Ask HN: Which of those services would you pay $5/mo to use?
35 comments
I would have to say I wouldn't pay $5/month for any of these... In fact I already stopped listening to Last.fm rather than pay $3/month (I can listen to Norwegian stations online for free, and I never cared for Last.fm's selection algorithm - Pandora's was much better, but I can't be bothered to use a VPN or proxy to use it).
I'd be much more comfortable with a yearly rate - $20 a year is a much easier price point for these types of services (look at flickr, I think it nailed the subscription service model).
I don't want to worry about monthly bills.
I don't want to worry about monthly bills.
That's actually not true, but I'd have to do some digging to find the article that examines this across a broad spectrum of services.
Paying monthly for a product/service tends to make that product or service used more, because people feel the need to justify seeing that item on their bill.
This is why, for instance, so many gyms moved away from 'buy a year' plans. People would sign up in Jan / Feb / March, go a few times, and never go again. When it came time to 're-up', they wouldn't because 'we never go to the gym'. However, when people were billed monthly, the would go maybe even only once or twice a month, but it kept them using the service and the 'hurdle' for payment each time is much lower.
Lest you think it only apply to gyms, the study also looked at cell usage when the only thing billed per month was overages, and you paid the full contract up front. They saw a similar type of usage, where even with something as common as a cell, the annual cost was higher and the average monthly use was lower.
Bill monthly (or even 'micro' -- 'on use') and you make more money overall.
Paying monthly for a product/service tends to make that product or service used more, because people feel the need to justify seeing that item on their bill.
This is why, for instance, so many gyms moved away from 'buy a year' plans. People would sign up in Jan / Feb / March, go a few times, and never go again. When it came time to 're-up', they wouldn't because 'we never go to the gym'. However, when people were billed monthly, the would go maybe even only once or twice a month, but it kept them using the service and the 'hurdle' for payment each time is much lower.
Lest you think it only apply to gyms, the study also looked at cell usage when the only thing billed per month was overages, and you paid the full contract up front. They saw a similar type of usage, where even with something as common as a cell, the annual cost was higher and the average monthly use was lower.
Bill monthly (or even 'micro' -- 'on use') and you make more money overall.
There was an article here (sorry can't find it) that discussed pricing of subscription plans for software services. The conclusion was that monthly plans were significantly more popular than yearly, even though the cost was higher.
I'd pay $5/month for unlimited access to books and journals, but it would have to be a very big library, quick, reliable, and allow for some form of offline access.
I'm not interested in most of the other options, free or not.
Although at one time I considered buying good usenet access, there just aren't that many interesting and vibrant newsgroups left.
I'm not interested in most of the other options, free or not.
Although at one time I considered buying good usenet access, there just aren't that many interesting and vibrant newsgroups left.
I would and I do pay for quality weekly newsmagazines. It's getting harder and harder to find decent, in depth articles written by real professionals. Unfortunately I've seen some good newspapers closing down or turning into crap full of ads and low quality products called "news".
I wish there would be more people like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryszard_Kapuściński
Social networks like Facebook, Twitter, really need to find other kinds of monetisation than subscription fees, if only because they become exponentially more useful the more people use them. Restricting the number of users by charging them wouldn't help them.
If social networks aren't able to find ways to successfully bring in revenue using advertising they deserve to go out of business. One of the big challenges in advertising is not knowing whose eyeballs are seeing your ads. For TV they may have a crude demographic of who's watching ... but it's not very granular. Social networks are the exact opposite of that. No only do the users of these networks willingly provide details about themselves down to the most granular level, but they also provide a linkage to their friends that are doing the very same thing. It's the perfect combination of information for advertisers to use in order to serve relevant advertising.
Most of my work is on unix. However once in a while I would like to verify my stuff on windows just to see what things work and what things fail. I'd pay a few dollars a month for occasional VNC/RDP access to a windows desktop where I could compile and test short programs. I know of some services out there that offer things like this but they are overpriced for my level of use.
I would pay $5 for a vanilla Windows XP box with IE6.
For me, just about the only online social service which is useful enough to justify paying for it is e-mail. And that's definitely one area where the free services (yeah, GMail) are lightyears ahead of any paid service. So apart from 'infrastructure' stuff (like hosting, domain names, etc.) my online existence is completely free. And I honestly don't see that changing, ever.
