New site feature: comment response notifications

Posted Feb 7, 2004 15:39 UTC (Sat) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

> I think perhaps this will make me less, not more.
> likely to upgrade[.] Without the differentiation, it
> would be a matter of conscience; the right thing to do,
> as you said. The more differentiation the more it feels
> like [an ordinary exchange of money for services].

From a "pro" subscriber that just renewed for another year, I must say I
agree. When I took out my initial subscription, it was at the "starving" level
because that was all my budget could handle at the time. However, I
purposefully made it a shorter than normal subscription so I'd need to
reevaluate in three months or so when I thought I'd not be so cash strapped,
and so it was. When I did so, as expected, I had that bit of extra cash and
upped my level to pro. That was a bit over a year ago, and as I said, I just
renewed at the pro level, all with no difference between levels.

Now, this feature is a useful one, and I don't begrudge LWN the idea of
different tiers of service for the different levels. However, it DOES make it
seem more "commercial", like going to the store and purchasing bread or
something, not something I can be proud of supporting at a level above the
bare minimum, just for the sake of it. Thus, the next time the subscription
renewal comes up, if this trend continues, I'm far more likely to consider it
and eveluate it as just another bill, with the pleasure of supporting a
publication I believe it gone. Whether I'll downgrade to starving again, or
not, I don't know, but I'll not be as likely to upgrade, certainly, and MIGHT
just decide there are more effective ways to spend my money altogether, on a
straight money-for-personal-service level, since I'm often to busy to read
LWN anyway.

The new feature, tho, IS appreciated and could be fairly useful. We'll see
how it goes.

You know.. I think perhaps the 24-hour delay thing mentioned by others for
"starving" might be better for level differenciation, if LWN is going to go that
way, and make this available to all subscribers.

Then, perhaps another $1.25/mo "paid registered" level.. Yearly billed only,
and an option available to the $2.50 level and above to filter out the "unpaid"
comments. That would probably cut down on the junk posts we get to a few
threads, now.

Taking that further, allow folks on the "leader" level and above the ability to
filter out specific poster's comments..

One other related thought.. Add my vote to the open sourcing the code
thing. I'm not to the point where I'd likely contribute to it myself, but it just
doesn't seem "right" for a beacon of the "open source" community to have
their source closed, and that's what we have now..

Duncan