By self-segmenting, I mean that his customers are voluntarily sorting themselves into market segments according to what they are willing to pay, and then paying

By self-segmenting, I mean that his customers are voluntarily sorting themselves into market segments according to what they are willing to pay, and then paying that amount. Extracting the most value from your customers is a challenge. Ideally since software has no real unit costs to the developer, you'd like to be able to sell the same software for every value from $500 down to $0 with each person paying the max they are willing. The problem is that you can't divine the amount each person would pay and have no way to manage this. I am saying he has his customers sorting themselves based on what they will pay on his behalf, and in theory he could get closer to the theoretical ideal that way. It is true, there's no rational incentive (although maybe a desire to ensure the developer keeps working on a game you love almost qualifies) but it doesn't matter if using the guilt lever works on irrationality so long as it works, which if his numbers are real, it did to the extent that he sold two at 5.99 for every one at 2.99.