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LWN Update
The individual subscription count stands at almost exactly 2500; it really has not changed much in the last couple months. 2500 subscribers will keep the lights on for now, but that's really not enough to keep things going in the long term. Somehow we are going to have to find a way to inspire quite a few more of you to subscribe.
That said, here's a quick heads up: we'll be making a small change to subscription pricing shortly. Until now, we have encouraged readers to take out monthly subscriptions for a couple of reasons: we didn't want to risk going under with a large unfulfilled subscription liability, and we were doing our best to avoid getting in trouble with our credit card merchant bank. At this point, we are reasonably confident that we'll figure this out somehow and find a way to stick around for the long term. And our new merchant bank is rather more friendly than the old one was. The monthly renewals are also costing us a fair amount in processing fees.
So we will soon (within a week or two) implement a discount for longer-term subscriptions. It won't be huge, but it will reflect the difference in our costs, and, hopefully, encourage a shift away from the monthly method. An announcement will go out when the new scheme goes into effect.
Thanks, as always, for supporting LWN.
(Log in to post comments)
Obligatory "Thanks Guys" post
Posted Feb 27, 2003 3:54 UTC (Thu) by Strike (guest, #861) [Link]
Okay, more than just a "thanks guys, you're doing a great job!" post - I agree that the discounted extended subscriptions might be a good idea. I've been okay with the monthly plan for the very reason that it seemed rather uncertain how long this great site would last. But, if a longer subscription that is relatively assured of being fulfilled were available, and it helped both reduce my cost and yours ... then it's a win-win situation. I'd definitely go along with this.
LWN Update
Posted Feb 27, 2003 4:34 UTC (Thu) by eyal (subscriber, #949) [Link]
I suggest you offer subscriptions on a monthly, quarterly, semi-annual and annual basis, BUT with automatic renewal.Otherwise the new pricing will backfire - you'll have to re-persuade subscribers to sign again for another period.
EZ.
LWN Update
Posted Feb 27, 2003 8:36 UTC (Thu) by massimiliano (subscriber, #3048) [Link]
I *strongly* agree with the idea of automatic renewal.Just an automatically sent e-mail that reminds me that
the subscription will be renewed (giving a chance to
unsubscribe me) is more than enough for me.
I also think it is reasonably fair.
The idea behind this is that "defaults" are useful if
they are the most commonly chosen option.
For me, the "default" is to automatically subscribe
again, year after year, without having to do anything
(except when my credit card expires).
Handling this automatically is probably easier both for
me and you.
Maybe you could make this "automatic renewal" thing
an optional feature in the subscription, so that each
reader can decide for himself.
Another thing, about price... personally, I do not think
that you should make it that much lower for longer term
subscriptions. The current fees are fair enough, and if
you have a reduction in costs, I am happy if you are the
only one gaining from it.
But this is just my opinion...
Ciao,
Massimiliano
LWN Update
Posted Feb 27, 2003 17:34 UTC (Thu) by aotheoverlord (guest, #3993) [Link]
Rather than add a discount for yearly subscriptions, it would be more beneficial to your bottom line if instead you added a 50 cent processing fee _per renewal_ for those opting for less than a yearly subscription...
LWN Update
Posted Feb 27, 2003 18:06 UTC (Thu) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link]
Some of us prefer to have our credit card bills come out to an even dollar amount, simplifying writing the number in words on the check.
LWN Update
Posted Feb 27, 2003 19:44 UTC (Thu) by cpeterso (subscriber, #305) [Link]
so charge a $1 renewal fee. :-)
LWN Update
Posted Feb 27, 2003 8:57 UTC (Thu) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link]
Don't worry. I paid for a full year when you first opened up for subscription, thinking that even if you went under the next day month, it'd still be money well spent, afterall it's not as if I've not been reading and enjoying LWN for free since issue 1.As for ways of growing the subscription-base. How manay did you say you need for a reasonable staff and salaries to live from ? 5000 ? Hmm, if the average is $50 this would mean $250K a year, or a little over $20K a month. Sounds in the ballpark ?
