Jon W's Premium Upgrades are Confusing

Are Jon W's premium pricing confusing?

  • Yes, i have suffered a mind crash.

    Votes: 68 86.1%

  • No, it all makes sense if you try really hard.

    Votes: 11 13.9%
  • Total voters
    79
I'm going to get on with doing work for my paying customers. I've offered a route for people to receive an explanation that is fair and reasonable.

No more replies from me.
 
Jon W said:
I'm going to get on with doing work for my paying customers. I've offered a route for people to receive an explanation that is fair and reasonable.

No more replies from me.
Click to expand...

This is very bad PR. We could be paying customers if you'd explain it better. Rather than having a dozen different options, why not make a calculator that allows us to input exactly how many addons we're using, along with any other criteria you want. That way we can get premium exactly how we're going to use it instead of over or underpaying because we went with the wrong package.
 
Jon W said:
I'm going to get on with doing work for my paying customers. I've offered a route for people to receive an explanation that is fair and reasonable.

No more replies from me.
Click to expand...

Seriously, it's not like we're trying to be difficult. At the minute I'm completely avoiding your addons (even though some look very useful for us) as I don't understand the licensing and we have quite a large userbase. I don't think I'm alone in this and it's costing you business.

So far you've posted an example yourself that isn't actually correct according to your own license page and now @Russ has asked for clarification based on a real world example and you're refusing to respond to him because it's obvious that you yourself don't know how the license fees would be for that example. You're well within your rights to just make up a number and say "pay me this" but you're fronting it with a complicated page that's massively inconsistent.

You have people here wanting to give you money but it's not clear how much or how that might change over time (e.g. when transitioning between user number thresholds). Offering clarity will get you more customers, being stubborn and ignoring the obvious issues with your licensing will just damage your reputation and lose you customers.
 
For example, say a site with 120k members wanted to run 1 premium addon on a commercial site, what would I select on your package page and how much would it cost?

Would that be 120 credits? So I can go for any of these 3 packages with above this number, or is this not for commercial sites?:

Bronze Subscription (Annually) - £180/year
Silver Subscription (Quarterly) - £120/3 months
Gold Subscription (Monthly) - £480/year
 
Jon W said:
I'm going to get on with doing work for my paying customers. I've offered a route for people to receive an explanation that is fair and reasonable.

No more replies from me.
Click to expand...

From the results of this poll @Jon W , seems to me you'd have a helluva lot more "paying customers" if you could answer the questions. I have to admit, I found it all very confusing the first time I looked at it, the second, third, fourth, etc. I actually am still lost in the sauce looking at it. I'd hate to be a bigger board trying to figure out just exactly what I do owe/need/want.

I don't think anyone at all is calling anything unfair... I have seen the term "confusing" more than anything. That's not good for your customer base. These are not hard questions... you're not being tied up and being beaten with a wet noodle to answer these. I'm just saying, you made this structure, perhaps it would be in your best interest to explain it. If you cannot answer @Russ , then the system you have created is flawed.

To create a credits/purchase license system, throw it out there, and then not answer valid questions about it seems really really odd. And then to say, only receive a PM in an explanation to a paying customer? Uhhh, WTF? So, someone has to buy what they "assume" will be the right package first, hoping... then ask questions about it?

Your add-ons, your rules, your licensing procedure. I just think you are constantly taking one step forward, two steps back.

Best of luck.
 
Jon, you really need to snap out of it.
Keep your explinations clear, concise and in public. Transparency is going to be your only saviour here, otherwise you are going to lose a lot of existing and potential customers.
 
Jon W said:
I'm going to get on with doing work for my paying customers. I've offered a route for people to receive an explanation that is fair and reasonable.

No more replies from me.
Click to expand...
there you have it folks money talks and ******** walks. pray One of his products does not crash your site and you need him for help he will not be there I promise you unless your checkbook is open. buyer beware the quality just isn't up to par. Fascinating how money hungry people who work in non profits and do charity work can be.
 
Please don't get this thread locked with comments like that as some of us have legitimate questions that we want answers to :-(
 
Seems quite clear to me; you put hard work in growing your forum, and Jon benefits from it, not you. It's the same business model the mafia has been using for decades, works quite well for the mafia but no one else.

Since I started running my own forums a decade ago I have never used any add-on/product/plug-in that was created by anyone but myself, so his or any other developers business model/approach doesn't bother me.

I do have a concern about his callbacks. Maybe it's unfounded, but out of curiosity:

So, if I release a paid add-on, Jon can track how many forums purchased it, and how well it sells, say on a monthly basis? And use this data to decide to create a competing product? If he is tracking add-on id's, it is very easy to figure out what the add-on is, and the number of installs there is.. It would be a rough estimate but still...

If the above is possible are the developers here, that sell add-ons comfortable with the fact that that the number you sold could be tracked, and could be used to create competing products?

Also, from the mined data isn't it possible to determine what type of site uses what add-on? For example, maybe sporting sites favors Brogans featured threads add-on, while gaming sites favor Jaxels portal?

Information like the two examples stated above could be sold to developers, to give them an edge over other developers, couldn't it?

Anyhow, I'm not saying Jon could actually keep track of the number of each add-on installed, but it could be possible.

One final thing, the number of members a forum has is none of your business.
 
Solid post @Lawrence

You covered quite a few things I hadn't even considered.

And I do agree with the "member count" as well. I personally have made 20+ fake users at Family Guy Fans for certain things (mostly XenQuotations).... would suck to be on the edge of member count and get thrown up a tier simply because I attempted to be creative.

Oh well, lots to think about before I install or attempt to hire Jon for any projects.
 
We have 24,600 or so users registered but in reality we only have 5-6k active/regular users. There are a lot of instances with the licensing where something simple like purging banned accounts from your stats could save you thousands a year and that seems ridiculous.
 
If Jon wants to track his add-ons, that is his business, and the business of those forum owners that uses his add-ons. As long as what is being tracked and how any information will be used (or may be used in the future depending on change of circumstance) is made clear to his potential/current clients, go for it.

However, tracking other developers add-ons is a breach of privacy, IMO. I do not use callbacks, or links in footers I can search for to see whom is using my add-ons or not, because personally it is none of my business. And as I view it that it is not my business, but the forum owners business, then it is not the business of any other developer.

Thanks to ******* I had to add the disclaimer to my add-ons that they install and uninstall as one would expect; no callbacks, nothing left to show they were ever installed. And now I'll have to modify it again.

WRT member count, what happens if your membership crosses over to the next level, and you can not afford to pay the extra cost? Do you turn off registrations until you harass your current membership for donations, or do you uninstall the add-ons that are providing you with functionality that you do not want to lose?

Maybe I am out in left field with this, but these questions are legitimate if tracking will be done.
 
Well it was a very simple choice for me the first time I used one of his add ons and it had a bug then I was told I need to purchase premium support, had a look at the business model back then and removed all his add ons and now don't even consider installing any. If he has one that I really need I would soon contract another coder to code me a paid up front add on to do the task I have at hand. I even consider this running a free add on of his a sit works now the members get used to it and then it stops working so you sit with a possible huge cost to get it working again.

Sorry folks some developers are best not used at all and @Jon W is on my list :D
 
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