Re: Why not charge money for the service?

Hi,

How much will the direct montly costs of the server maintenance in USA be, if you use a reasonable cheap cloud server supplier?

And then, of course, also Duane must have a fair compensation for his administration and maintenance work!

Br.
Kentsu, from Finland

Re: Why not charge money for the service?

First post... Two Chumby classics at home, and I bought one for the "aged parents" as well. We are all missing the service. At least the radio still works.

A subscription service sounds fine to me. 

I also have to say I wasn't surprised that Chumby went under, great concept but it needed a revenue stream linked to the devices. Smart phones obviously killed a big chunk of the market... but we still liked seeing our chumbies flick from weather to email to news, so much easier than pulling out a phone or tablet.

Keep up the good work, and I will be waiting anxiously to see the full service back online.

Re: Why not charge money for the service?

I'd be happy to pay a reasonable fee for such a service.  I suspect for many folks $10 - $20/year is a no-brainer, but if it was more than that then it moves from the "sure, why not" column to the "hmm, have to think about that" column.

I don't understand the economics of web services very well, but assuming free content (e.g. piggybacking off of existing RSS feeds) and volunteer support of some of the dev/maintenance workload, I would think that kind of pricing would attract enough support to make it worthwhile.

In any case, props to Duane for all he has done for the community!  Very, very impressive.

Re: Why not charge money for the service?

If/when more abilities are brought back online I am happy to chip in some $$ annually.  Until then I will smile at the clock and proceed to fire up Pandora or Shoutcast.

regards,

elgeek

Re: Why not charge money for the service?

I subscribe to public radio -- don't see why Chumby would be different -- count me in!

Re: Why not charge money for the service?

windhorn -

windhorn wrote:

I subscribe to public radio -- don't see why Chumby would be different -- count me in!

What's nice is that I think Chumby could fire up a subscription questionnaire asking how much people would be willing to pay.  Probably take about a month to get a feel for how much money could be brought in.

cfg83

Re: Why not charge money for the service?

I dont think it is that complicated.  Doing that and we won't have a sub model until 2015  smile


Just ASK who would pay $1/mo for a chumby or $3 for a house of chumby's

Then count responses.

Re: Why not charge money for the service?

My only caution would be - don't wait too long.  I am already looking at inexpensive tablets to do what my Chumby did for me - give me weather apps, news briefs, word-of-the-day type stuff, etc.  I would much prefer to keep my Chumby alive and not spend a few hundred bucks, but, if it isn't online fairly soon, I think I will have no choice.

Re: Why not charge money for the service?

I agree about the paid service! Doing some quick math with Duane's guesstimation of $200 per month, I figured that if only 1000 people paid $3 yearly, it would exceed yearly needs by $600. I'd gladly pay that little for something as useful as a Chumby.

Re: Why not charge money for the service?

And $3/yr is ridiculously low.  As I had said earlier, I think anywhere from $25 - $40 per year is fair.

nathanm wrote:

I agree about the paid service! Doing some quick math with Duane's guesstimation of $200 per month, I figured that if only 1000 people paid $3 yearly, it would exceed yearly needs by $600. I'd gladly pay that little for something as useful as a Chumby.

Re: Why not charge money for the service?

The $200/month figure covers the "stub" service only, not a full service, and none of the other costs (taxes, fees, etc).

Re: Why not charge money for the service?

@scottier1- I bought a tablet with the same thoughts, that it might be a Chumby substitute. Buy it's not. It's not really good at running 24/7, and certainly can't cycle through apps. By all means buy a tablet, I'm really enjoying mine, but don't expect a Chumby. This new Blue Octy infrastructure's only about 2 weeks old and seems to have accomplished alot. I also dearly miss my widgets but for "weather apps, news briefs, word-of-the-day type stuff" I've gone very retro and listen to news-radio or NPR until the apps come back.

Re: Why not charge money for the service?

bobsz wrote:

but for "weather apps, news briefs, word-of-the-day type stuff" I've gone very retro and listen to news-radio or NPR until the apps come back.

Which you can do on the Chumby via streaming radio (in case anyone hadn't figured that one out yet) wink

39 (edited by philhu 2013-03-05 06:55:19)

Re: Why not charge money for the service?

scottier1 wrote:

And $3/yr is ridiculously low.  As I had said earlier, I think anywhere from $25 - $40 per year is fair.

nathanm wrote:

I agree about the paid service! Doing some quick math with Duane's guesstimation of $200 per month, I figured that if only 1000 people paid $3 yearly, it would exceed yearly needs by $600. I'd gladly pay that little for something as useful as a Chumby.

I was quoting $1/month for each or $3/mo for a 'site'  (Up to 5)

So I was saying $12/yr, or $36/yr for a site.  Right in line with you.

With 45000 users out there now,  I figure we will get 4000 subs (10%)

Thats about $48,000 a year.  Reasonable for the service  (About $1500/month) and paying Duane a resonable amount for keeping it going

We just got to pull the trigger and at least find out the subscriber base size ASAP.  I think alot of people are looking for alternatives right now, eroding our base as we speak.

Re: Why not charge money for the service?

philhu wrote:

We just got to pull the trigger and at least find out the subscriber base size ASAP.  I think alot of people are looking for alternatives right now, eroding our base as we speak.

