[asterisk-biz] FWD moving to $30 annual membership fee

[Trixter aka Bret McDanel]

On Tue, 2008-08-12 at 18:50 -0400, C. Savinovich wrote:
> I think one of the worst enemies of the industry is the expectation users
> have that they should get everything free.  Eventually, it affects
> developers and service related individuals who could make a nice living if
> they could collect a small fee from the public (what is $2.50 per month,
> after all??).

if that is not a bad price, pay me that and I will let you register on
my sip server and deny you pstn access directly (of course ipkall will
route since you can specify where to route, but nothing from me direct).

Is there a value?

It is not so much that they are charging but rather what they offer for
that charge.  They do not have anything I see compelling especially when
contrasted against other providers who do it for free and offer more.
Gizmo as an example, has an IM client, free calls to some pstn lines of
gizmo users, now free sms under some conditions, etc.  So if you have
the choice of $2.50 for FWD or free for gizmo, free for skype, free for
yahoo, free for googletalk, the list goes on for the same (or possibly
more) functionality, I just dont see the value.

In my opinion to retain customers they have to add some value to their
service, it doesnt have to be real value, it just has to be perceived
value, and I do not think they have it.  A FWD number hardly seems like
something worth paying for to me.


> Case in point, Pulver.  How many years have many used his software for free?
> Wouldn't it be fair that he charges a nominal amount just to cover expenses,
> or heck, to make money if the man wants to.
> 
If he wanted to charge that was always his option, however when you
change the price upwards (and this goes for ANY business, product,
service, etc) the customers have to believe that the increased cost
provides a product/service worth the fee.  If you raise the price and
customers do not see the value, they will leave if they have a choice.
Only with certain things can you guarantee sales with increasing prices
- gas is a good example, prices go up and yet people still buy because
they cant leave - they are however buying less because they do not see
the value at the current price.


>   The internet in general would be more egalitarian if we people would pay
> for some of the free services we now have.

Perhaps, but if nothing was free there would probably be fewer people
using those things.  Sometimes the value of what is offered is free,
from the customers perspective.  There are many many silly games and
such on the net, most are not worth paying for, and were you to try to
charge for them, no one would play them.  Only by giving them away free
(as far as the customer is concerned) can you hope to get any fan base
at all.

Free is also perspective based.  Google is free for the user, yet they
still turn a profit.  It is my belief that had google charged each time
you perform a search they would have died long ago.  Only by offering
the service free to end users and billing advertisers for the ad
placement can they survive.  FWD is in a special situation because they
cant just inject ads into the media stream without many complaints, they
cant force people to visit a webpage on a regular basis, etc.  So where
they get the money from is somewhat limited.
-- 
Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com     Bret McDanel
Belfast +44 28 9099 6461        US +1 516 687 5200
http://www.trxtel.com the phone company that pays you!