com only because the authors are crybabies"

Right now, two developers are thanking their lucky stars they don't have to deal with this user. "Crybabies?" Are you serious? Does your typing teacher know you're using class time to troll blogs?

"Because they took a bigger risk, it is not unreasonable that more of the profit flows to the MacHeist team. (economics is all about risk). The mechanics of this deal are similar to buying a stock call option."

No, the mechanics of this deal are similar to loan sharking. In the real world, you know, we get pretty damn upset at credit card companies taking 30% APR. How it is more acceptable when it's 70%?

Oh, wait. I get it. It's acceptable when you're the one getting the cheap software. Gotcha.

It's kinda funny, isn't it, Gus?

I mean, with My Dream App and MacHeist, it seems that all PhillipRyu and crew can do is sell other peoples ideas for a very low price. MyDreamApp got some serious IP (and others, too) for the cost of a few computers.

You keep doing what you're doing and going with your gut. It likely is the right thing to do.

Gus,

Honestly, this sounds like the pinnacle in sour grapes. Kicking yourself because you didn't get involved?

I've been on the fence about Delicious Library for ages. I was thinking about picking up a copy but had always put it off. This cinched it for me. Suddenly I'm wondering what the hell DEVONThink is and... oh, that's cool, I wonder if I can... hey, neat!

You missed the boat on this one, and whether you admit it publicly or not, you're pissed off with yourself. The only crock of shit here is the one you're serving up with a smile all over this page. Cheers.

Ryu strikes me as a guy floating from project to project looking for a profit generator.

First it was the generally benign MacThemes website, which is basically dead now. Then he started WidgetMachine, thinking people would pay for pretty (if functionally redundant) widgets. By all appearances, that failed.

Along the way he picked up a bunch of other like-minded opportunists, and created MyDreamApp; much more successful (for them). They got, as jh points out, essentially free IP. I doubt very much any app will really be made from MDA.

Now we have MacHeist, which from the first signs of it off the heels of Disco struck me as yet another shameless marketing scheme. Defenders keep parroting how the developers involved "knew what they were getting into", but that doesn't change the fact, as Gruber pointed out, that the deal is clearly one-sided; in Ryu's favor.

I sincerely hope this exposure does work in the dev's favor , but I have the suspicion that they will become mostly forgotten, in which case all they have to show for it is $5,000 quick cash, while MH continues to rake in revenues.

I'm sorrry Gus, I can't say that I agree with you.

Don't anyone confuse yourselves; this is purely about money.

While Gus throws out figures and such, there are cost factors he hasn't counted on, such as the bandwidth cost (as previosuly-mentioned), and maintenance/creation time for MH, among other things. While it may be simpler for guys to code sites than apps (I agree), the time and effort for X number of people to run and execute said plan such as MH is considerable, even as a "watchdog/referee".

The biggest number (I think) Guss misses is the number of developers gettting paid. IIANM, he is figuring on those who are guaranteed payout from sale of the bundle, and the potential (and at this point, likelihood) of NewsFire.

Question though....what about the apps received for FREE during the Heists? Do they get nothing? I am sure they got/get some "loot" (pun intended) too. While I didn't participate in any heists, I am guessing there was an average of 1.5 apps per heist given away. Over 6 heists, that's nine MORE apps, and potentially NINE more developers to get paid.

I think Gus is assuming that his share was eequal to only the shares of the other bundle-participants, and even if so, did not factor in the other sofware dev's who gave away licenses.

You have an X, a Y, and a Z variable here (charity, MH, and bundle devs), except we'e missing the V and W for site costs and the freebie devs, respectively. Suddenly, the math doesn't look too bad after all.

Would you have been happier giving your stuff away for nothing to MacAppADay Gus?

Of course they will, Dave.

Ryu has figured out that mac users are very gullible people, who nowadays care more about style than substance. Its a personality cult of sorts that focuses more on how something looks than how something is.

Sadly, its also the reason i left development from the mac in favor of windows and linux. Apple users do not seem to get excited over a program that is functional like they do over a program that replicates a mundane task, but that looks functional. It really speaks badly of Apple fans.

