Upgrade cost and MacHeist
The Mac shareware model is built around 3 important features for consumers:
- Being able to try the software
- Paying an upfront cost to continue to use the software
- Paying an upgrade cost when the developer writes a significant update
The MacHeist deal allows you to try the software with ease as you can simply go to the developers website and play with a trial version. When you then proceed to purchase the bundle it also fulfils step 2 although you don’t have to pay the same upfront costs when you spread your initial expense across 14 applications. Now that the consumer has the bundle in their hand comes the developers dilemma: can they earn money off that sale in the future?
Simone has a superb post with some hypothetical breakdowns of how much developers will receive and I’m going to run with those numbers. Picturesque, made by two talented developers from my hometown, is currently part of the bundle and by my calculations they stand to make around $60k after tax and MacHeist fees. This is superb for two university students but as Simone rightly concludes, it was all money generated from tightwads. The challenge for Zac and Nik now is to turn these people, who wouldn’t pay $39 for their application by itself, into recurring revenue into the future. Will these “customers” pay $15 for an upgrade to Picturesque or any of the applications in the bundle? I highly doubt it but if they do it will be a very small number.
As an example, I was chatting to Dan, the developer of ShoveBox, about the reaction he received to the release of his iPhone companion which is priced at $3.99. The Mac application was given away at the start of MacHeist and he sent out an email to all the new users he acquired announcing the new release. He was shocked and dismayed to find that most of these new users wanted the iPhone version to be free as well. There’s no surprise here though as these are “customers” that expect to gain quality goods for free.
In conclusion developers who are distributing their applications via MacHeist are not only short-changing themselves upfront but could very well face the dilemma of supporting customers that will never pay them anything more into the future. That is not sustainable for anyone.