I keep meaning to write a blog post about the results, but ~99.5% of people paid $0. Of the people who paid, probably around 50% paid the $1.99 I had as default, but what's really interesting to me is the way people priced it if they changed the value. I got a number of payments for amounts like $1.25 and $1.50, and I remember looking at those completely baffled -- who cares enough to pay anything for this (you could just download it for free -- I don't mind) but not enough to pay an extra $0.49? Really wish I had an answer there; maybe people just like 'getting a deal'?
Logical thinking won't help if you give it incorrect input data.
Unless you believe in supernatural; everything is math provided a correct model.
The idea that a model can do so has caused innumerable problems of late and it is frustrating to hear such myths perpetuated.
If you can't see a model you are not digging deep enough.
Though I understand your point of view. Some think that the fundamental physics can end i.e., a unified theory of everything is possible.
It is more likely that it is turtles all the way down i.e, we can always observe phenomena that contradict predictions of current theories (reveal assumptions that are not valid for the phenomenon).
I'm an Android guy myself so I might be wrong here (and your app is an example of non pirate usage for jail-breaking), but I often hear young relatives talking about jail-breaking their iPhones to save those $1-2 on apps, which to be honest, is pretty shitty behavior IMHO (yeah, I lecture them, they look at me like a crazy old person)
I quite often decide against offers because I feel they are marked up 20%-200% over what I perceive them to be worth, but have occasionally bought an extra copy later on (occasionally as a gift) if I've come to feel that I got a great deal originally. Other people pay grossly over the perceived worth if they want to support the seller for one reason or another.
Careful not to fall into the trap of conflating jailbreaking with piracy. There are many, many good reasons to JB not even counting apps that end in -ous. Google voice and SMS extensions, f.lux, theming support, wifi tethering, and a great deal more low level customization than Apple gives you.
Apparently even people "against humanity" still have a sense of justice.
For the same products, I feel I wouldn't change the price if it was listed at {3,4,5}.99$, I don't really know why. 1.99$ feels too close to an transaction fee, or some kind of things like that that feels like the money will be lost in The System. While paying >3.99$ seems to have more consistence, more purpose, since my intuition tells me that more of the value will end up in the proper pockets.
That's a very subjective take on this, but I support your idea that more people might have paid if the default would have been 3.99$.
I would have done this. And if there wouldn't be an easy way later on to pay/donate, I would have just leave it unpaid.
I've found that I'll definitely pay for things after I've tried them, but I'm more hesitant to do it before.
You collect credit card info upfront, deliver the information they opted in for with their cc, then the option to not process your cc is presented.
You could even also opt to not share your e-mail address with the developer by paying directly, before accessing the thing at all.
At first glance I want to put in $0.00 just to see if it works, not necessarily because that's what I'd be willing to pay.
Car dealerships do this all the time with the MSRP numbers they put on their vehicles (which are, typically speaking, wildly inflated from their cost basis). Seasoned negotiators do this, as well -- anchoring either high or low, depending on their objectives.
I would be willing to bet that an A/B test of a higher suggested price and a lower suggested price would yield better returns from the higher suggested price.
Anchoring is especially effective in cases where people have no real sense of the intrinsic value of something. For instance, if I offered someone a bar of palladium, they'd generally have no freaking clue what they should pay. I could tell them $2000, or I could tell them $200,000. The $200,000 offer might not actually get any takers at $200,000. But it would generate a much higher negotiated price than the $2000 offer would, because people would mentally start at $200,000, and then try to work down from it.
Of course, I'm talking here about direct sales, where the margin is pretty thin; I think middle-men are unnecessary, and obscene markup for name brand or just because you can is egregious.
Are you serious? People have cared mainly about price since the dawn of history. Obviously people have particular quality level they want, but once that's met if it's a tradeoff between quality and price, price virtually always wins.
Just by giving a starting value predisposes people towards that value. And in this case, it was low enough people would impulse buy with the default value left in. Contrast to the Humble Bundles where their true value is much larger, so people tend to weigh the value against other purchases from their peers or prior purchases (which is why the median prices seem invariant between bundles).
I think it's a good anchor price and if I was feeling generous it's a low enough value where I'd pay double. At a minimum I'd pay their asking price because after getting many hours of fun out of the game with friends it's definitely worth at least that.
Finding the price that the market will bare is precisely how you determine a product's monetary value.
Side note: if you want to see a entrepreneurial community without morals, I could point you to some places that would make you reconsider your opinion of HN.
Real world: Customer A thinks the $14 pizza is overpriced. No sale. Customer B thinks the $14 pizza is delicious and worth it. Would pay up to $20 if forced. Pays $14 and enjoys $6 in surplus value.
Ideal world: Customer A thinks the $14 pizza is worth about $6. Buys it for $6 (Arriving at the deal is the tricky part). Customer B thinks the $20 pizza is worth about $20. Buys it for $20 (Arriving at the deal is the tricky part).
Now both customers are happy with their pizzas, and the pizza maker made $26 in revenue instead of $14.
There is no "true" price for anything. It's not morally wrong for the cheap customer to pay $1 in a PWYW deal, and it's not morally wrong for the seller to enjoy it when someone pays $100 in the same deal.
Further complexities: maybe it's a slow day and those employees were idle, and the raw materials were going to go bad without being used anyway - so if the $6 customer is buying it as cost the pizza maker may still be winning. Especially if they sold some fountain drinks to that customer, which are almost pure profit.
If you want a sustainable business, you need to cover your materials cost. Arguably paying less than the materials/shipping cost for something is morally wrong, especially if you know damn well this thing costs more than that to make and ship.