Pay What You Want — a Sustainable Business Model?

revealingheart writes "As 2010 comes to a close, it could be remembered as the year pay-what-you-want pricing reached the mainstream. Along with the two Humble Indie Bundles, YAWMA offer a game and music bundle, and Rock, Paper and Shotgun reports on the curiously named Bundle of Wrong, made to help fund a developer who contracted pneumonia. More examples include when Reddit briefly let their users donate an amount of their choosing for upgraded accounts when they were having financial difficulties; the Indie Music Cancer Drive launched Songs for the Cure for cancer research; and Mavaru launched an online store where users can buy albums for any amount. Can pay-what-you-want become a sustainable mainstream business model? Or is it destined to be a continued experiment for smaller groups?"

Re:I tried...

[Binestar]

this is like the guy who put a couch out near the road with a sign "Free" and it was there a week. Took the "Free" sign off and put a sign that said "$25" and it was stolen that night.

Re:I tried...

[sakdoctor]

That's not how it's done these days.

You could have removed some key parts of the stuff, and sold them as "unlockable content".
Otherwise you could have done an advert supported model, with banner ads epoxied to everything.