Would you take that hundred bucks and pledge it on the site?

Why do you think not? Because only AdSense-based sites make money?

Heh! Well, if we do make a profit, sounds like you'll be adding $100 to it. :-) Curious what your reasoning is, though.

If 500 people are willing to pay $10 for a piece of software, a developer has two options: 1. Make it on your site for $5000 (minus your cut) and feel good about themselves; 2. Make it themselves, sell it on the web for $10, and make much more money. So much for others' incentive to produce your product.

It's a bit of a different model... on this site, a designer can see what they can make and sell for $5000. That is, "write a program, make $5000". As opposed to "write a program, make a website, figure out a way for people to find out about it, wait for money to trickle in".

Our cut for open source will be zero, and for commercial projects small. We're hoping the advantage of using microPledge will be that it's a central location people know about and will build up trust in. And also that the developer can focus on his project rather than on building a nice website with pledging functionality. (Our site's much more than just a SourceForge donate button -- but you'll have to wait and see. :-)

Good point; that's what I learn from making judgments about other people's industries.

I won't back out of my bet, of course, but I can see how I might lose it.

Seems that we are more likely to throw down a $100 at a betting table, and gambling to winning it all , than on developers pioneering the next useful technology. Just noticing for myself how high the stakes really are. ;-D