Except you probably pay for home broadband, a mobile and possibly mobile broadband.
I might pay $30-$40 / year for all google services together.
I really only use them because they're free. There are enough other services already I'd switch too if some of them became payware. I'm really not attached to any of the services. My gmail is filled with email forwarded from my own domain, so I could switch my mail provider without changing email address (as it should be).
Now, DNS, I am willing to pay for :).
I really only use them because they're free. There are enough other services already I'd switch too if some of them became payware. I'm really not attached to any of the services. My gmail is filled with email forwarded from my own domain, so I could switch my mail provider without changing email address (as it should be).
Now, DNS, I am willing to pay for :).
I think the annual rate is a better way to convince people to pay. I really don't need another monthly bill to deal with, yet I barely think about forking over for my annual dns and web hosting bills.
I guess it depends on the service provided, but I'd definitely not pay $5/month for Facebook, but I might consider paying $25/year.
I guess it depends on the service provided, but I'd definitely not pay $5/month for Facebook, but I might consider paying $25/year.
Hacker News
I prefer the SomethingAwful forum model: start out free, start charging a one-time $10 fee for new memberships, and then be liberal about banning people (who can pay another $10 to become unbanned). There are other premium options available for other one-time charges.
Being able to moderate in a way that costs someone $10 can really help reign in the more destructive members of the community. There are people who keep resubscribing, but they subsidize the site for everyone else as they get banned over and over.
Being able to moderate in a way that costs someone $10 can really help reign in the more destructive members of the community. There are people who keep resubscribing, but they subsidize the site for everyone else as they get banned over and over.
I would pay upto $100/year for HackerNews.
is the content that valuable and irreplacable to you?
I'd argue that HN is a prime candidate for spawning equally good alternatives were it (hypothetically) pay for.
I'd argue that HN is a prime candidate for spawning equally good alternatives were it (hypothetically) pay for.
It's not the content, it's the community.
PG married hacker culture with "crass" commercialism, empowering capable people everywhere.
Before this "scene", hackers talked about "PHBs" and "cow-orkers"; working for The Man was a necessary evil that everyone had to put up with, witness the talented but bored BoFH, who LARTs lusers and generally channels his unhappiness with work through mischief and abuse.
Nowadays "lusers" are hackers' best friend, we're busy finding solutions to better their lives and improve our economic situation at the same time. Colleagues are peers, hand picked and chosen by us. It's a true meritocracy.
I would pay for HN (with the option to ban Tech Crunch posts and other fluff mongers, at least until the official launch date of my startup ;-)
Before this "scene", hackers talked about "PHBs" and "cow-orkers"; working for The Man was a necessary evil that everyone had to put up with, witness the talented but bored BoFH, who LARTs lusers and generally channels his unhappiness with work through mischief and abuse.
Nowadays "lusers" are hackers' best friend, we're busy finding solutions to better their lives and improve our economic situation at the same time. Colleagues are peers, hand picked and chosen by us. It's a true meritocracy.
I would pay for HN (with the option to ban Tech Crunch posts and other fluff mongers, at least until the official launch date of my startup ;-)
Hm..I would say both. A good community encourages good content (and discourages bad content). Having said that, the real content of HN is, ofcourse, the discussions!
I picked Gmail (backup email = worth it) and Last.fm (useful - im considering a Spotify subscription).
Other stuff: Chatterous (the second most useful tool in my arsenal) Jing (you can actually pay for this :D)
Posterous: no because hosting my own blog is about the same and gives me more control (i.e. I can have a personal front page etc.). FriendFeed, Facebook, Twitter: no because for me they have little actual value. They connect me with interesting people but I could live without it :D
Other stuff: Chatterous (the second most useful tool in my arsenal) Jing (you can actually pay for this :D)
Posterous: no because hosting my own blog is about the same and gives me more control (i.e. I can have a personal front page etc.). FriendFeed, Facebook, Twitter: no because for me they have little actual value. They connect me with interesting people but I could live without it :D
Our household shares one mobile phone between two adults. How does that fit into the 84% baseline?
As far as services, I checked GMail and other. I use VPS to host my web apps, so I pay for that. I pay for the ACM digital library, as I see a lot of value in that.
I would pay for online storage (eg Amazon S3). I use GMail. The spam filtering is great. I might use the paid Google Apps for domain email hosting, but would like a cost effective and time efficient (low administration effort) MTA which I can use for multiple domains.
