Per-goal fees for advanced features
I agree with the point raised about there being a contradiction between expecting Beeminder users to fork over say $16/month while also expecting them to be sufficiently averse to stings from derailing. As I floated here, maybe there should be an alternative to the $16/month plan where users pay a one-time fee for auto-retrorachet to be enabled for a goal.
Same with other advanced features like custom aggregation methods, and maybe the SMS bot. Weekends off and road editor should be folded into the $4/month plan, IMHO, because I don’t think they’re either confusing or revenue-impacting.
The $32/month plan can either stay at $32, or maybe lowered to the $16/month tier. Either way, I predict a very small subset of users who actually care enough about those features that they’re willing to pay 4-8x the base user fee.
Most active users should pay a subscription fee, but newbees should be able to get the full experience for 6 months
Where I disagree with a lot of people here is the idea that $4/month is “too high” or “unfair” or “not worth it”. I’m speaking up for the silent majority here, because I don’t want this transition to a revenue plan based on monthly subscription fees to be–pardon the pun–derailed, just because a small subset of users are particularly upset and vocal.
By all means, these upset users should be taken care of. Give them extra free goals, deep discounts, whatever makes them happy. But don’t change the basic policy (the # of free goals may need to be bumped up or combined with a time-limited trial of several months). Having special discount periods where users can get on an Infinibee plan for $2/month instead of $4/month may also be a good idea. The two keys here are a). get most active users on some sort of subscription plan, in order to ensure Beeminder’s long-term financial viability, and b). differentiate between different users’ willingness to pay so that everyone can get on Infinibee at a price they’re comfortable with.
I’m on record elsewhere as saying that I think the new limits on free plans are too strict, that newbees should be able to have unlimited goals (and goal types) for several months (4-6 months, IMHO), after which they can be given the option of either only having 3 active goals or to pony up and pay $2-$4/month.
However, I really don’t get the outrage over the basic idea of charging some amount of money for a subscription fee. Surely if you use Beeminder enough to care about these changes, it’s worth some amount of money to continue to have Beeminder around to use. Maybe this is $4/mo., maybe this is $2/mo., but some non-zero amount. To be really blunt, if you’re not getting $2/mo or $24/year of value from Beeminder (on top of the $ you spend on derailments), you’re using it wrong.
I think some of you may be looking at the situation with the wrong frame. The relevant comparison is not $2-$4/mo. vs. free, unlimited goals (the pre-Infinibee era), but $2-$4/mo. vs. not having Beeminder around anymore. If it helps, think of the period where you got Beeminder for free as a really long extended free trial or beta test. Or another way to look at it is that the $2-$4/mo. fee is a communal tax we pay for an important public good. Finally, to put the price in perspective: would you rather drink one less coffee/smoothie/soda, or stop using Beeminder?
Running A/B pricing tests is ethical
Finally, I know I’ve said that I think $4/mo. is fair and a “no-brainer” for me, but maybe that point is $2/mo for most people. This is an empirical question, and should be answered empirically. I know running an A/B test with pricing seems ethically shady, but I personally think it’s justifiable to let a subset of users get a discount (it may be different if $2/mo. was the original price point and now you’re charging some users $4). After all, special discounts have already been handed out left and right in this thread and in the comments section of the Infinibee blog post! There’s a strong norm for treating people equally, but while I think that’s a good general rule of thumb, this heuristic shouldn’t be slavishly followed.
If you were genuinely going to charge everyone $4/mo. for a service, but charge half of them $2/mo. while you’re figuring out pricing, that seems perfectly fine ethically speaking. And if you do decide to lower the rate to $2/mo., you don’t need to reimburse the people who paid $4/mo. for the extra money they paid during those months (the $4 rate was an amount both parties agreed to as a fair price for Beeminder’s services). What would be ethically questionable is if you then lowered pricing for new users to $2/mo. while continuing to quietly charge existing users the $4 rate.