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Subscription Hell

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Re: Subscription Hell

#521

Post by ptero »

xbkingx wrote: post #256
JauntTrooper wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that model will work, honestly. There's friction anytime you ask someone to spend anything, even if the price is de minimis. Look what happens whenever a city adopts a $0.05 plastic bag tax. When Washington DC did it, plastic bag use dropped by 50% - 70%. I'd see people that just spent $30 bucks at the store with their arms overflowing with stuff rather than pay that extra nickel. I'd expect prompting u…

And then you have those magical psychological effects at different price points. I remember when almost every piece of "shareware" was $20+ and most full "programs" were $100+. Now people balk at apps over $0.99 and even opt to have a ton of their personal information sent off to a stranger to avoid that price. The tone of the engagement matters, too, because it works on psychological levels most people aren't aware…

> Now people balk at apps over $0.99 and even opt to have a ton of their personal information sent off to a stranger to avoid that price

Yes! This is extremely puzzling for me and I would love to know why it happens. I am mostly free from this and do not think about trying a $1 app any longer than I do about buying a cup of tea (and always pay for an ad-free version if I still using the app a week later).

However, I am in the minority: hearing this my friends roll their eyes "you are paying for an app you may not use long term? You must be rich. Look for a free app instead, man".

Re: Subscription Hell

#522

Post by zentiggr »

hiram112 wrote: post #425
around_here wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got Office 2003 and it works for all of the home based stuff that I do now. I paid $70 on a sale. If I had been doing 365 since then at $48/year, I'm looking at $720.

I agree that office 2003 has enough features and is good enough for 99% of the things I use. In fact, starting with 2013, there are anti-features (integration with OneCloud, online docs) that I'd prefer were not included. Unfortunately, Office 2010 already has issues opening files made with 2013, 2016, etc. Most of my PCs are on 2013 as I was able to grab several HUP licenses at the time. I seriously doubt 2013 will…

I haven't kept up with the doc format story - are the ODF formats published, so LibreOffice can at least try to work with them? Or has MS closed them up again in the new versions?

Re: Subscription Hell

#523

Post by nickjj »

AlexandrB wrote: post #503
nickjj wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked through the table of contents for that 1,088 page book and I didn't see anything that hinted on how to do sorting on table columns. And this is exactly why Rails Casts was great. You would Google "how do I sort table columns in Rails" and find the episode, watch it in about 10 minutes and implement it in your code base. Rails Casts has been dead for years and it still ranks in the top 3 today on Google for t…

> I don't want to flip through 1,000 pages in a book to find 1 specific feature I am struggling with right now. I may never find it. I'd much rather do that than watch a video about it, where I'm forced to scrub back and forth trying to understand the key concept at the speed the presenter is speaking instead of reading a section multiple times (which can be much faster).

But what if the video is 5 or 10 minutes long and it's focused on the exact problem you have, plus it has a blog-post style block of text under it with the code examples? And on top of that, there's a git repo which shows a before / after for just that feature.

That's the value in something like Rails Casts.

Re: Subscription Hell

#525

Post by cube2222 »

AlexandrB wrote: post #496
cube2222 wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only feature updates. Also everyday bug, security updates and also operating costs. 1. Operating system 2. Programming IDE 3. Password Manager 4. Well I pay subscription for Netflix and Spotify but that's not really for the updates. Partly for new content, partly operating costs. 5. Facebook (I'd prefer to cover the operating costs by subscription, I really dislike ads) 6. Email - same as above Also, actually I'd…

> 3. Password Manager This one is a total non-starter for subscription pricing. I'm not willing to use software that will potentially cut access to all my accounts if I stop paying them monthly.

Check out 1password. Read access is retained, and you still have everything stored offline.

