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Comment by crimsonalucard | Hacker News Reader

"Pay what you want" is a false statement. When I wanted to pay 1 cent they demanded a minimum of one dollar.

I may be a cheap ass for wanting these things for a cent but that doesn't change the fact that "Pay what you want" is a total and utter lie.

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You can actually pay $0.01, you just don't get anything for it. So "pay what you want" is true, you can pay $0.01. But if you want to get the books, you have to pay at least $1.

I just got "10 Steps to Unix Survival" by paying $0.00.

1. Click "Pay what you want"

2. Choose the "Free Stuff" tier

3. Go through the rest of the wizard ("I'm not a robot" and such)

Let's assume you are right. So what? Why did you feel compelled to share this here? To me it signals I should avoid hiring you or working with you, because you get hung up on pedantic, irrelevant, details.

1 cent wouldn't cover a credit transaction fee, they'd be losing money if they let you do that.

While it is true, they have minimum pricing, if you want the items without compensating the publisher for them, you CAN stiff them. For instance, you can change the sliders so 100% of your money goes to charity, and then you didn't pay them for the books at all.

Sure, not what you want, but worth noting. Particularly useful if you want something on offer, but don't like the company selling them and don't want to support them. For instance, I can imagine a lot of people stiff EA when EA has a bundle available, and go 100% charity. :)

This model blows my mind - I just cannot quite work it out. Have the companies involved - O'Reilly and Humble Bundle Inc - just decided that they're OK with potentially making nothing at all from this, so long as lots of money goes to charity? I mean, it's wonderfully altruistic, and I suppose it could be a lot more complicated than I'm giving credit for (does the goodwill gained by them outweigh the financial hit?) but it's certainly fascinating. How do people decide how they allocate the money? Is it wrong if I feel bad if I don't give all the money to charity?

It's because they are selling digital items that have no intrinsic value. The likelihood that everyone will do this is low. Most people will just leave the sliders at their default values. And it's good marketing.

Depends on the author agreement. With the age of these books, possibly not, but there could easily be a royalty payment involved. Either way, let's assume they sell 100,000 copies, that's still not that much money and would be in line with their typical CSR giving (very likely, these authors might have waived royalty for charity too).

Humble Bundle is an extremely profitable operation that preys on the altruism of people. They secured roughly 5 million in venture capital funding from sequoia capital.

15% of whatever money you pay doesn't go to a charity, it goes to them. This is not explicitly stated. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humble_Bundle (search for 15%)

This is false, at least, in how you present it. It is clearly stated, and configurable, where your money goes.

When you make a purchase on Humble Bundle, it by default has a divide between the developer or publisher, the charity being supported, and Humble Bundle. You can modify this percentage at purchase time, for instance, by sending 100% of your proceeds to charity, or stiffing the developers if you despise them.

Arguably, Humble Bundle bears a large chunk of the operating cost here, since they have to provide download bandwidth for things like the eBooks and non-Steam-based games. But only asks for 20% by default, from what I can tell. Of course, I'm sure Humble Bundle has done the math on how many people pay the default cuts, and how much they need to stay profitable as a business.

So, no, it's not that Humble Bundle is a charity, but yes, you can get games and books really cheap while supporting a charity.

They say "name your price of $1 or more."

Yes, they do, but they also say, "Pay what you want"

I don't mean to be glib, but this is a pretty Sheldon-esque line of reasoning.

No it's not. "Pay what you want" is the most prominent statement on the whole page. The one dollar minimum for content is obscure.

edit: why do people vote me down when what I say is true? I'm sorry but I'm not willing to pay for tutorials on open source applications that I can otherwise legally get for free. Humble Bundle isn't even a non-profit corporation. They are a private for-profit corporation where profit is the bottom line and donations to charity are more of a marketing gimmick used to reach that bottom line. Humble Bundle is a highly, highly profitable middle man operation that banks on the altruism of people.

The $1 minimum is above the particular tier. Along with the marking for the $8 and $15 tiers.

And when you enter in the amount you want to pay, they tell you exactly what you will (or will not) get.

Even less prominent is the "free" tier. You'll get one book for it.

I didn't down vote you, but was tempted, so I'll explain.

Yes, you are stating a true fact. However, I'm pretty sure that the vast number of people who see these things do not consider the distinction you draw vastly more deceptive than, well, any other advertising out there, and much less so than most. Compare with, say, Comcast, and this is a model of clarity.

An additional reason is that it is somewhat derailing to rant about what many would think to be trivial quibbles about advertising copy in the middle of what is otherwise a discussion about the usefulness of the books, ORA, etc.

Nothing was derailed, I think my comment was the first.

