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In lugnet.general, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
> For the record, I want to pay $x once and pay $y as a cut of what I sell
> using your auction software.
That works too. :)
> Maybe even a fairly hefty cut. I would
> think that this would on (or near) the top of your priority list from
> the perspective of making LUGNET pay for itself.
It's fairly high, but getting the basic memberships ready is now at the
very top (and that's got two or three sub-parts to go in simultaneously)
now that the new layout is in place.
> So what is x likely to be? How much is too small?
There have been ideas kicking around for x, and many people have vastly
different ideas on what it should be, but I want it to be very low --
because no one should be alienated. It has to be low enough that even
the most casual user who only stops by once every couple of months feels
comfortable with it, since it is a barrier/gate to the really exciting
things possible.
"Too small" is something that is so low that, when multiplied by all the
people who'll sign up, doesn't come out to much. Hence the voluntary
donations on top of the base fee.
But "donations" isn't the right word; donations implies begging and
grovelling :)
More accurately, it's not a donation but a "you get to set the price" kind
of thing and then you pay that price. In other words, it's an honor system
kind of thing, because it's impossible to truly tell what something is worth
to someone or to try to track everything they looked at and assign some
value to it, etc., etc.
> You say "very economical" but for whom?
The base one-time lifetime fee needs to be very economical for anyone in the
world who can afford their own Internet connection. Ideally, it would also
be very economical for anyone on a shared connection, but that's somewhat
less important, at least for the next 2-3 years.
> As an undergraduate student, I could have
> ponyed up $20 without it hurting too much, and now I could come up with
> $100 if I had to, but those are very different amounts, and when I was
> 12 I would have had to save up for quite a while to get $20 out of my
> allowance.
$20 is probably on the high end of the possible numbers. $100 is way, way
too high. It's certainly worth that to -some- people, but then something
that high would probably turn away 98% of everyone else. That's why letting
people set their own price is an attractive option.
Let's say x was $20, just for the sake of discussion. That means it would
cost you a $20 one-time fee to get a lifetime membership. You could do that,
and that's all you'd ever have to pay to stay a member. If you later decide
that, hey, this is really worth a lot more than that, and you figure it's
worth $100 to you, then you can voluntarily declare that you owe another $80,
and then pay that.
That's the 30,000-ft view, anyway.
There will certainly be other additional places/times where you can have the
opportunity to pay other ways -- like commissions in auctions or whatever --
there are lots of e-commerce possibilities...details still to be worked out.
> I'll set aside $100 in July or August if there is going to be some kind
> of official membership shortly - because I think that the service you're
> offering is worth it, but I hope that generating extra income will allow
> you to progress down your timeline faster. Is it feasible that you
> could generate enough from us to make that happen?
If there is enough income from the initial 1000 or 2000 memberships that
I wouldn't need to run parts auctions anymore to fund the development of
the system, then that would certainly help me progress down the timeline
faster.
BTW, if anyone were to send any $ right now as a pure donation or as a
pre-payment for membership, it wouldn't be rejected.
--Todd
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: memberships
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| (...) Transfer 100 USD from my AucZILA account to prepay my lifetime membership, please. I know it's going to be worth at LEAST that much to me, maybe much more. How much more depends on where my house ends up... :-) (25 years ago, 29-Jun-99, to lugnet.general, lugnet.admin.general)
| | | Re: memberships
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| Todd Lehman wrote in message ... (...) Oh no, no more Auczilla? I hope when you reach this point the Auczilla interface will soon be made available to members. Now that would be neat, Auczilla just presents the buying public one huge continuous (...) (25 years ago, 29-Jun-99, to lugnet.general, lugnet.admin.general)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: memberships
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| (...) For the record, I want to pay $x once and pay $y as a cut of what I sell using your auction software. Maybe even a fairly hefty cut. I would think that this would on (or near) the top of your priority list from the perspective of making LUGNET (...) (25 years ago, 28-Jun-99, to lugnet.general, lugnet.admin.general)
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