@Dave
"Are you really suggesting that MH taking a potential 70% share of the profit over the developers is fair?"

It isn't a question of 'fair', however that might be defined. How much MH ends up making is immaterial, if the devs end up making money they otherwise wouldn't have made. But don't take my word for it:

http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2006/12/13/6275

Obviously I'm not privy to the details of each dev's deal, but from the looks of it, and from Gus' recount of his offer, it does seem as if MH put 50K of their mony on the line.

Arguing about what's fair is pointless when all involved are satisfied. (I disagree with John Gruber here). Who are we, outsiders, to determine what's fair for each party?

@Dave
"Are you really suggesting that MH taking a potential 70% share of the profit over the developers is fair?"

It isn't a question of 'fair', however that might be defined. How much MH ends up making is immaterial, if the devs end up making money they otherwise wouldn't have made. But don't take my word for it:

http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2006/12/13/6275

Obviously I'm not privy to the details of each dev's deal, but from the looks of it, and from Gus' recount of his offer, it does seem as if MH put 50K of their mony on the line.

Arguing about what's fair is pointless when all involved are satisfied. (I disagree with John Gruber here). Who are we, outsiders, to determine what's fair for each party?

Do you abhor sweatshops without asking each individual worker whether they would prefer that the sweatshop be shut down?

As humans, we instinctively wish for things to be fair. When we see something unfair, it bothers us, even if the victims are too complacent (or not powerful enough) to demand what ought to be theirs.

I talked to Wil Shipley about this at the Leopard Tech Talk in Seattle on Friday. His opinion on this whole thing is that the people (I call them duggalos) who participate in Ryu's shenanigans are not the type of people who generally pay for software, especially not his.

He wasn't terribly concerned with support time — the people he gives his app away to (including anybody at apple) mostly don't really use his software in enough depth to need serious support. He gives it away to them because they will tell their mothers and non-dev friends about it. Those people are his core market, and they pay for software.

Many of the arguments here have their valid points, both for and against, and one of the prominent points against MH bundle is that it de-values software.

But I have to say.... if Gus was successful in negotiating a percentage-point profit-sharing, I think he would have gladly participated in the MH bundle. He has not said a single word about de-valuing software, or increasing cost of support, or gullible Mac users, or any of that.

All he has said is basically, "my share of the pie is too small compared to MH's." Nothing more, nothing less. (It is, of course, a perfectly valid and justified reason to not participate.)

I just wanted to point that out to all the naysayers that are apparently grouping under Gus's banner.

I am a fashion designer from France, and I think the package of $49 is very good for consumers. More people can try the software (marginal effect). I think most designers (no matter in IT or fashion), we have difficulties in marketing. We are happy for our products, but we are happier for more people using our products. Cutting price doesn't mean getting worse, we have X'mas sale or Summer sale, or promotion sale sometimes. The whole concept is branding.
If the software is already so well-known or huge (like Photoshop or Office) they may not need such promotion, Same as Louis Vuitton.
I don't know if the software developer has similar mind as us, but as fashion designer, we have a similar promotion in our industry.
Again: We do encourage people to buy software, and contribute to the industry.

Come on. THis has to be one of the lamest rants in quite some time.

It's being made like Macheist, a treacherous and underhanded individual, is simply pocketing all the cash that goes go to the charities or devs.

Macheist is a business. When the do things like this, there is a lot of overhead. The company has to pay it's people, pay for the resources needed to launch and maintain this project, and also as any good company SHOULD do, turn some profit.

That money left over after the devs and charities get their cut isn't pure profit folks. And it doesn't all just go sit in the company bank account and collect interest. Lighten up a little.

I don't disagree that a little more transparency couldn't hurt, but let's not pretend this is some sort of Microsoftian endeavor designed to rake it cash hand over fist and screw everyone over.

Well, I've bought VP (a while back) and I'm very confident it's the most useful of all those packages.

Having seen the people who've most publicly turned this down - Gus here, Fraser Spiers - who really care about the Mac dev community, from the sharp end, and also seen the sums that Gruber has pulled together, one can only conclude that this is just a marketing thing which benefits the devs barely at all (they get support calls, plus unlocked versions floating about, but for a fixed fee..?), charity not so much, and the Macheist guy hugely.

