Although I’m leaning towards swearing off buying software bundles, I’ll still at least listen to what they have to offer. TheMacBundles is doing something interesting. They’ll let you build your own package of software.
For about $30 you can get your choice of 5 apps from a menu of about 20 plus. If you buy 10 or more, at about $5 per app, you get a little bit of a discount. So ala carte’ is only slightly more expensive than the fixed bundle.
The problem for me is that I think I’ve hit my working set of small utilities and productivity tools, the bread and butter apps of bundles. The odds of any of these small apps making a qualitative difference in my Mac experience is slim relative to the cost. If I’m only going to get one hit per bundle, I might as well just purchase directly from a developer and not split the proceeds.
The One Finger Discount campaign had it right. Offer a significant discount along with a lot of choice, and I’ll buy multiple tempting apps of my own volition.