My biggest concern with relying on some 3rd party for essential web apps/services is 1) what happens if they go belly-up? 2) what happens if there is an irreconcilable policy change?
For VPS, I back up to home and can always recover and host on a new VPS, just some time lost. If an essential service goes south, I've lost information and/or functionality.
So aside from fungible infrastructure, I've not yet seen anything compelling enough to make me pay up every month since I stopped playing everquest several years ago.
one of my primary questions for a service is "how much effort to sync with my home network or to mirror to another service?"
As far as services, I checked GMail and other. I use VPS to host my web apps, so I pay for that. I pay for the ACM digital library, as I see a lot of value in that.
I would pay for online storage (eg Amazon S3). I use GMail. The spam filtering is great. I might use the paid Google Apps for domain email hosting, but would like a cost effective and time efficient (low administration effort) MTA which I can use for multiple domains.
My biggest concern with relying on some 3rd party for essential web apps/services is 1) what happens if they go belly-up? 2) what happens if there is an irreconcilable policy change?
For VPS, I back up to home and can always recover and host on a new VPS, just some time lost. If an essential service goes south, I've lost information and/or functionality.
So aside from fungible infrastructure, I've not yet seen anything compelling enough to make me pay up every month since I stopped playing everquest several years ago.
one of my primary questions for a service is "how much effort to sync with my home network or to mirror to another service?"
I'd pay for webmail on the assumption that they have the scale to filter spam better than I could manage on my own.
I don't think I'd be willing to pay explicitly for anything else (maybe if they were bundled, but not at $5/month each).
$5/month seems steep. For comparison, LiveJournal charges $3/month or $20/year.
I don't think I'd be willing to pay explicitly for anything else (maybe if they were bundled, but not at $5/month each).
$5/month seems steep. For comparison, LiveJournal charges $3/month or $20/year.
I'd probably pay $5/mo for Pandora or Google Docs, GMail, etc., but most of the other services here either rely on network effects or are better advertising-supported. As they are, anyway: I can imagine premium features for almost all of these which I would be willing to pay for.
Likewise, I might be willing to pay for Pandora, though I don't currently, and I would be willing to pay for gmail. But, I don't like the idea of having a recurring cost to use email unless I can copy all of my mail out into another program.
...tags are so much better than folders.
...tags are so much better than folders.
Typical the services cater to one of this:
- application of interest that you need as an individual
- lets you express yourself
- lets you connect with others
- lets you discover more
If you observe all services catering to individual are rated higher.
When it comes to sites that let you express yourself or connect - may be the sites listed are not really niche and sites which lets u express for professional needs. If you had included linkedin, flickr (as against userbase on picasa) etc - may be these would have got better votes
sites that let you discover more content - guess it would be a very mixed response on the value of such sites given no single site would provide me all the material I would like to have stumbled upon.
- application of interest that you need as an individual
- lets you express yourself
- lets you connect with others
- lets you discover more
If you observe all services catering to individual are rated higher.
When it comes to sites that let you express yourself or connect - may be the sites listed are not really niche and sites which lets u express for professional needs. If you had included linkedin, flickr (as against userbase on picasa) etc - may be these would have got better votes
sites that let you discover more content - guess it would be a very mixed response on the value of such sites given no single site would provide me all the material I would like to have stumbled upon.
I pay for Flickr Pro och MobileMe. Anything else we host for ourselves or use free services. I voted Twitter (but I doubt they will charge $5/month) as I have found it really useful.
Online backup!
WARNING SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION FOLLOWS
I haven't officially launched yet.
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It is windows only for now. The killer feature here is that it is full backup but extremely fast especially with backiing up the OS, popular programs and media files.
Hybir Backup can back up a clean install of windows 7 on my hardware in less time than it takes to install it (Less than 10 minutes) over broadband (2.0Mb)
You can roll back to a previous point in time in just a couple of minutes registry and all.
I haven't officially launched yet.
You can try Hybir Backup for free before we launch. www.hybir.com use the promotion code HACKERNEWS. Accounts are very limited.
It is windows only for now. The killer feature here is that it is full backup but extremely fast especially with backiing up the OS, popular programs and media files.