Re: Subscription Hell

#526

Post by JustSomeNobody »

icebraining wrote: post #222
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure, have a subscription service for something that needs upkeep, like a syncing service (but get out of here if all you do is just lump it into the user's iCloud storage) or a data feed. This. If you sell an app and service together, you can charge a recurring fee. If your app is more traditional, then a one time fee for the app is appropriate. Note, this does not mean that you can just add a service willy nilly…

That's crap is not exactly a great reason for why one can or can't do something. I'm reading a lot of people with strong opinions, but I'd like to see the reasoning behind them.

A restaurant has some really popular plates, fancy looking things. Owner sees a way to generate revenue, so he sells the plates for $5 and every time you bring the plate back, you can refill it for $10 (which is a discount off normal prices). That's a pretty good deal for everyone, this is good.

Alternatively, same restaurant has some really popular plates, fancy looking things. Owner sees a way to generate revenue, so he sells the plates for $5 and a recurring fee of $1 per month. That's it, nothing else. Why would I want this? What's in it for me?

Re: Subscription Hell

#527

Post by vorpalhex »

un-devmox wrote: post #321
matmann2001 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How will you know it's a comprehensive exposé? How will you evaluate whether an article is going to be worth the price?

> How will you know it's a comprehensive exposé? How about before I purchase there's an excerpt and the number of words that lay ahead? I mean, it couldn't be that hard to distinguish comprehensive articles vs the norm. > How will you evaluate whether an article is going to be worth the price? I wouldn't know. And if it wasn't worth it, I probably wouldn't purchase a future piece from the same reporter. That said, th…

This model already exists with those damned "click here to continue reading buttons". Just charge me a few pennies when I click that button and we're good. Give me a little browser based wallet that I can re-up with my "news" budget on a regular basis and I'm a happy paying customer.

Charge me $30/month to read your site at all (bloomberg) and you're never making a cent off of me again.

Re: Subscription Hell

#528

Post by vorpalhex »

JauntTrooper wrote: post #119
ChuckMcM wrote: post #18

I am not sure why it is so fundamentally difficult for publications to understand what people want. The issue many people, myself included, have with subscriptions are that you pay $x / month whether or not you read that month's product. And whether or not you read every article or just one. So for me, as a consumer, my "price per article" goes from small to literally infinity (pay but read zero articles). Now the pa…

I don't think that model will work, honestly. There's friction anytime you ask someone to spend anything, even if the price is de minimis. Look what happens whenever a city adopts a $0.05 plastic bag tax. When Washington DC did it, plastic bag use dropped by 50% - 70%. I'd see people that just spent $30 bucks at the store with their arms overflowing with stuff rather than pay that extra nickel. I'd expect prompting u…

UI is everything.

My purchase of The amount of money I spend with Amazon's one-swipe checkout is obnoxious.

Ask me to give you my full address twice and manually enter a credit card, even if you have an item I really want? Nope, probably not doing it.

Re: Subscription Hell

#529

Post by nojvek »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #485
anarazel wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An unsung virtue of the ad-driven web it's is inclusiveness and strong worldwide redistribution effects. Everybody sees the ads, however the actual value of a pair of eyeballs is widely variable, by orders of magnitude so. It's therefore profitable to make the content free and distribute it as far as possible, to have the best chance of catching high value visitors that covert to ad action and revenue. > Once you m…

Payday loans are an extreme case. I very much doubt that there enough such things to completely dilute the redistributive effect of ad funding.

Payday loans are extreme case because it’s the last option for a poor person. A poor persons usually has little family/friends or they are poor too. Banks won’t give them loans. If they are stuck in deep dark mud, the only way out is payday loan. Sure, some outright gamble their life and their should be some low against it. But paydays are taking huge risks in funding them, therefore their higher fees as insurance.

Re: Subscription Hell

#530

Post by nojvek »

ripdog wrote: post #468
matmann2001 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How will you know it's a comprehensive exposé? How will you evaluate whether an article is going to be worth the price?

Blendle offers automated instant refunds. If the article is bad, refund it.

I think the new economy, some CEOs and CFOs will make terrible decisions, and lose their market share to those who provide the right price for the value, or understand what the value even is.
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