1. main@beta.groups.io

moderated Re: Samuel's Paid User Proposal #suggestion

J_Catlady
 

What’s good about Drew’s is that the space doesn’t warp around groups. Member fees are completely independent of groups. The member is not paying to be in a particular group: they’re paying to participate in groups.io generally. Individual groups are not charging for membership. Members woukd not be paying to receive the “services” of a particular group (this avoiding potential legal, and other problematic, issues). 

Group owners could be charged or not, but that would be independent of their group members or of how many there are. Of course larger, popular groups, by attracting members, woukd *indirectly* contribute to revenue.

 I actually like a plan where either members or group owners are charged, but not both. (By “members” here I of course mean “groups.io account holders”.) Of course if members are charged, group owners would be charged like any other account holder. In this scheme, group owners would be considered some kind of “providers” (running a group) and would not be charged for running a group, no matter what the size.

It doesn’t tie fees up in knots with groups. It is clean, easy, and level. Nobody trying to get comp’d in with a coveted, limited, free pass to a group when their neighbor in the next seat paid for their membership (airline ticket analogy). Nobody expecting special treatment from any individual group because they paid for it. Etc.

You would probably still need a free trial period. And I’m not sure how many people would be willing to pay it, given their lack of personal investment in groups.io, which is why I still favor charging only owners, Mark’s original proposal, even if that needs tweaking.




On Jan 12, 2021, at 3:07 AM, Jeremy H via groups.io <jeremygharrison@...> wrote:

The difference being that under Drew's proposals, ALL members would be required to take a paid subscription, to be able to join groups (beyond perhaps a few) whichever groups they are. As such it is the opposite of Mark's proposal - it charges members, instead of group owners.

And as such it has the same inferiority to Samuel's, which provides for a choice: either the group owner or the member can pay - if neither, then no membership of that group for that member.

Jeremy

On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 04:25 AM, J_Catlady wrote:
Yes. Totally different.

 

On Jan 11, 2021, at 8:19 PM, Shal Farley <shals2nd@...> wrote:

J,
 
The reason Drew’s proposal (although possibly bad for business?) seems ok to me is that it is level. Member fees are not tied to any particular group, ...
 
"I suggest, therefore, that you create two types of users, namely free users who pay nothing and paying users who pay $2.50 per year.  Free users can only join groups that have free-user slots left over.  Paying users can join an unlimited number of groups without filling up any free-user slots."
-- Samuel's Paid User Proposal, on which Mark based this topic.
 
Is this different from your understanding of Drew's proposal?
Shal
 

--
J

Messages are the sole opinion of the author, especially the fishy ones.
My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together. - Desmond Tutu


--
J

Messages are the sole opinion of the author, especially the fishy ones.
My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together. - Desmond Tutu
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