Samuel's Paid User Proposal #suggestion
I am in support of the proposal of GIO offering the option of a paid level of service to GIO account holders. GIO account holders who want to pay GIO a nominal sum should have a mechanism to do so. What those advantages are to paid GIO account holders should be explored. One might be the ability to have to be additional features or the ability to join groups with capped memberships. These and others would seem worthy of study.
For example, GIO paid account holders could be given the privilege of join future newly created groups that are be capped at a set number of members. Then GIO paid account holders would not count against the proposed Basic group owner's 100 slots or Premium group owners 400 slots. In the current paid tier proposal, newly created Basic groups would never grow over 100 members unless the owner had the ability to pay. If a GIO paid account holder joined such a group, they would show up in the group with a badge reflective of their GIO paid account status. If the GIO paid account holder didn't then they would be given automatically removed from that group. I can envision that when GIO paid account holder renewal fees were due, that person would receive an email from the GIO system showing which GIO groups they had joined as a paying GIO account holder and advising them that if they didn't renew they would be automatically removed from those groups. They could of course chose to reapply to the group owner to join. If it were a Basic group and all 100 slots were filled then it's up to the Basic group owner to make a decision. The same decision they need to make under the current proposed tier. The group owner could say no, that the group is full, put them on a waiting list, remove an existing "deadwood" member to open a slot, or pay the GIO Premium rate. Introducing a GIO paid account holder level would be tweak on the proposed paid tier system. It would take the burden off basic new group owners who cannot afford a paid tier. I have stated before I would personally pay GIO annually for the privilege of having a GIO account. I created a group with only me in it just for that reason. So I am essentially already a GIO paid account holder but it's up to me to upgrade and downgrade. I could delete that group if GIO offered paid accounts to individuals. However I don't know that paid individual accounts translates well to new GIO account holders. They do not have the same loyalty or past experience. Unlike legacy group owners, they do not realize the value of what they have and will have for perhaps a few more years. I think there may well be a reluctance for new GIO account holders to pay for an individual account. Giving them a 30 day trial make sense to me. They would then have time to explore and join a variety of groups. As to the argument that the members in groups can't afford it, they don't have too. The owners of newly created groups can select a paid tier of service and direct add the number of members they desire up to the limits proposed in the new pricing structure. That's going to happen anyway. A see a benefit to clubs, hobby enthusiasts and organizations. They essentially create a group, tell their members to join GIO for a 30 day trial, evaluate the service and then at the end of 30 days their members will know if there is value in continuing the group with each member paying GIO $5 a year to maintain their group. Something like that would bring in money. The alternate is no money and caps on membership. I think paid individual GIO accounts are worth of more discussion. -- Sandi Dickenson
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On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 12:33 PM, Duane wrote:
One thing I'm not clear on is whether this Paid User Proposal would be a per group fee or a per account fee.Allow me to clarify my original suggestion: There would be two payment routes: 1. Group owners can pay money to increase the number of "free members" that their group can have. 2. Users (i.e. people with a Groups.io account that is tied to an e-mail address) can buy a Groups.io user membership, which allows them to join groups without using up a "free member" slot. In other words, a user whose e-mail address is foo@... and who has an account at Groups.io under the account foo@... would buy a paid Groups.io user membership, and that one payment (per year) would give him the ability to join any group (that is, any group that accepts him!) without using up a free-member slot in that group. It was not my suggestion that users would have to pay per-member-per-group. In fact, that it what I was trying to avoid: the problem with payment per-member-per-group is that some people are members of many, many groups, and a payment per-member-per-group would discourage people from joining more groups, and that's the opposite of what you want to happen. Duane, you wrote "How about offering an annual membership to anyone that wants it, regardless of which groups they may be in or join" but I think that that is what my suggestion comes down to. Charge people an annual membership fee regardless of how many groups they're in. The problem is: how do you convince people to pay? I suspect most folks don't care for extra features. (Also, a specific intention of my suggestion was to allow a mechanism whereby free groups can have an unlimited number of members even though the group owner doesn't pay anything, or whereby premium groups can also have unlimited number of members while limiting the financial strain on the owner.) Samuel
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Mark, I think this is all too complicated and would create more work for you and the group owners. I would look to simplify your pricing structure. Basic groups pay $1/week, $52 annually Premium $4-5/week $208-260/annually Enterprise $25/wk or whatever number you need to make it valuable to both yourself and the group owners I think at some point you could phase in the pricing to grandfathered groups. Even if all groups drop down to basic (which won't happen) and you have 20,000 groups that's a little over $1mil. Same revenue for 5,000 premium with the above pricing structure and about 800 enterprise. My opinion, keep it simple. Sara