It'll work for him - once. I doubt there'll be a next time on this basis. On a percentage basis, perhaps.

Charles

The mathematics is very, very simple here.

Currently, MacHeist has brought in $167,730 for Devs/MacHeist.

Now, if the Devs are making between 10 and 12 thousand dollars each, that leaves around $80,000 for the MacHeist people.

Since it's been established that they pay a fixed rate, I don't see anything wrong with the statements that people have made, that the more successful MH is, the more the MH people make at the expense of the developers.

Is it really that hard to understand?

(Oh, and to finish my thought.. before anyone says "That's a business..".. remember that many of these "Indie Developers" went "Indie" to get AWAY from being treated like this.)

Sorry Gus, but you are so wrong. I, for one, will not be looking at your software. Sorry, but I don't like your attitude here.

If anything, Mac indie developers need to spread the word a bit. This is a great way for their applications to get some attention. People, that are purchasing the bundles, are supporting some great causes as well. If my Mac applications were ready, I would have supported MacHeist without any hesitation. It's all about more people seeing your application(s), and you obviously don't understand that very well.

Previously, I have purchased Disco and RapidWeaver. I have read about the other programs and have been interested in them. This $49 bundle just made it all too easy to order.

Stop crying because you refused to support this bundle sale.

"Sorry Gus, but you are so wrong. I, for one, will not be looking at your software. Sorry, but I don't like your attitude here. "
Steve Jobs is a pompous egomaniac. I don't care that Apple makes awesome stuff; I won't buy another Apple product because of Jobs.

</sarcasm>

Just have to put in my 2 cents as well.

I've known Gus for many years and have watched from the other side of the fence (corporate employed MS code monkey) and am damn proud of how he has handled his business, his LIVELIHOOD, over the time since he quit his day job to write great mac software. Apart from knowing him personally, I would support similar comments from any indie mac developer _in his position_. I emphasize those last three words to point out that many of the whining and Gus-bashing comments posted here have been made taking Gus' original comments out of context and from knee-jerk "sour grapes" reaction.

Gus and many of the devs in his so-called "clique" have spent a lot of time and effort to make great software. Each has also made specific decisions about how to market, support and continue releasing new versions of their product. Many of them have managed to make a living doing what they love, which in any occupation, takes discipline to make the right business choices. MH, specifically, would have been a _bad choice_ as represented by the numbers, and the many comments about the cost of support.

From a marketing perspective, I think that many of the folks crying, "Look at the exposure you'd get" seem to assume that volume is _always_ a "good thing" for any company. I've spoken to many an MBA (and even saw mention of it above) about the pickle company/WalMart story that seems to be part of many MBA curriculum's anecdotal examples of the dangers of deal making. Whether MH _may_ be (not wholly convinced of this) taking on the financial risk of getting to break even, indie developers take the very serious long term risk of not being able to support rapid growth and drowning in the administrative side of the business. The loss of the developers can mean the business they've worked hard to create and the ability to do that business on their terms; remember, these devs chose to be "indie". MH? They possibly chance to lose some VC (not sure of this), or take the one-time financial loss. Hell, I work for a PR firm, and providing counsel to my clients always includes the long term effects of any campaign; if the marketing I do for my client puts them out of business... I'm out a client.

I also want to point out that there will always be the guys that want to have their "big idea", develop it, sell it to the highest bidder and go sip sangria for the rest of their days (hell I think it's been most pre-bust developers secret dream). So yeah, for those guys who are in it just to roll the dice for the big bucks, go for it. But any existing user of FH software who has posed a forum question to the FlyingMeat support team (read: Gus) will tell you that Gus, and those like him, cares more about the users of his product and that his product continually improves, than any marketing company like MH ever would. And as an indie developer that cares enough about his craft and truly loves to code, it is only a benefit to the mac community that the focus is on the product, and not the flashy marketing or the "make-it-big" windfall.

So lay off Gus for trying to keep a good product alive and venting about a company that wants to profit from him based on their assumptions about what his marketing plan "needs". And I agree with Jonathan- This is Gus' blog. He's entitled to speak in his voice about something he feels strongly about. It's more useful for him to make a statement about trends in indie mac development, than what most people post to their own.

