Speaking personally, I’m really put off by the payment model.
You’re presenting this as “$5 for a one-year subscription”. Now, if this was “$5 for a one-year subscription to all our Less Wrong content, released regularly on the following schedule”, then that would seem fair value for money. On the other hand, if it was “$5 to buy this sequence, and you can buy other sequences once we have them ready”, then that would be okay, too. As is, though it’s coming across as “$5 to subscribe to this sequence for one-year, plus more money to subscribe to any other sequences we put out when we have them, and if something happens to your files at some point in the future, then too bad; we’ll charge you another $5 to get it again, despite the fact that we have your account information on file and know you paid us”. And that is… not good. It strikes me as overly greedy, and to no real purpose, since you’re not locking the files or anything so I don’t get to play them after the subscription expires (incidentally, also a business model I would not support).
To summarize: I’d willingly ‘subscribe’ to content that is coming out on a regular basis, or ‘buy’ content that is complete as is. I will not ‘subscribe’ to content complete as is, since the implication is that my right to the content is temporary and revocable.
Sorry about the confusion over the “subscription” of what is a one-time payment for a Core Sequence. The “subscription” status of this first Core Sequence was a result of the way we originally set up things with PayPal. We are working to change the one-time purchases to a “buy” option not a “subscription”.
Our goal is to do exactly what you said at the end of your post. We will have a single subscription option where you can subscribe to all new promoted posts from Less Wrong. This will be a monthly recurring payment model. Then there will be a list of Core Sequences available for purchase (like buying an audiobook). You’d buy them individually.
We will have some additional core sequences coming out shortly and hope to get the promoted posts subscription option up and running very soon. Thank you for your feedback!
Thanks for the quick response. I figured that you probably wouldn’t be trying to do that (it’d be awful for business, for one thing), but from what was written on the site as it stood, I couldn’t find any reading of it that said anything else.
Hello again Endovior, just wanted to let you know the changes have been made. Now it’s no longer a subscription but a single purchase. Thanks again for the feedback and your patience!
Speaking personally, I’m really put off by the payment model. You’re presenting this as “$5 for a one-year subscription”. Now, if this was “$5 for a one-year subscription to all our Less Wrong content, released regularly on the following schedule”, then that would seem fair value for money. On the other hand, if it was “$5 to buy this sequence, and you can buy other sequences once we have them ready”, then that would be okay, too. As is, though it’s coming across as “$5 to subscribe to this sequence for one-year, plus more money to subscribe to any other sequences we put out when we have them, and if something happens to your files at some point in the future, then too bad; we’ll charge you another $5 to get it again, despite the fact that we have your account information on file and know you paid us”. And that is… not good. It strikes me as overly greedy, and to no real purpose, since you’re not locking the files or anything so I don’t get to play them after the subscription expires (incidentally, also a business model I would not support). To summarize: I’d willingly ‘subscribe’ to content that is coming out on a regular basis, or ‘buy’ content that is complete as is. I will not ‘subscribe’ to content complete as is, since the implication is that my right to the content is temporary and revocable.
Sorry about the confusion over the “subscription” of what is a one-time payment for a Core Sequence. The “subscription” status of this first Core Sequence was a result of the way we originally set up things with PayPal. We are working to change the one-time purchases to a “buy” option not a “subscription”.
Our goal is to do exactly what you said at the end of your post. We will have a single subscription option where you can subscribe to all new promoted posts from Less Wrong. This will be a monthly recurring payment model. Then there will be a list of Core Sequences available for purchase (like buying an audiobook). You’d buy them individually.
We will have some additional core sequences coming out shortly and hope to get the promoted posts subscription option up and running very soon. Thank you for your feedback!
Thanks for the quick response. I figured that you probably wouldn’t be trying to do that (it’d be awful for business, for one thing), but from what was written on the site as it stood, I couldn’t find any reading of it that said anything else.
Hello again Endovior, just wanted to let you know the changes have been made. Now it’s no longer a subscription but a single purchase. Thanks again for the feedback and your patience!
Awesome, was waiting for that to be fixed before sending you monies. Subscribed now.