On Thu, Jan 7, 2021, 5:11 PM Mark Fletcher <markf@corp.groups.io> wrote:
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On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 01:27 PM, Samuel Murrayy wrote:
any group that accepts him!or her! Andy
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Glenn Glazer
On 01/08/2021 05:20, Sandi D wrote:
I am in support of the proposal of GIO offering the option of a paid level of service to GIO account holders. GIO account holders who want to pay GIO a nominal sum should have a mechanism to do so. What those advantages are to paid GIO account holders should be explored. One might be the ability to have to be additional features or the ability to join groups with capped memberships. These and others would seem worthy of study. This is how it is where I work, in the virtual world of Second Life. People can be free members or they can be Premium at various levels. One level of Premium allows entry into areas that are nominally full, because we set aside space under the real cap for Premium members. It's a big incentive for our residents because it lets them join popular events and regions. On the other subject, all systems are going to be "too complicated" for someone. I'm sure there are those that find the current system hard to understand. The question is not whether the system is objectively hard to understand, but whether or not it is understandable by a majority of the target audience. I would like to think that someone who can understand how to own and run a groups.io group is capable of understanding all of the proposals so far. Best, Glenn --
PG&E Delenda Est
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On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 07:19 AM, Glenn Glazer wrote:
I would like to think that someone who can understand how to own and run a groups.io group is capable of understanding all of the proposals so far.The group owners should be able to understand, and it's reasonable to expect them to understand, or to expect them to get some help understanding if they can't understand on their own. But I don't think it's reasonable (and/or profitable?) to expect millions of group members to understand and deal with something complicated. I think the current (Samuel) proposal as it stands is probably too complicated in that sense, and I think any plan that requires the users rather than owners to pay runs the risk of being too complicated, although there may be something else besides the current (Samuel) plan that isn't. -- J Messages are the sole opinion of the author, especially the fishy ones.
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Drew
When group management consists of denying subscriptions in order to reduce costs I think there is something wrong.
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Drew
On 01/08/21 08:20, Sandi D wrote:
I am in support of the proposal of GIO offering the option of a paid level of service to GIO account holders. GIO account holders who want to pay GIO a nominal sum should have a mechanism to do so. What those advantages are to paid GIO account holders should be explored. One might be the ability to have to be additional features or the ability to join groups with capped memberships. These and others would seem worthy of study.
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Scott Chase
RE: Once the free member slots are filled up, someone wishing to be a new member of the group would have to pay a yearly fee to Groups.io.
Scott
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100% agree with everything Scott says here, including his suggestion.
-- J Messages are the sole opinion of the author, especially the fishy ones.
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Tom Madden
I like Scott's proposals too. Except.... in the craft/hobby fields (which covers all the groups I own or subscribe to), participants seem to always be on the lookout for ways to not spend money. (Which is slightly different from saving money.) I've seen people with six figure incomes at flea markets trying to get sellers to cut 25 cents off the price of a three dollar item. Most of us have multiple email addresses available. I can see subscribers dropping out at the end of their "free" year, then resubscribing from a different address. Whether it's the notion that you're getting a better deal than the next guy, you get your jollies from thinking you got away with something, or you take satisfaction in "putting it to the man", everyone seems to want to bend the rules.
Don't have an answer, just offering something for consideration. Because, in this case, I want to support "the man". Tom Madden
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Joseph Hudson
Hi Duane, I like your idea. And then I guess the pricing structure could look like $50 per six months or $100 for a year
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On Jan 8, 2021, at 5:33 AM, Duane <txpigeon@gmail.com> wrote:
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On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 01:35 PM, Joseph Hudson wrote:
And then I guess the pricing structure could look like $50 per six months or $100 for a yearI may be wrong, but I believe Mark is thinking less than $10/yr, though that hasn't been made clear yet. Duane
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Joseph Hudson
Well if so, that proposal that you just made would look nice.
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On Jan 8, 2021, at 1:42 PM, Duane <txpigeon@gmail.com> wrote:
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The proposal is fine as an option, but I don't think I would start any more groups on groups.io if I had no choice but to follow that model.