Good on you, Gus. And I think your ref name should be Corporal Von Hymenburglar.

@ James:

An excellent point, though I think what really occurred is that in discussing the topic Gus opened up/joined in on a greater discussion (financial, ethical, etc.) about MacHeist that has played out across multiple venues. I think one aspect that became tangential but a crux [in addition to the financial aspect] is the "Week of the Independent Developer" and what that meant and means for those mentioned in such an appellation. Hopefully the passions involved will be bear out for the best on all sides and everybody breathes in between.

@ James:

An excellent point, though I think what really occurred is that in discussing the topic Gus opened up/joined in on a greater discussion (financial, ethical, etc.) about MacHeist that has played out across multiple venues. I think one aspect that became tangential but a crux [in addition to the financial aspect] is the "Week of the Independent Developer" and what that meant and means for those mentioned in such an appellation. Hopefully the passions involved will be bear out for the best on all sides and everybody breathes in between.

(apologies for the double post, screwed up in Safari)

Gus,

Our house only runs Windows for now, but I've enjoyed reading your essays about independent software design for years, and the humble, reflective style in which you analyze both your mis-steps and successes.

Another great post, and thanks for your candor. None of us buy products, including software, in an ethical or economic vacuum, whether consumers acknowledge it or not.

Thanks also to those in the comments who made careful and reasoned arguments.

Is there room for a marketing middle-man, and if so, at what cost?

I think that given the overall size of the MacHeist campaign, 60-70% is too high, especially given the nature of the campaign (very altruistic).

Every developer makes up their own mind as to whether its fair or not, and as long as they're happy, that's fine. What we're seeing here is that some developers are happy to play while others are not. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out in 2007.

Gus,

I do not agree with your position. As a consumer, I am thrilled to get a good price on some software that I'd been considering purchasing for a while -- I have thus far decided not to purchase these products because of the cost compared to how much I want them ratio. However, also as a consumer, I'm now much more likely to keep upgrading some of that software at full price, even though I initially got it at a discount. If I have a good experience with some of this software I'll also be much more likely to purchase other software from small developers as well.

Finally, I want to say this as gently as possible so you don't remove my post: your tone and language here will probably dissuade me from purchasing software in the future that you either build yourself or recommend.

The action initiated bny the French Mac-dedicated website macbidouille.com and its counterpart hardmac.com sounds like a another type of phylosophy to promote and support freeware and shareware:

Freeware/Shareware Developers: Advertise (almost) For Free on Hardmac.com

http://www.hardmac.com/news/2006-12-12/#6222

maybe the best way for the Mac community

The argument should focus on weather MacHeist is evil or not. Are they really trying to help the independent developer community? or more towards making $$$. I think what they are doing here is trying to mislead all the buyers. The website makes you think that they are some sort of non-profit organization or something. "Supporting Independent Mac Developer, Donating to Charity", but not mentioning the big % of the money that will be their profit.

I'm somewhat surprised that no one has mentioned MacFormat, a UK publication that has for _years_ included, on a fairly frequent basis, full versions of commercial and/or shareware on the cover disc.

If the actual terms were $5K each for the developers, then I can fully understand walking away from the deal, but...

What the MacHeist deal shows is that Mac shareware purchasers are price sensitive. (imagine that!)

I have been a Mac user since 1985, and paid literally thousands of dollars for commercial and shareware software for my personal family/hobbyist use. But the amount I spend of late on shareware is much less. Why? Because I see the cost of most shareware is far out of line with its value to me.

When I compare my personal "bang for the buck", a retail copy of iLife, Photoshop Elements, Appleworks, Filemaker, etc. seems to give me a lot more for my dollar that the typical shareware package.

And despite all the discussion of support, I would estimate that I have had individual contact with the developer on less than 10% of all of the shareware that I have purchased. I suspect that software support is yet another case of the 90/10 rule - in this case, with 90% of the support effort going to 10% of the customers. I'd certainly love to hear from any developer who might care to share what percentage of his/her customers have *never* made a support request.

For me, a "low initial cost, pay per support call" model would make a lot more sense. I know other folks would strongly disagree.

