Humble Bundle 2 Is Live 217
Dayofswords writes "The first Humble Bundle was a monster success, with over 100,000 people donating over $1 million in total to support the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Child's Play, and of course the developers behind the games. The second bundle is now live (bundle site), containing five great games: Braid, Cortex Command, Machinarium, Osmos, and Revenge of the Titans. Each game is DRM-free, the games work on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, and you pay what you want and decide where your money goes."
Re:Awesome (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually, that sounds awesome in a way I hadn't previously considered - a form of advertising that is fully transparent, and where transparency is considered a feature. I think that because of this transparency, it doesn't matter that they're not being altruistic - they aren't pretending to be. Honest (which we all expect) is more important than altruism (which we expect a little, but never too much). They don't need to pretend that they're being purely altruistic. Having an altruistic net effect is fine, even if it's a small one.
I mean, really, it's advertising dollars well spent. The kinds of people who buy your services are exactly the ones who see your advertisements. It's targeted, without needing expensive/invasive profiling.
So at this point, it's win/win/win. They win (their message reaches you); a third party (that you both give a damn about) wins (it supports charities); and you win (you get advertising without being insulted or profiled).
Your reaction sounds like a very cynical - but reasonable! - knee-jerk reaction that has naturally developed from an environment with terrible advertising practices. But if you stop and think about it, this is as close as you can get to good advertising as I've considered yet - and I'm one of those Smithian economics types who think that advertising is not inherently immoral.
Re:Humble Bundle 1 (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's a question: who cares?
I mean, when selling software, what is your goal, to get enough money, or to enforce your vision of how the world ought to work?