For those otherwise unaware, a few months ago, the team at Humble Bundle attempted to change the way their payment sliders work, which let people choose how much they wanted to give to charity or Humble Bundle. The issue people had with this, and what caused such an uproar, was the complete removal of sliders in favor of a max of 15% towards charity (not to mention the bizarre circumstances surrounding it). As you might’ve guessed, this was warranted as people were before able to give much more to charity, specifically zero towards Humble themselves. Following the extreme and warranted backlash, the team reverted this change and apologized for the lack of transparency regarding it, promising to take the next few months to evaluate how to do it more reasonably. Today, they’ve determined how to do just that, and the right way this time, instead of secretly changing and lying regarding the whole process.
The blog post itself goes into detail regarding how these changes will work:
In mid-July, we’ll be rolling out a new iteration of sliders that creates even more opportunities to support important causes. While splits on each bundle will vary, on average there will be a minimum amount for Humble Bundle between 15 – 30%. Sliders will clearly indicate any minimums to customers and the flexibility to adjust donations will be available in every purchase of a bundle. This change comes after ten years of having the option to lower Humble’s percentage to zero.”
As detailed further in the blog post, Humble Bundle is doing this to ensure they can “invest in more exciting content” for subscribers, and maintain the quality of future bundles. And as much as this is still less towards charity, this makes a lot more sense. At the end of the day, Humble Bundle is a company that needs to make a profit to survive. Keeping an outlined minimum, while still letting the vast majority go to charity, helps them keep with a goal. Mind you, I’m not saying this change is perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a lot better than what was done prior.
Regardless, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this change. Do you think changing the charity sliders this way was the right call for Humble Bundle? Is there an idea you think would work better? Let me know!