Mac shareware developers have a number of issues facing them - relative small market (percentage-wise), large percentage of home users/low business usage, limited mindshare of potential customers.

But the fact is that there are a lot of potential customers that will, even if exposed to the product, decide that the "standard" price is too high. Bundles, discounts, and giveaways are good for the *consumer*, and can be good for the developer as well, but only if the various costs are weighed carefully.

Shareware authors who figure out a way to sell their product to me for $5-$10-$20 (bundled or otherwise) are going to actually sell me a product. When one gets near the $50 mark, I'll have to be pretty sure, in advance, that it will get daily (or at least weekly) use. I have already spent far too much money of "really cool" shareware that quit getting used within a month or so of purchase.

If MacHeist's business model is excessively predatory to developers - good. That means there is lots of room for someone else to offer similar deals to consumers in a fashion that is more fair to developers.

And if you just don't want me as a customer, because you just can't stand cheapskates, I'm certainly fine with that...

You miss the point, Jim.

Gus isn't upset that you're a cheapskate. None of the detractors to this that I've seen are.

The problem is that he'd (and the others who rejected this) like to see profits based on performance. This is the "week of the indie mac developer", yet they aren't being paid for the performance of the "week." If they sold a billion dollars worth of bundles, Gus and them would STILL only have gotten their base pay.

I don't think he minds people being cheapskates. That's cool. He just wants to be treated fairly. Notice that not one of these detractors said "I want $5 grand AND 5%. They just wanted a percentage cut period.

Yes, MH costs money to run. So do all the things indie developers do. Why can't people accept that it's NOT the pricing of the bundle that's the issue here. It's that the producers of the software are not being compensated fairly as opposed to the charities (which , by the way, is a MacHeist writeoff) and the MacHeist crew.

In fact, this is ALL a tax writeoff for the MacHeist crew. It's likely they'll make a nice little profit on this and get to write off what they paid developers AND what they paid to the charity.

Don't be upset at Gus for not wanting to get taken. I'd imagine he'd be MORE than willing to have done a bundle and donated to charity had the people behind the scheme had not pocketed the remaining 65% or so.

Of course, it's difficult to determine who is or isn't an actual independent Macintosh developer here. That said, the lack of professionalism throughout, I think, shines a lot of light on why independent Macintosh developers struggle (or appear to).

If we were to lend one of our applications to some sort of bundle like this, we would do so expressly for the benefit of the charity, especially given that this time of year is so incredibly important for so many charitable organizations. The benefit to us would be a) the desire to do something for a worthy cause and b) the marketing exposure and potential to generate interest in our applications (as opposed to the short term profit). Our expectation would be that, outside of administrative costs, neither we nor the organizer would be pocketing any significant revenue.

For MacHeist to focus attention on charitable giving when they will be reaping what most of us would agree is considerable profit is nothing short of disingenuous. For so many in the indy Mac development community to focus on the lack of benefit for themselves rather than the misuse of charitble giving is embarassing.

I'll be the last person to say that I haven't put my foot in my mouth or overstepped my bounds on a messageboard, but I must say that I find the genesis of this thread to be inherently inflammatory. Thus, I find it counterproductive and strongly encourage everyone to find a better way to address the numerous legitimate issues created by a program such as MacHeist.

My two cents.

Well, this is like going into retail instead of selling your products yourself. I'm a musician, and I get $15 if I sell my CDs on the gig, or $3.50 if I give them to the local retailer. But the retail thing adds to my revenue—I'm not losing money here.

What I like about the MacHeist concept is that it raises you-too-can-pay-for-shareware awareness. They're making money? Tststs, how could they?

You are all a pack of communists.

Of course MacHeist is in it for the money!

Of course each Dev chose to participate for the money!

Without MacHeist, none of those app developers would have received 5k in sales in a week nor would the MacHeist crew have been able to buy a new boat. But by working together all their kids get nice gleaming xmas presents under the tree.

If you mob had your way nobody would have made any money we'd all be wearing gray shirts and eating porridge for xmas dinner.

