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Humble Music Bundle shows charity disparity among Mac, Linux and Windows users
I bet that behavioral economists get rather excited when they see pay-what-you-want offers going viral. Assuming the seller is collecting some basic demographic detail, the resulting statistics might deliver some interesting insights into the relative altruism (or discretionary cash reserves) of different sorts of folks. The Humble Bundle team (responsible for the Humble Indie gaming bundles that we've covered before) is running a Humble Music bundle, accessible to all sorts of music fans. Featured artists include Jonathan Coulton, They Might Be Giants and MC Frontalot; a flexible portion of the purchase price goes toward not-for-profit cause groups like Child's Play Charity and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The bundle price is entirely up to the buyer, although suggested pricing goes from $100 down to $15. If you pay more than the rolling average price (currently around $8.28) you get a bonus album of remixes from viral-video darlings OK Go. You can also define the split between the artists and the charities, and contribute a "Humble Tip" for the bundle organizers. Given that buyers can pay what they want, what sort of variance do the Humble Bundlers see among their contributors/customers? It's not scientific, and there could be a whole horde of confounding factors, but take a look at the stats in the image above. Mac users (representing about 1/5 of the 45K total customer count) are paying an average of $9.84 for the bundle, more than $1.50 above the average price and $2.40 above the average Windows user. That might be skewed by a few "whales" who are contributing $100 or more from the Mac side, but even so the population is large enough that the differences would seem to be significant. Before you start forwarding this post to your penny-pinching Windows-using wealthy relatives, note that the Mac users aren't the most likely to empty their wallets for tunes. Linux users, with a slightly smaller share of the overall purchases, are coughing up a stunning $11.94 per transaction -- more than $3.50 higher than the average cost. This might be an artifact of the Humble Bundle's past service to Linux gamers, who may be feeling especially supportive of HB's efforts here, or maybe Linux users feel more strongly about the charities/artists involved. Or they just really are more generous by nature. With the recently finished Humble Indie Bundle 5, Linux users donated an average of $12.51 per transaction. It would be really interesting to do a deeper dive into the HB sales data, especially from the perspective of Dan Ariely or the Freakonomics guys. Most sellers aren't this transparent about their customers, and what they do with the behavioral data they collect -- and there's good PR reasons why they don't share more. In June, travel site Orbitz caught some flak for acknowledging that it showed different search results to Mac users (skewed towards the higher-end properties that they apparently prefer to book) than to PC users. While both sets of searchers would pay the same price for the same room, Mac users responded better to upscale hotels and slightly more expensive stays. The Humble Music Bundle is available until Thursday, August 9.
Play the latest Humble Bundle with headphones
The latest Humble Bundle, available through August 9, is composed of six musical albums and zero video games. Think of this bundle as a break from all the games you've been buying thanks to a certain recent sale, while still perfectly aligned with your latest paycheck.This bundle includes music from the Valkyria Chronicles series and Jonathan Coulton's Greatest Hit (Plus 13 Other Songs), which includes a live version of the iconic song "Still Alive" from Portal. Albums by Christopher Tin, They Might Be Giants, and MC Frontalot are also featured in the music package. The sixth album, OK Go's Twelve Remixes of Four Songs, is available to buyers that pay more than the average price.For those wary of picking up some new tunes, each piece of this Humble Bundle is compatible with any pair of headphones or speakers you want to use.
The Humble Bundle tries something different, lets you name your price for albums from They Might Be Giants, Jonathan Coulton, and more
The Humble Bundle may have gone mobile on Android earlier this year, but that's proven to be a relatively small jump compared to the organization's latest expansion. It's now rolled out its first Humble Music Bundle, a collection of six albums that, as always, you can name your price for. Those include an album of rarities from They Might Be Giants, Jonathan Coulton's Greatest Hit (Plus 13 Other Songs), an exclusive MC Frontalot collection, Christopher Tin's Calling All Dawns, and game composer Hitoshi Sakimoto's Best of the Valkyria Chronicles -- plus OK Go's Twelve Remixes of Four Songs if you pay above the current average price. Naturally, all of the albums are DRM-free and available in both MP3 and FLAC formats, and you're able to choose what percentage of your payment goes to the artists, charities (Child's Play and the Electronic Frontier Foundation) and the Humble Bundle organization itself. You can get a taste of what's in store in the video after the break, or get previews of each album before you buy at the link below.
