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A subscription pricing change
As promised last week, we have implemented a slight change in the pricing
of subscriptions to LWN. One-time subscriptions (or extensions) of at
least ten months
will now be given a 10% discount. This discount reflects the fact that
longer-term subscriptions cost us less to manage.
Remember that subscriptions are what keeps LWN.net alive; if you have not yet subscribed, please consider signing up now. (Log in to post comments)
Please provide upgradability Posted Mar 3, 2003 16:30 UTC (Mon) by fdesloges (guest, #291) [Link] Please provide a way to change the subscription level (2.5$, 5$, 10$),once being already subscribed.
Please provide upgradability Posted Mar 3, 2003 17:31 UTC (Mon) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] It really is time we got around to that...I'll hack it up soon.
Please provide upgradability Posted Mar 3, 2003 22:13 UTC (Mon) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] OK, you can change your subscription level now. Go to the My Account page and it should be obvious from there.
subscribtion level distribution Posted Mar 3, 2003 16:58 UTC (Mon) by cdamian (subscriber, #1271) [Link] I would be interrested to know how the subscribtion levels are distributed between the 2500 subscribers.I am just curious how many "starving hackers" are there compared to the other levels. If there are a lot of $10 subscribers around, maybe a $20 level would find interest too.
subscribtion level distribution Posted Mar 3, 2003 17:19 UTC (Mon) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link] I just asked this a few days ago, and it came to ~50% $5, ~30% $10, and ~20% $2.5 (IIRC). So it looks like $5 is about the right middle and not very much additional money would be raised by having higher prices available.Sneaky idea: make the $10 subscription include $1 of text advertising, optionally, which would introduce subscribers to the text ad system. Currently, you can pay arbitrarily much money, but if and only if you pay more than $10 you have to have a text ad. I'd like to contribute more, and I'd like to publicize some stuff I'm working on, but I tend not to feel like dealing with money and writing an ad at the same time.
subscribtion level distribution Posted Mar 3, 2003 17:32 UTC (Mon) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] Today's counts are 379/1916/222. By far the bulk of our readers are going for the basic $5 level.
subscribtion level distribution Posted Mar 6, 2003 20:20 UTC (Thu) by TheManInBlack (guest, #8154) [Link] I think the choice of subscription level depends as much on what you name it as how much it costs. I signed up for the "professional hacker" level because that's what I am. If you had a $5 level called "average hacker", and called the 10$ level "professional hacker". (With "project leader" somewhere above that) I would have signed up for $10/mn instead.Don't get me wrong, I'm all for cutting a break for students or those of us who are employmentally challenged. But if you have a job as a developer, $10/mn isn't a lot of money. I spend more on coffee every day then I do on my monthly subscription. It's kinda like going to a museum and putting $5 in the box because that's the "suggested donation". If the "suggested donation" were $10 it wouldn't change how often I went. I'd just pay the $10 and not worry about it.
subscribtion level distribution Posted Mar 13, 2003 17:45 UTC (Thu) by ateras (guest, #10113) [Link] Sure, the naming matters and setting one amount as the default matters even more. You're right that $10 is not a lot of money for a well-paid developer. However, $5/month or $54/year is better in line with a subscription price to a print magazine, like Linux Journal. Therefore I think it's a good level.(Yes, LJ is monthly and LWN is weekly, but one LWN issue is shorter. In the print world it's just more economical to publish in thicker volumes than mail a copy every week.)
A subscription pricing change Posted Mar 3, 2003 17:18 UTC (Mon) by arcticwolf (guest, #8341) [Link] Just to be sure, what are - in your opinion - the chances that you will be able to continue for another 10 months? I do of course hope that you lwn.net will last not only that long, but much longer, but one of the reasons that I have renewed my subscription manually every month so far is that I simply couldn't afford to lose the money for a long-term subscription if you decided not to continue at some point after all.
Future prospects Posted Mar 3, 2003 17:35 UTC (Mon) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] Just to be sure, what are - in your opinion - the chances that you will be able to continue for another 10 months? I'm reasonably optimistic; that's one of the reasons for the change in policy now. We have some obstacles to overcome, still, but, being an optimistic sort of person, I think we'll figure it out somehow. The world remains an uncertain place, though...
