

Support Indie Mac Developers and Charity.  Save $. - Shooter
http://www.macheist.com/

======
Shooter
MacHeist groups a bunch of small Mac software publishers together, they each
put one application into a discounted bundle, and then they give 25% of all
sales to charity. You get to choose which of 10 charities you support (or you
can split the money evenly between them.) A few of the apps are "locked" out
of the bundle until sales quotas are met.

The publishers get extra exposure and incremental sales, the charities get a
sizable donation, and the customers get a deal (assuming, of course, that they
were going to purchase any of the software titles at full price.) It's a neat
marketing scheme, especially when you factor in the "Locked" software aspect
which promote a slight viral effect. I bought the bundle mainly for a new copy
of Snapz Pro X, which is still locked...which is approximately 5% of the
reason I'm here pimping MacHeist (I said it was viral, dammit!)

I doubt this is completely new to most people, but it may serve as a reminder
to some. It may have even been posted here already...? I personally missed out
on last year's bundle because I kept putting it off and then forgot about it
until the promo was over. I thought I might help others avoid the same fate
this year. (I bought my bundle early this year, just in case.)

------
wmf
The developers are probably not getting much money, if last year is any guide.

<http://daringfireball.net/2006/12/iniquities_of_the_selfish>

~~~
Shooter
I appreciate the link wmf...I read Gruber's blog, but I missed that post.

I agree with John's premise that "Just because someone is satisfied with a bad
deal doesn't mean it isn't a bad deal." I'm not, however, going to get morally
outraged over another person's business decision to participate in a
transaction just because a third-party doesn't think the remuneration is
equitable. The indie developers that are participating obviously liked the
deal they were offered well enough, right? Otherwise they wouldn't have agreed
to participate. I think griping about a deal that you agreed to after the fact
is unprofessional. If you were a schmuck and agreed to a bad deal, you just
have to suck it up and learn from it.

I can think of one great reason I would personally consider participating in
this "inequitable" arrangement if I were a Mac shareware developer: any future
revenue from upgrades are not shared with MacHeist. I don't see where Gruber
takes that into consideration. I had never heard of a few of these
applications until MacHeist promoted them, yet I'm likely to upgrade any of
the apps I actually like as they release new versions. MacHeist is a form of
advertising, and all advertising is somewhat of a calculated risk...this
promotion will probably pay off for some of the developers and be a waste of
time for others. Either way, it's not my job to count my neighbor's coins for
them.

~~~
wmf
Yeah, I'm not outraged over it either. I suspect that MacHeist and the
participating developers never anticipated selling as many copies as they did,
so they didn't consider that MacHeist might walk away with most of the money.
Since this is the second year, developers are probably a little smarter in
their negotiations. I think it's worth discussing since "how to not get ripped
off while starting your business" is a popular topic here on YC.

A few developers have reported that they got virtually no upgrade sales after
MacHeist/MacZot: [http://reinventedsoftware.com/blog/2007/12/17/so-thats-
why-i...](http://reinventedsoftware.com/blog/2007/12/17/so-thats-why-it-was-
called-pinprick/)