Number of subscribers
Posted Feb 27, 2003 15:54 UTC (Thu) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link]
I think under the original pricing structure it was something like 5000 for minimal long term and 7500+ for growth. The main things are trying to increase membership drives.. at this point I would go with the NPR style drive or since I watched it last night UHF :).Get a LWN coffee cup for a year silver membership ($100)
Get a LWN shirt+coffee cup for a gold membership. ($200)
Get a LWN shirt, coffee cup, mousepad and an ogg recording of Alan Cox singing the Welsh national anthem in Welsh for a platinum membership. ($500)
Get a LWN s+cc+mp+ogg and a signed printout of the 0.1 source code to the kernel by Linus for osmium membership ($1000.)
Number of subscribers
Posted Feb 27, 2003 17:13 UTC (Thu) by Baylink (subscriber, #755) [Link]
I think this is a pretty cool idea... and I think your subscribers would actually go for some of the premiums (that's what we call them in the pledge drive biz :-) listed.Hell, you could even get luminaries to send random thank you notes...
Even I finally subscribed. :-)
-- j
Number of subscribers
Posted Feb 28, 2003 5:48 UTC (Fri) by virtex (subscriber, #3019) [Link]
That's a pretty sweet idea. Another idea is to negotiate with Linux related businesses to get them to offer discounts to LWN subscribers. This is something Mandrake is doing with their MandrakeClub. For example, as a member, I can get $20 off the price of Win4Lin, $5 off Opera, or 10% off Hancom Office.
1 week lockout is too short, IMHO
Posted Feb 27, 2003 16:10 UTC (Thu) by dneto (guest, #4954) [Link]
I still think that the lockout period for non-subscribers is too short.After all, I wait up to a week for the news to show up in LWN, so what's
another week?
A month-long lockout would do better, I think.
IMHO, of course. :-)
David
Anything longer than a week would eventually sideline LWN, IMO
Posted Mar 1, 2003 12:01 UTC (Sat) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]
<quote>I still think that the lockout period for non-subscribers is too short.
[]
A month-long lockout would do better, I think.
</quote>
The problem with that is that at some point, the wait time begins to reduce the
value of the subscription, as well. IMO, that point is between a week and two
weeks, so the current week for subscriber only content is about right.
Why is that? A good part of the value of LWN is that it can serve as a source for
authorative stories and quotes. With a week's lockup, it gives subscribers a period
to read the content and form opinions on it, so the moment it goes free, they can
be out there pointing others to it, with comments already formulated. The
problem with making the lockup time longer is that stories a week old are already
starting to get stale, in many cases, and by a month later, nobody's still discussing
it any more. The value to subscribers of being able to authoratively cite LWN
content as a source dries up, because it can't be verified until long after the fact.
The value of the subscription, therefore, plunges.
However, there is more. As the ability to authoratatively cite LWN content goes
down, LWN becomes less of a recognized and quotable authority on the subject
of Linux and all things free source. Fewer folks are drawn by authorative quotes,
and end up liking the content well enough to eventually subscribe. People find
other sources for their Linux and open source news and commentary, and LWN
falls by the wayside. As this happens, the value of subscriptions drops even
further, and LWN becomes even less relevant to real life, however relevant it
might be to open source history of a month or more back. In a ever plunging
cycle, LWN becomes less and less relevant, and the value of subscriptions drops
lower and lower, meaning LWN becomes less and less relevant.
No one, least of all the editors, and certainly not me, wants this. I personally often
cite LWN content, and find the frustration index at being unable to point to stories
others can read begins to rise at 4 days, even. A week is a good compromise,
but get it much longer than that, and LWN would be better renamed LMH (Linux
monthly history). While history is nice, I'm paying for news, and like to cite and
link to news, not history.
LWN Update
Posted Feb 27, 2003 17:48 UTC (Thu) by barbara (subscriber, #3014) [Link]
Thanks for the update. Hope we can break 3,000 before too long.There has been a suggestion (and some further comments) to institute automatic renewals. This is OK if this is an option only. Time and time
again this negative option marketing (when a person is forced to tell a company they don't want a particular service) has backfired.
Please don't go there.
LWN Update
Posted Feb 27, 2003 18:15 UTC (Thu) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link]
I'm curious as to the distribution of subscribers over the different subscription prices. It's possible that there are enough subscribers who would be willing to pay more that you could get significantly more money just by offering more expensive subscriptions.
