sweet, thanks mate.

sorry I already have this, please re roll

Hijacked this giveaway since I was enjoying our conversation, but the thread got closed due to some nastiness towards the OP:

What if one day your cable television provider or your auto insurance carrier told you that in order to avoid a sizeable price hike you have to remain a subscriber forever, and if you ever cancelled or your policy lapsed for any reason then you could never get a preferred rate ever again?

You mean like insurance carriers already do, and cell phone companies have been doing for the past 10+ years? (TV providers are weird in that your prices go up if you stay subscribed, and go down if you cancel (or threaten to cancel) and re-subscribe.) The way that if you subscribe to Xbox Live or PS Now, you have to stay subscribed or lose all your "free" games? At least Humble are being transparent about it (unlike cell phone companies), and aren't holding your games hostage to keep you subscribed (like Xbox Live and PS Now).

I guess you can view it two ways: you can view it as them forcing everyone to subscribe and stay subscribed or else pay higher prices in the future, or you can view it as them switching to a different bundle model with higher prices but letting everyone who is currently subscribed or subscribes before the switch to lock in a lower rate.

They clearly decided that making the switch to the new bundle model and higher prices is the right thing for them to do. So what is the alternative, just announce the new model and higher prices and not have a Classic Plan, thus having everyone pay more but not putting any pressure on people to subscribe or stay subscribed? Is that better?

I think it potentially could because people who are left on the 'outside' for whatever reason may take one look at the $20 price tag for premium and then say to themselves why should I pay that when I can go buy the games a la carte from some reseller who got them from the classic plan at the much lower rate?

I don't see how that's any different from the current Humble Monthly Bundle. Everyone who doesn't buy the bundle but wants the games has to go to a third-party to buy them. With the new bundle, everyone can see the games ahead of time and thus has the option of buying the bundle (and if they only want some games, to buy just those at a discount), rather than realizing that the bundle contained games they wanted and wishing that they had bought the bundle.

I think the resellers would increase prices anyway, since they just care about maximizing their profits. I saw in a recent bundle that people were selling a single game for $8 when the whole bundle of 6+ games cost them $12 at most (and more likely $8.xx since they bought it on sale). I saw another game being sold for $14-18, more than the cost of the entire bundle.

But I also think most people don't just flit between buying from authorized resellers and buying from third-party sellers, they do one or the other. The people who bought the Monthly would keep buying the Monthly, and those that always buy from third-party sellers will keep doing that. Actually, if anything, I think it may reduce third-party buying in that those who would have bought the bundle had they known what games were in it may now actually buy the bundle since they'll know what games are in it. :)