I didn't think people that read HN are influenced by prizes and similar cheap marketing tricks

Let's do some math:

Let's say that only 4000 people buy the bundle (highly unlikely, probably much more), the cost of the macbook and ipad is $2000 Your expected value from the prizes is $2000 / 4000 = $0.5.

$0.5 / $79 total cost = 0,6% wow. great.

Close. But you're forgetting to add the value of having 4,000 email addresses to notify when the next deal drops.

If it is US, they're not following US sweepstakes law, which is the reason every other sweepstakes you see advertised says "no purchase necessary". So it seems anything goes for their contest?