For those not in the know, MacHeist is back. It’s a large bundle of Mac software for an amazing price, and it seems to create this huge amount of drama in the Mac software developer community. As someone who’s just started to get into Apple development (iPhone for now, maybe more later), I find the responses really interesting, especially the people who are so vehemently opposed to selling product at such a markdown (currently $626.75 worth of software for $39, 25% of which goes to a charity of the purchaser’s choosing, with potential to be $975.70 worth of software – still for $39).
Personally, coming from the perspective of development, I think it’s a great way to reach out to people who may not normally dive into your products. To draw an analogy, a common argument as to why piracy isn’t a big deal is often that the pirates aren’t people who’d buy the music/software anyways, so it’s not a lost sale. I see MacHeist as the same thing, except that the developers do get a small amount of money.
I already own one or two of the applications in MacHeist 3, and so now I have dual licenses (as I don’t really know anyone else I’d have gifted the licenses to), so those devs are actually getting more of my money than normal — and I’m okay with that, because they’re great products. I’ve bought into every MacHeist so far, and out of all of that, I maybe actually still use one or two of the apps. The rest linger, gathering digital dust and cobwebs, eventually to be AppZapped into oblivion (the irony being that I got AppZapper in MH2).
Delicious Library would be an exception worth noting. I still use it on occasion and enjoy it, and I’ve paid for the upgrade to DL2. I wouldn’t have used it, were it not for MacHeist, and now he’s gotten more of my cash because I’m willing to pay for a product I enjoy.
I happily bought into MH3. It’s an amazing deal. These developers are getting some of my money that they normally wouldn’t have, and charities benefit. I don’t see myself using 90% of it more than for a few days as an amusing cheaply-paid trial. If I wind up sticking with some of them, I’ll become a paying customer for further upgrades, as well as a word-of-mouth promoter, because I like to make noise about great software.
Incidentally, if you want to dive in, and use my MacHeist referrer link, you’ll unlock another piece of software or two for me, although it’s not a big deal either way.