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I find it interesting that they still provide payment breakdowns by platform... and that Linux and Mac OS are still so much higher than Windows. When those two
by Bakkot 14y ago
I find it interesting that they still provide payment breakdowns by platform... and that Linux and Mac OS are still so much higher than Windows.
When those two were paying for games it was obvious why that should be, since games on Linux are so comparatively scare, but it doesn't make so much sense with eBooks.
- snewe 14y agoPerhaps Mac users are wealthier than the average Windows user? I am not so sure about the Linux differential. It would be interesting to see the differences conditional on income.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- eridius 14y agoI would say it's less likely that Mac users are wealthier, and more likely that Mac users are willing to pay for things that they want to have.
- zerohm 14y agoI think a more accurate way to say this is, for people that it makes more sense to buy a budget laptop/desktop ($300-500), Apple does not have an offering.
- nnnnni 14y agoThe Mac Mini is in that price range -- or at least has been traditionally. It does what most people need in a desktop machine.
- PotatoEngineer 14y agoMy theory is that Linux is used by experts, usually people with high-paying programming jobs, who can afford to drop a little more money. Macs are more expensive, so they'll also belong to people with higher income. Windows machines are cheap, so they're bought by everyone else, and (on average) they can't afford to drop as much money on the various bundles. Also, since Windows machines are cheaper, they're more likely to be bought by cheapskates.
- leftnode 14y agoFor the Games bundles, I always figured it was Linux users showing that they're willing to buy games if people will make them for Linux.
- dorian-graph 14y agoPeople repeat that for every Humble Bundle and I'm still dubious.
- dagw 14y agoWindows user here. On Linux the humble bundle was almost always the first chance to get a hold of the games, while on Windows they'd often all already been out for 6-12 month. I'd almost always already bought and played at least 3 of games in the bundle for $10-20 each and often the games that I hadn't bought where games that I wasn't interested in. So for me 'buying' the Humble bundle was a straight up donation to support a concept I liked, rather than a way to get games. I suspect many windows users where in the same position.
- armored_mammal 14y agoI'm a developer using Linux at work but it's sure not a high-paying job. I'm usually around average Linux when I buy a Humble Bundle and I'm making under $50k a year.
- batiudrami 14y agoThat's still a lot more than many people getting the bundle are on. Students, for example, won't usually be earning anything close to that. Besides, we're talking about averages, not outliers.
- freehunter 14y agoOn the first humble bundle, the speculation was that Linux users are happy to pay a little extra for something they normally do not have access to. Game developers often do not target Linux, so a bundle of indie games with explicit Linux support was fairly novel. Many who commented said they wanted to show the market potential for Linux support, and by keeping the platform average higher than other, more supported platforms, they would achieve this goal. I don't have any hard evidence on the success of that, nor do I necessarily feel it is relevant to expand this out to an ebook or music bundle, but the information is there as presented.
- yk 14y agoI noticed that too, but I do not think it is very surprising, since the percentage of Linux users who think about copy-left related issues is higher than for Windows or Mac users. ( At least this is my guess, if you just care about a free as in beer OS you can just pirate Windows.) So the percentage of Linux users who pay a 'political' price is higher than in the case of Mac or Windows.
- a_bonobo 14y agoBy now, Windows has around 50-60% of the total share, with Linux being at only around 20% and Mac around 30%.
- aerique 14y agoI find 20% to be fairly substantial actually. If a certain market would be 20% of your income, would you ignore it? (Given that it is not that hard to develop cross-platform especially since OS X is usually targeted as well.)
- a_bonobo 14y agoIt is large (much larger than the market-share of Linux on the Desktop) but it makes the previous discussions on "Linux-users are more willing to spend money than Windows-users" moot, as the percentages have shifted so much since start of the discussion.