I prefer a model where I as owner pay for the service and figure out myself how to pay for the service. I might charge users a fee based on usage, (lurking is free, but members pay to be heard), I might run a yearly donate-a-thon until I receive enough to pay the fee, I might request that a core group pay something to keep the group alive, there are many ways I can think of to do this and they would all depend on the nature of the group and its membership. Stating it a little differently, I like things just as they are in that group owners are left figure out how to fund a group for themselves. I don't like the idea, no matter how much I respect Mark, of having groups.io collecting directly from members of groups I own. In my view of online group ownership, that's my responsibility, not something I will relinquish to the platform. I expect having an online group of any kind will become more expensive as time goes on and the nature of tech business evolves, but I accept that as my problem. Best, Marv
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I’m agreeing w Marv. Would not start my group today if members had to pay. I keep coming back to that. Many of our membets are volunteers there to help other people with their cats’ illnesses, and for some, including out volunteer but eminent specialist referral vet who probably charges hundreds per hour, we are the only group they belong to. If I had to start my group with any of the member-pay structures being proposed, I would have to figure out a way to front these people the membership fee. It would be I appropriate for me to expect them to donate their services AND to pay for the privilege of doing so.
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On Jan 8, 2021, at 12:11 PM, Marv Waschke <marv@...> wrote:
-- J Messages are the sole opinion of the author, especially the fishy ones.
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Jeremy H
My thoughts:
Groups.io service benefits both groups (i.e. group owners) and members (in varying proportion), in a three way relationship. As Groups.io costs money to run (including providing a living for its owner), it is reasonable for both categories to contribute to the costs, and unreasonable to expect the costs to fall only on one category, of those Groups.io has a relations Mark's original model was that, to a large extent, it would be free, to both groups owners and members, being paid for by some group owners, who would for a flat charge per group get extra features ('Premium' and 'Enterprise') for their groups, Subsequently, he rebalanced the features and benefits between 'free' and 'paying' groups, with the intentention of improving Groups.io financial performance. He has had a long term policy of 'grandfathering' their original terms for existing groups. But he has come to the conclusion that this model (of some group owners paying a set charge per group) is not working. His proposal was that new free, basic, groups would have their membership number severely restricted; and that new, paying, groups would have an additional, potentially unliimited, charge for extra members (but payable by owners) beyond a base number: charges would continue to be payable only by group owners. Existing groups would retain their current terms (features and prices). A point: any scheme which charges owners for members (in whatever manner) imposes a burden on owners, will lead to them to have to make decisions as to whether a member (new or continuing) is 'worth it'. And for existing members, groups.io does not provide the tools to judge how valuable a member is. Samuel's proposal is (AIUI) that (for new groups):
Jeremy
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Related to Catlady's thinking, Groups.io High Level Pricing Concerns:
I think most of the plans, including the presumed one, are leading Groups.io in a difficult direction. Consider Better, not Bigger. So many advantages. Just ask. USA adds a Chicago to our overpop each year. "Still more population growth is not our way to a healthy community, a healthy planet, OR enjoyable cycling." ~Mike
On Friday, January 8, 2021, 03:18:56 PM EST, J_Catlady <j.olivia.catlady@...> wrote:
I’m agreeing w Marv. Would not start my group today if members had to pay. I keep coming back to that. Many of our membets are volunteers there to help other people with their cats’ illnesses, and for some, including out volunteer but eminent specialist referral vet who probably charges hundreds per hour, we are the only group they belong to. If I had to start my group with any of the member-pay structures being proposed, I would have to figure out a way to front these people the membership fee. It would be I appropriate for me to expect them to donate their services AND to pay for the privilege of doing so. On Jan 8, 2021, at 12:11 PM, Marv Waschke <marv@...> wrote:
-- J Messages are the sole opinion of the author, especially the fishy ones.
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On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 09:11 PM, Marv Waschke wrote:
I prefer a model where I as owner pay for the service and figure out myself how to pay for the service.On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 09:18 PM, J_Catlady wrote: I would not start my group today if members had to pay.My suggestion does not preclude any group owner from paying. If a group owner wants to pay $220 herself and tell all of her [potential] members "there is no need to become paid members of Groups.io if you want to join my group; joining my group is free [for you]", then that is perfectly doable within the suggested system. Or if a group owner wants to pay $220 himself and then tell his members "you must each pay me $25 amount per year to be a member of this group", then that is also perfectly within the design of the system. Samuel
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On 7 Jan 2021 at 14:11, Mark Fletcher wrote:
What else am IDon't payment processing compaies like Stripe and Paypal impose a minimum fee per transaction? Isn't there a danger that this would make these small payments per member non-viable? Jim Fisher
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On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 12:39 PM, Mike Hanauer wrote:
You totally misread and are misstating what I said. I said I would not sign on if Samuel's (new proposed) plan were in effect. I was perfectly happy with Mark's original proposed plan. My sole objection is to a structure wherein members have to pay rather than the group owners. -- J Messages are the sole opinion of the author, especially the fishy ones.
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