Daniel,
Building off my thoughts from yesterday, I am putting my money where my mind is.
I would like to take you up on your offer to become a Beeminder Premium Subscriber.
Please send me the secret link.
Anyone else out there going to join me?
Jake
-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel Reeves dreeves@beeminder.com
Sender: akratics@googlegroups.com
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 17:46:05
To: akratics@googlegroups.com
Reply-To: akratics@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: beeminder subscriptions
Jumping the fee schedule:
We’ve adjusted how much you can jump the fee schedule a couple times
in the past and we are indeed tempted to eliminate fee-jumping for
free users. Currently you can jump 3 levels, I think it is. So you can
immediately pledge up to $30 and skip the $5 and $10 levels. The one
person who has taken us up on the subscription deal so far was really
keen to jump to $270 because he knew that he wouldn’t be motivated by
the lower amounts. And it wasn’t paying the lower amounts that
bothered him, it was the risk that he would fail to reset after those
initial derailments.
And, yes, if you’re paying a subscription you can keep reseting
without pledging if you want.
God-like powers:
We think we can get the best of both worlds with the god-like powers
if we make it easy and natural to relinquish them when you’re ready to
commit. And it may be moot anyway: there are already ways to cheat if
you really want to. Anyway, we’ll experiment with that.
“No way I am giving them money when I mess up”:
Yeah, we have to figure out how to keep people from being hung up on
this. Of course most people who say that are just saying that they’re
either not akratic so the whole concept of commitment devices is
crazy, or they are akratic but just not of the right psychology to use
a commitment device to fix it. For example, a lot of people would just
cheat and weasel out and so would require commitment devices with much
more teeth than we’re willing to entertain at this point.
PS: Jake, we do have a donation button at the bottom of
pricing – beeminder but we’d rather convince you to subscribe! How
about if we give you, say, a $50 credit, which should give us plenty
of time to address these concerns? Actually a $100 credit in your case
would be the least we could do after your amazing guest post on
blog.beeminder.com !
PPS: Let’s make that offer broader: $50 credit for the first 5 people
to subscribe. Reply to me if you’re game (the subscription link is
still secret)!
On Sat, Jan 28, 2012 at 12:11, Jill Renaud veganjill@gmail.com wrote:
Danny,
I was wondering a few things about the subscription model. Will this be
like some sorta “reddit gold” ex: beeminder is available with some features
to all people for free and then with additional features for a cost? I
think that the current growth of user base is due in large part to the fact
that it is free to start a goal. I think that if you were to require
subscription to join beeminder, you would see your growth greatly slowed. I
would suggest keeping the current (non-subscription) model in place and
maybe having a beeminder premium for people who want to track multiple (lets
say more than 3) goals.
I think that god like powers would only interfere with overcoming akrasia.
I agree with Rob’s point about #2. Maybe people will decide if they are
already paying a subscription fee they shouldn’t have to wager on their
roads and have infinite free resets, etc. I think this is detrimental to
beeminder as a tool to fight akrasia and also you may wind up making less
money in the long run.
I also agree with Rob’s point about pricing – netflix streaming is only
$8/month. So $12/month seems a little steep.
I do like the idea of specifying who your pledges go to, but then again,
isn’t that just hurting beeminder in the long run in terms of finances since
they won’t collect on lost goals? I can’t see how a subscription model will
make you more money in the long run than your current model, but of course I
haven’t crunched the numbers. Just learn from netflix – when they
drastically tried to change their business model they lost massive numbers
of subscribers.
-Jill
On Sat, Jan 28, 2012 at 12:18 PM, Rob Felty robfelty@gmail.com wrote:
I think 0,2,3, and 4 sound good - I think 1 is a bad idea. It introduces
too many complications.
Regarding #2 - if you are already paying a monthly fee, do you have to put
money on the line for your goal at all?
I think $12 a month is a bit steep though. Skype premium is only $3.
Netflix streaming only is somewhere around $10-12 per month. I would target
more like $5 per month.
On Sat, Jan 28, 2012 at 4:16 AM, Daniel Reeves dreeves@beeminder.com
wrote:
Hi Akratics,
We’re hoping to get your feedback on how many of the following
premium features it would take for you to feel like it was worth
paying $12/month for Beeminder:
-
No need to remember to cancel your subscription – if you don’t use
Beeminder all month, you’re not charged for that month. [1]
-
You get god-like powers over your yellow brick road: you can add
arbitrary flat spots, change the steepness retroactively, etc. Soon
we’ll add the ability to relinquish that control selectively, if that
tempts you to cheat on your contracts.
-
You can jump the pledge schedule – go straight to an amount that
motivates you to stay on track instead of suffering through a few
initial derailments (which always entails the risk of getting
demoralized and not resetting at all!).
-
Serious VIP treatment for the brave souls who first guinea pig this
stuff for us!
-
Specify who your forfeited pledges go to. (This one isn’t
implemented yet, just seeing what people think.)
Danny and Bethany
[1] It infuriates me when companies profit off my akrasia. I want
Beeminder to only profit off of fixing akrasia! [2]
[2] A funny thing to say, given our business model so far (collecting
pledges on failed goals), but I’m serious: paying those pledges is
just part of climbing the fee schedule till you hit your Motivation
Point. Beeminder injects massive motivation along the way and you’re
paying in proportion to the motivation Beeminder provides and in
proportion to how badly you need Beeminder!
–
http://dreev.es – search://“Daniel Reeves”
Follow the Yellow Brick Road – http://beeminder.com
–
http://dreev.es – search://“Daniel Reeves”
Follow the Yellow Brick Road – http://beeminder.com
