Maximising the consumer surplus

An interesting pricing model...

Radiohead gave up its music for free and asked for donations, whatever fans deemed reasonable, in return. What the band got was an average of $8 per album sold, bringing estimates of profit to about $10 million. Not too shabby for one week. The number of albums sold in the past week exceeded the launch week sales of its three previous albums combined.

While the concept has been used before in service sectors like Cafes and Restaurants before, it would be surprising if this mechanism remains sustainable for an impersonal channel like online music downloads.