Additionally, I believe it is more deceptive then your traditional advertisement. How much "Pay what you want" deals are out there? It is a very unique marketing strategy.

There is a german word for your behaviour.

i-Tüpferl-Reiter http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/i_Tuepferl_Reiter

Which roughly translates to: The need to make something better even if it is already as good as it gets

I never mentioned such a need. What I mentioned was deception conducted by the company. Perhaps it is just misguided perception. People can't take a statement at face value, they must always make an assumption.

It may be imprecise, but "deceptive" is a bit harsh.

Deceptive is a bit harsh, but is it not the truth? One can be deceptive by being imprecise.

So let's cut to the chase: is that what they're doing here?

They are being imprecise by your own admission. Yes.

One can be deceptive by being imprecise

The question is whether this imprecision qualifies as deception.

The question implies certain meanings not explicitly stated. As does the answer.

edit: hey buddy, thanks for voting me down. Why the hell should I answer you when it's all I get. I have nothing left to say to you other than you are unable to respect differing opinions.

I wouldn't say it is. Look at the Games or Mobile sections, and it says "Pay what you want" for the cheapest tier. At those tiers, you can pay $0.01 and have them make a loss to provide the content, if you're OK with doing that. It's very clear at the top of every section exactly how much you have to pay to unlock each tier of content.

The books don't have a $0.01 tier. When you look at the page, the first line of content that isn't a headline makes it clear that it's a $1 minimum. When you hover over the "Pay what you want" text, it clarifies that, on this page, it's "Name your price of $1 or more." When you attempt to pay less than $1, it displays a warning that you won't get any content if you pay less than $1. The fact that you're here moaning about it makes it clear that you understand that it's a $1 minimum. So where's the deception?

I didn't down vote you, but it seems like you're being intentionally literal to the point of being a bit obtuse.

Technically you are correct, I understand that. The majority of people can look past the technicality but you, for some reason, won't.

It's like complaining about an all you can eat restaurant being falsely named because technically, I can eat more at home. Technically, they made a false claim, it's really only all I can eat in one visit, but nobody would be so petty as to complain about that. Would they?

Otherwise known as; a lack of common sense/understanding

Woah there, did you just say I lack common sense? Is that a personal attack? We all know everyone on HN loves personal attacks.

In a buffet common sense reigns because everybody knows what a buffet is: an all you can eat deal in a single meal. Everyone knows this because buffets are numerous and have existed long before you or I have existed.

A humble bundle is not common sense. There is only one company currently doing this and therefore there is no intrinsic knowledge of the nature of what I am purchasing, in fact the humble bundle was invented within the last decade meaning most of you existed before humble bundle existed. There is nothing "obvious" about this.

You cannot equate this to a buffet. It's a ludicrous analogy similar to equating linux books to atomic bombs because both involve software of some sort. Honestly how many of you knew there was a one dollar minimum without reading about it? Or did you even know about the "free tier" without reading about it? Nothing on that page is obvious.

I must admit. I am stumped. I feel like I'm engaged in a debate to which I do not understand the rules.

I simply do not understand the motivation behind your arguments. I recognize that you are arguing, but I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why. You are talking about something that is clearly on the screen. There are 3 distinct blocks of books. They have a dollar value shown above them.

I would say that requires a bit of common sense, or perhaps hovering over the text "Pay what you want" and reading for a second. In fact, in order to get to the custom amount input box at the bottom of the screen, I count no less than 3 times you had to ignore the stipulation that the price was $1 for that tier of books.

Pay what you want is not a lie. It has a stipulation.

I guess you can pay nothing but it does seem a little mean considering how cheap the suggested minimum prices are for the bundles and that it's all for charity.

I say thanks O'Reilly, promotions like this are why you're still so great after all these years.

I think it is reasonably obvious that "pay what you want" can never be 100% literal. Can I pay π dollars? Obviously not. Can I pay negative one trillion? Of course I can't. Can I pay 'what I want' for all reasonable values of 'what'? Yes.

I have encountered pay what you want deals that included zero dollars, just never at Humble Bundle.

When HB was new, they did exactly this. The minimum $1 has presumably come about because the people who buy at $0.01 are only there fore free stuff - they don't actually want the content, so why make a loss for them?

Edit: In fact, they still do this, and you can get the Mobile or Games bundles for $0.01.

They used to have a 1$ minimum for Steam keys when all their games bundle where also DRM-free. Now that most of the games in the bundles require Steam, I guess 1$ is the de facto minimum.

There are many reasons why they do this, not least of which is that they handle Steam keys, and by imposing a minimum cost, it means bad actors can't as easily get tonnes of Steam keys for resale or using their purchases to game Steam and other services in other ways. They now apply this policy across the board.

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