I understand what you're saying, but it may also be the case that there are few alternatives available, and that Chumby owners, more than anyone, realise this.
Since Chumby was the type of device that appealed to the gadget/technophile, then Chumby owners are perhaps more likely than are the general population to already own devices that cover Chumby's functions. I know I do - I have an alarm clock; a Roku and a Sonos for playing internet radio; a computer and a smartphone for supplying information; and a TV that will play photo slideshows for decorative background. Oddly, now I think about it, the only thing I haven't got outside of Chumby is an FM radio, although I suppose there is one in the car.
Despite theoretically being able to replace Chumby's functions with these things, it is also abundantly clear to me that they are not really a suitable replacement at all. The same with a tablet - I'd like to get one, but I just can't think of a use for it. I can't see a tablet functioning as a replacement Chumby, so there goes that reason for purchase.

Re: Why not charge money for the service?

Duane wrote:

The $200/month figure covers the "stub" service only, not a full service, and none of the other costs (taxes, fees, etc).

Well, oops. I guess I misinterpreted what you said in the "End of Chumby as we know it..." thread.

Duane wrote:

If I build a replacement system, it will not cost $5K/month.  My guess it will be in the low hundreds - my goal is under $200/month.

Re: Why not charge money for the service?

Yes, by "replacement", I was referring to the current "stub" system in the "End of Chumby" thread.  I'm sorry that wasn't clear.

Re: Why not charge money for the service?

First, thanks to Duane and Doktor and any others helping keep things sane.
Second, I'll gladly pay a monthly and/or annual fee to support Chumby.

I love my Chumby One and want to see it live again.

Re: Why not charge money for the service?

I'd be up for hosting the Chumby firmware and widgets. I can do it for free for the community, I have servers in a couple datacenters in LA and New York that are hosting basic websites and could handle a lot more.

Re: Why not charge money for the service?

^^^ I think we should let this guy host it! ^^^

Seriously.

I just got back from 3 months overseas and when I powered up my Infocast 8 and saw the star trek clock I couldn't figure out what was going on. My device was a Christmas gift a couple years ago and it's been living on my desk as a RSS reader for headlines and such. I do value it's usefulness, but I don't think I'd pay more than $9 a year for it. Perhaps I'm a bit of a penny-pincher but I still think of the thing as a gift; the idea of needing to subscribe to a [not-cheap] service for it just doesn't sit well. I'd be more inclined to mod it into something else, like a simple web browser or photo frame.

Just my 2¢

46 (edited by nathanm 2013-07-29 18:43:41)

Re: Why not charge money for the service?

Sorry for the bump, but when I was just browsing around the forum I found this quote that may be pertinent to the discussion.

Duane wrote:

The fact is that when *we* did the actual research on this, people told us they *didn't* want a subscription service for access to this content.  The majority of people said they'd accept a certain amount of relevant advertising to keep the system free.  We know that some people will disagree with that position - it's simply not possible to create a business model that makes everyone happy. If you search this forum, you'll find people that have taken the position that they neither want to see ads, nor pay any subscriptions - apparently, we should simply lose money in order to deliver content.

I've been involved with subscription-based services in other companies - trust me, it's a huge pain in the ass.  You have people constantly trying to bypass or hack the subscription system, people arguing that should get refunds for the days they didn't use the service, people disputing bills when they forget to unsubscribe, people arguing the value post-facto after using it for a long time, plus out-and-out fraud.  We'd like to take the service international - doing subscriptions internationally would probably not even be sustainable just from the overhead.  If I never get involved with another subscription service-based business, I'd be a happy guy.

So - some of you are proposing that we ask people to pay to *not* see something.  Is there another example of a company or system that works that way?

It's from about 4 years ago, but it's relevant now, so I'm posting it anyway. Honestly, it seems like donations, with constant bugging, would be the way to go, sort of like Soma FM does it now.

Re: Why not charge money for the service?

I totaly agree with that but you lose people with every month you cant deliver value I think. There are a lot of device out there, they do the job. Dont get me wrong I got two chumbys and love them, but one is running zurks firmware since some time and is much more usefull then the bedside chumby which only have one clock running.

Re: Why not charge money for the service?

sky123 wrote:

I totaly agree with that but you lose people with every month you cant deliver value I think. There are a lot of device out there, they do the job. Dont get me wrong I got two chumbys and love them, but one is running zurks firmware since some time and is much more usefull then the bedside chumby which only have one clock running.

Umm... what? Most people seem to be still using Chumby on Facebook, with no intention of getting rid of them. The donation thing is for the full service, not the stub server. I would be fine with one or two ads obliging me to donate per channel, as long as they're brief (5 or 10 seconds) and don't make any sound.

Re: Why not charge money for the service?

I would pay for a Chumby service. Like the idea of an ad based service and a 'premium' paid sub service. But I get that it's probably a hassle...

Re: Why not charge money for the service?

I believe Duane mentioned it before, but the problem with ad support is that Chumby is now very much a niche market, and advertisers won't really have an interest in paying for so few views. There's also the matter that you can't just "click through" and do anything meaningful (like buy stuff), so the best they could do is slap up some shortened URL and hope you remember it long enough to type it in on your big computer.