Future prospects Posted Mar 6, 2003 10:52 UTC (Thu) by arcticwolf (guest, #8341) [Link]
I'm reasonably optimistic; that's one of the reasons for the change in policy now. We have some obstacles to overcome, still, but, being an optimistic sort of person, I think we'll figure it out somehow. The world remains an uncertain place, though... That it surely does. Still, it's good to hear you expect to be able to work things out - my own subscription has just expired, so I'll probably go for a long(er)-term one now. :)
A subscription pricing change Posted Mar 3, 2003 17:22 UTC (Mon) by redtape (guest, #552) [Link] I've been trying to extend my subscription, but I keep getting anerror at the point it should be charging my credit card. I had similar problems when first signing up a few weeks ago. Is there a problem?
A subscription pricing change Posted Mar 3, 2003 17:35 UTC (Mon) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] Could you describe the error you are seeing? As far as I can tell, it looks like everything worked for you...
A subscription pricing change Posted Mar 3, 2003 17:47 UTC (Mon) by redtape (guest, #552) [Link] It worked immediately after I posted. But, despite the fact 12 monthswas selected the system told me I had subscribed for 10 additional months (no big deal, I'll just extend at that point). It was trying to bring up a page called PCCard (I can't remember the full path) but said the page couldn't be displayed. This occurred about 5 times. I killed and restarted IE (I wish I was at home on my Linux box) and it seemed to work on the second try after that. Who knws what might have happened?
A subscription pricing change Posted Mar 3, 2003 17:39 UTC (Mon) by Peter (guest, #1127) [Link] I just extended my sub to 12 months ($54.00) via credit card, but the final "receipt" page showed 10 months ($45.00). Not a problem, but I thought you should be aware of this.
Quaterly or N monthly Posted Mar 3, 2003 18:00 UTC (Mon) by fergal (subscriber, #602) [Link] Some people (me for instance) are worried about forking over a whole years subs if you're going to down the tubes.I know this is getting more and more complicated but how about adding a repeating sub for n months where I choose how big is n and how many times it repeats. If I don't mind the idea of losing 3 month of payments, I can choose 4 3 month payments instead of 12 one month. Saves you some CC fees, gives you a little more money upfront and I'm not too worried about my losses. The you just give discounts when ever the number of months is over 10.
Quaterly or N monthly Posted Mar 8, 2003 16:55 UTC (Sat) by dwkunkel (guest, #5999) [Link] Nothing in life is certain. Take a chance and subscribe for a year to support what LWN has done and is doing.
Subscriptions Posted Mar 3, 2003 19:57 UTC (Mon) by gwh (guest, #9926) [Link] I just subscribed for 3 months at the lowest level (since I presentlyhave no income). I would have subscribed MONTHs ago if I had known I could send in a cheque. I have read LWN virtually since it started but when the subscription stuff started, I thought the only way to pay was a monthly credit card deduction. Did you ever let people know about this? --GH.
Thanks for feedback followup on previous LWN status stories Posted Mar 5, 2003 7:48 UTC (Wed) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link] In particular, thanks for the ability to change from monthly to lump-sum charges,and for making comment backgrounds follow user preference settings, the two items I brought up in comments to the last story. Quick work, much appreciated!
Problems switching to yearly??? Posted Mar 6, 2003 16:20 UTC (Thu) by tmattox (subscriber, #4169) [Link] Hi, thanks for adding this feature. However, it appears thateven though I just changed to a 12 month subscription, the My Account page still says I'm monthly. On another note, can we select to be automatically renewed?
Problems switching to yearly??? Posted Mar 6, 2003 16:26 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] "However, it appears that even though I just changed to a 12 month subscription, the My Account page still says I'm monthly."You need to select the option to cancel the remaining monthly renewals. The system won't try to do one for a year (since you added 12 months), but it is still poised to do so thereafter. "On another note, can we select to be automatically renewed? (With a warning e-mail that renewal is about to happen.)" The only automatic renewal option is the monthly one. We would certainly get complaints of LWN.net turned up on peoples' statements a year later. I'm also amazed at how many of the monthly charges fail each time - some people, at least, seem to go through a lot of credit cards. I would not be surprised to see a failure rate of over 50% on "one year later" renewals. As much as we would like to have the authorization to snag more cash in a year, I think we have to rely on email nagging for that case.
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