Subscription levels
Posted Feb 27, 2003 18:24 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]
376 "starving hacker," 1912 "professional hacker," and 220 "project leader." The bulk of people are clearly going with the mid-range subscription. People occasionally comment that the subscriptions are expensive; I would really like to find a way to make them cheaper, someday.
Subscription levels; per country ?
Posted Mar 3, 2003 16:20 UTC (Mon) by guybar (subscriber, #798) [Link]
perhaps offer different subscribtion rate per country (ip domain ?);an north-american worker earns, on average, 20 times as much as, say, a thai worker.
but note, there are many more third- and second-worlders.
Of course this opens the way to scams, but I believe all of your on-line
subscribtion buisness is trust-based anyway.
Reiterated Request
Posted Feb 28, 2003 4:49 UTC (Fri) by JLCdjinn (subscriber, #1905) [Link]
Of course, I'm going to chime in with my thanks. Know that I'll be subscribing to this fine publication for as long as it and I are both sucking air. I am also always keeping an eye out for someone who needs to know about LWN, as well as those to whom I would like to give the gift of LWN.
That being said, I'd like to take this opportunity to make an unrelated meta-LWN comment: please release your source code. I know it's been asked before, but at the very least there are a few UI niceties that your faithful users would be happy to script and deliver back to you in a convenient `diff -u` format. I firmly believe that LWN is one of the finest interfaces to the Linux community, but there's a big piece that's missing there. We have a great opportunity for feedback with this comment system, and I've found it to be very useful - I think it could only be complemented by an additional feedback to the site's engine. Further, I really want to see an example of a neat design on top of Quixote. :)
Peace,
· John
Source release
Posted Feb 28, 2003 16:34 UTC (Fri) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]
You think it's a neat design? That's only because you haven't seen the source yet...Releasing the code really is high on my list. Honest. The only problem is that lots of other things are up there too, and doing a source release right will take a few days of my time. I'll get there, though.
Longer term would be good, but not auto-renew.
Posted Feb 28, 2003 8:35 UTC (Fri) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]
I don't like reoccuring payments that I don't directly and individually authorize. Inever have. When I first subscribed, I didn't have much left in my budget for the
month, and purposefully chose a two month only "starving" membership in
ordered to force me to reconsider in two months.
Two months later, my budget was a bit better, and I subscribed for a full year at
the standard price. Unfortunately, somehow, despite my clicking the correct
options at each page, it got in as 12 monthly deductions @ $5 each, which I did
NOT intend or want, instead of a single one for $60, which was my object.
Anyway, I'd love to be able to change that to a single deduction for now 10 or 11
months, and avoid the reoccuring monthly fees. Any way to do that? I'd leave a
contact address but am afraid of the address harvesters, so won't. However, a
reply here with some sort of instructions would suffice.
...
Also, I've requested this before. Please either alter your comment display code to
obey the background color customization preferences, or provide a separate
option for that. I prefer light text on dark background, it doesn't glare like dark on
light does, but am stuck with having to chose an inbetween shade for text, since
the same text preference is displayed on black when my background preferences
are obeyed, but on white in the comments, where they are not.
Since I've been a paying customer for some time, it'd be /real/ /nice/! Pretty
please?
(I've been experimenting with FilterProxy, which would solve the problem, but the
release version depends on a now outdated htmlMason perl module, and while
the CVS version of FilterProxy is supposed to correct that, I haven't tried it yet.
Thus, I am not yet running a dynamically rewriting personal proxy yet, which would
solve the problem from my end. However, I can't imagine I'm the only one
experiencing this issue, so solving it from the LWN end would be a good thing,
regardless.)
Duncan
Turning off automatic payments
Posted Feb 28, 2003 15:07 UTC (Fri) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]
Anyway, I'd love to be able to change that to a single deduction for now 10 or 11 months, and avoid the reoccuring monthly fees. Any way to do that? I'd leave a contact address but am afraid of the address harvesters, so won't. However, a reply here with some sort of instructions would suffice.
If you go into the "My Account" screen, then follow the link into subscription information, there is an option to turn off the automatic payments and go to a one-time mode.
Please either alter your comment display code to obey the background color customization preferences, or provide a separate option for that.
I'll have a look at it, shouldn't be too challenging.
Thanks (n/t)
Posted Mar 1, 2003 12:11 UTC (Sat) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]
(Well, dummy text, since it won't take none..)