Hybir Backup can back up a clean install of windows 7 on my hardware in less time than it takes to install it (Less than 10 minutes) over broadband (2.0Mb)
You can roll back to a previous point in time in just a couple of minutes registry and all.
It seems to me that if each of these services was peer-to-peer they can sustain their free nature. They are nice to have rather than essential, and everyone participating sharing the load fits perfectly with the "community" ideals.
These services seem unsustainable from a monetisation, cost and environmental perspective.
These services seem unsustainable from a monetisation, cost and environmental perspective.
I'd pay for my hotmail mainly because it's an established mail account that's used everywhere plus I like what they have done with the windows live mail program.
I'd probably pay for a lot of other random small sites to if a single micro payment provider got universally supported.
I'd probably pay for a lot of other random small sites to if a single micro payment provider got universally supported.
I would definitely pay to use twitter although I do not think that would be a good idea for them
You say that, but when the userbase dropped by, oh, ~99%, would it still be so useful to you?
I believe the scenario was whether we'd pay to use them as they are now, not to extrapolate how they'd be after and whether we'd use them then.
Well .. the two are inseparable in my mind, but fair enough.
I would pay for this software service, detailed in one of my earlier comments.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=436214
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=436214
I pay $36 annually for SDF membership (freeshell.org)
I'm now contemplating montezing my new social network/company GOTRIbal (gotribalnow.com) - gettng answers from members that monthly fees and yearly fees would be 'acceptable' and 'reasonable'. from my analytics i can see we're outperforming some of our 'goliath' competitors... this is an interesting survey you published...keeps me thinking...
thank you.
Tanya
LinkedIn
[deleted]
[deleted]
last.fm
I'd pay $5/month for on demand access to highest quality DRM free copies of all recorded media (film, music). In fact, I'd pay more, maybe up to $20.
I don't like bittorrenting everything you know. But at the same time, I'm not paying $30k+ to fill my iPod. A reasonable monthly fee is a good compromise and I'd happily pay it.
I don't like bittorrenting everything you know. But at the same time, I'm not paying $30k+ to fill my iPod. A reasonable monthly fee is a good compromise and I'd happily pay it.
This made me try to calculate something. If you're a radio station and want to allow your listeners to choose each song (in effect what you're saying), what would be the cost per song listened? In the classic model it's very small, but this is only because the radio station pays per song bought, not per song listened. In the new model, the number of used songs would be much greater. How much exactly? This would probably depend on how many songs are chosen from the long tail.
Anyways, what is clear is that the difference between a bought song (20-100c) and a listened song (0.0???c) is only a difference in freedom to choose. Sooner or later the two must come to a compromise.
Anyways, what is clear is that the difference between a bought song (20-100c) and a listened song (0.0???c) is only a difference in freedom to choose. Sooner or later the two must come to a compromise.
Broadcast licensing music (at the broad level that you need for a radio station) is a non-intuitive thing, and hasn't really adapted to the modern broadcast model. If you purchase a "radio" license you can play anything, but only if you follow certain conditions - like making it difficult to make perfect copies, allowing minimal amounts of fast-forwarding, and not explicitly allowing the listener to pick songs (that's why Pandora does/did all that - not just for kicks).
If you want a license that allows user choice - as in allowing you to specify which song you want to hear and then have it stream directly - it costs a hell of a lot more in licensing. Having said that, this calculation is applicable for ASCAP licensing; if you were willing to get access to less (for example, only from a specific label), you could probably get a slightly better deal.
If you want a license that allows user choice - as in allowing you to specify which song you want to hear and then have it stream directly - it costs a hell of a lot more in licensing. Having said that, this calculation is applicable for ASCAP licensing; if you were willing to get access to less (for example, only from a specific label), you could probably get a slightly better deal.
Last I checed a few years ago seting up a radio station to play songs over the radio costs 7c per user per song. So ~ 8 * 60 / 5 * 7 * 30 / 100 = 201$ / month for 8 hours a day.
However, change that to 0.7c per song and it's reasonable.
But, that's just a point of negotiation nobody actually pays that much. So finding the actual costs is rather hard.
However, change that to 0.7c per song and it's reasonable.
But, that's just a point of negotiation nobody actually pays that much. So finding the actual costs is rather hard.
Isn't this the cost per song played? If you have 1000 listeners the cost per user per song is 0.007c.