Let me explain how things work. The market determines what succeeds and what fails and there will always be the people whining on the sideline who missed their chance to participate. Next time just get involved and use your time spending your 5k rather than sitting here broke trying to justify why you 'intentially' missed the boat.

oh yeah, and when did the indy developer become this glorified saint who must be protected from the evil business man? Give me a break. Anyone in business can get screwed and only the smart and lucky will survive.


Peace :-)

i cant believe people are willing to pay 49 dollars for the software whens its so easy to just download warez these days!

voodo pad is awesome. No need to discount it. It, along with the great customer support Gus provides, is worth every penny.

I've been a fan of independent software for years, and when I saw the MacHeist ad I had to check it out. Something I did which I rarely do: I purchased a license for each Mac I own. I then went on and purchased a gift license for a friend. That's 4 different licenses for each of the apps. For me it was the "volume" discount that was most attractive. There were really only 3 items in the bundle that I really wanted, but I might give most of the 10 a try at some point.

Am I dismayed that MH is not sharing a bit more of the money with the devs? No. It's business, folks. Were the participating developers exploited? No. They were smart. I expect that the participating developers saw this as an inexpensive way to market their product. If the products truly stand out and appeal to the purchasers, then the developers have locked in to customers who be paying to upgrade. As Wil Shipley of Delicious Monster said on ArsTechnica: "The biggest source of revenue for a software developer is upgrade revenue."

I am sure Gus develops software because he has a passion and talent for it. But business is business, and marketing is key to generating revenue. While MH stands to make money off of this, there are no losers among any of the participants - MH, developers, customers, and charities all gain something.

I agree with you. I mean, I think this brings a lot more people into Mac-indie softland, and you get a ton of exposure.

I guess the one thing it has going for them is if an app is upgraded in the future, there will be potential future sales, and there's always recommendations to friends I suppose too. But yeah, if I was a dev I'm not so sure I'd put my app on the line for something like this.

1. Who gives a crap about this so called "Mac dev community"? You apologist are making it out to be some sort of altruistic, charitable organization whose members have dedicated themselves to making Mac apps for us poor, underprivileged Mac Users, when they could've been off making money elsewhere. There is nothing noble in being an indie Mac developer. You're in it to make money. If you can't, maybe you ought to look elsewhere for work.

2. It's all about me, the consumer. I don't buy software to "support" indie developers. I buy software because said app does something useful and therefore I perceive value and will trade my hard earned cash for it. Instead of supporting indie Mac developers I think you ought to support me. I'm a hard working civil servant barely making ends meet. No one ever recognizes me or my efforts. Woe is me.

3. A significant number of the apps I got from MacHeist, MyDreamApp and now MacAppADay, have earned a spot in my dock and will probably stay there. I will therefor also probably pay for upgrades as long as the dev makes it compelling for me to do so (see point 2, "it's all about me"). A great example is Overflow. I never would've perceived a need, nor would I have gone looking for this type of app. Now I can't live with out it and as long as the next version includes new, compelling features, I'll pay full price for it.

4. As others have said here, stop whining. If you don't like what you do and/or can't make a living doing it, go do something else. Oh and go to your local community college and take some marketing classes. MH and the other deals where all about marketing and no doubt those guys made some serious cash. Good for them! Instead of whining, Flying Meat (nice marketing) and the rest of the "sour grapes" Mac dev community should get together and do something similar. Except, of course, you ought to charge full price for your bundle. <sarcasm>

When watching Evening at Adler ( http://drunkenbatman.com/drunkenblog-archives/000662.html ) I noted that Wil Shipley said that if he could give away a copy to half of the Macmarket, and that generated 1 sale for each giveaway, then he would be the most successfull mac-developer in the history.

I think that Phill Ryu et al watch that and put that up as their goal -- to get rich fast that is. And they are doing so too. Nothing wrong with that. Good for them. But, they could at least be honest about it and stop denying it.

What Gus said about "The Week of the Independent Mac Developer" is true. It's a big crock of shit. It should read "Lets help Us get rich fast and screw all the other developers who don't want to help us do that", which is very wrong.

Hello Slashdot!

I'm closing the comments at this time because... well, I think everything has already been said above, and in some cases over and over.

Thanks for all the feedback!

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