But if you go and try the "request" approach, then you have 1000 users requesting god knows how many songs. The trick is to manage to pay about as much as before (0.007c), but let each user choose what to listen instead of broadcasting the same song. Problem is, if two users want the same song, but 10 seconds one after the other, will you pay 7 cents or 14?
But if you go and try the "request" approach, then you have 1000 users requesting god knows how many songs. The trick is to manage to pay about as much as before (0.007c), but let each user choose what to listen instead of broadcasting the same song. Problem is, if two users want the same song, but 10 seconds one after the other, will you pay 7 cents or 14?
The difference is that if you publish a playlist your not a radio station and so have to pay big royalties.
I've thought this for a while. I would definitely pay a monthly fee for an all you can eat iTunes plan. Or something tiered. $100/month for all you can download? They'd have my money. Of course I'm not sure of the likelihood of that ever happening.
There's a nice idea there. We could pay a monthly fee(that goes to the artists) for a high quality bittorrent tracker. Sort of like the radios pay. I'd pay 40%/year there.
Who wants to make a legal oink?
Who wants to make a legal oink?
Definitely. I already pay to watch netflix over my xbox 360, and I think people would be very open to this if they could ditch cable...I think that's the problem.
I'd happily pay $20 a month for all my food, but in reality it takes something like $500 to fill me up.
I'm being a pedantic dick by pointing out that I can't give you my piece of fruit and still have it for myself, right? That there are real costs associated with storing and transporting food, and that the production cost of food scales with the number of people who want to eat, right? I mean, it's kind of an assholish thing to actually write this out, as if you didn't already know it, right?
Have you ever made a feature film? The one we're making has cost us $50k so far and we've not even got a master yet, even with most people working for points not hard $.
The catering alone was $2k. Fruit isn't free.
The catering alone was $2k. Fruit isn't free.
But it's a one time production cost. Once its made, copies are free. Distribution is getting to be near free. It's fundamentally different from food.
What, exactly, are you hoping to get paid for? I don't mean that sarcastically, I really want to know. In an economic sense, what value are you providing? Entertainment has always made its money in one of four ways: by limiting access (theaters, concert halls), by selling physical objects (books, cds, paintings), by draping it in ads, or by pure patronage.
You've still got 3 out 4, and yet you're on here bitching just because someone told you how much money they're willing to pay you for one form of content delivery.
What, exactly, are you hoping to get paid for? I don't mean that sarcastically, I really want to know. In an economic sense, what value are you providing? Entertainment has always made its money in one of four ways: by limiting access (theaters, concert halls), by selling physical objects (books, cds, paintings), by draping it in ads, or by pure patronage.
You've still got 3 out 4, and yet you're on here bitching just because someone told you how much money they're willing to pay you for one form of content delivery.
The exact same argument can be made for software, and anything else you can do on the computer. A few people are happy to create things for free, but those same people would generally prefer to be able to make a living doing what they love.
I'm not expecting this to be new to anyone here, as most of these arguments have been on the internet for years now.
I'm not expecting this to be new to anyone here, as most of these arguments have been on the internet for years now.
Where was I "bitching"? One time production costs are still costs.
We're hoping to be recompensed for our time and effort and recoup our costs plus some profit to invest in the next film. It's how all business works.
$5 a month is a very low number. I work in a cinema, your $10 to see a film just about covers cost.
We're hoping to be recompensed for our time and effort and recoup our costs plus some profit to invest in the next film. It's how all business works.
$5 a month is a very low number. I work in a cinema, your $10 to see a film just about covers cost.
Well if there was a bittorrent for food, that would be great for you.
Mail is too much of a commodity for me to pay for.
Hulu would get my money.
Hulu would get my money.
None.
If a service of the same quality can be offered for less, it will tend to be free as competition increases.
If a service of the same quality can be offered for less, it will tend to be free as competition increases.
That has been disproven many times. SmugMug is a good example. Sure there's free ones but they have a little extra and people love the feel of the more exclusive community.
I already pay for my online nusic feed http://dfm.nu/ via the paypal donate button if I had a good month on the freelancing, my good fortune is theirs.
But when things are down they are stil there for me and I appreciate that.
I'd pay $5/month for Linkedin
Good question.
So I'm trying to have people put their pretend money where their virtual mouths are. If the following services charged $5/month each, which ones would you pay for?
As a baseline, 84% of the US population pays for a cell phone.