Wish: Stop giving away XYplorer through lifetime license

[axfleming]

Dude, are you crazy?

You are giving away XYplorer through lifetime license for only 30 bucks?

One of the top five explorer replacements in the world?

Don't you want to stay in business as long as GPSoft?

Every update you not only fix whatever little bugs are there, you also provide new features.

Dude, you need to stop being Santa Klaus and take yourself and your product seriously.



Peace.

[serendipity]

Its we users who have to be santa klaus. By donating small amount towards this great XY soft and great support.

[j_c_hallgren]

I'm with serendipity on this one! I've given a few small additional donations over time and plan to do more in future...and hope others do so as well...I know zridling has posted that he does so...

By doing it this way, there is no need to create/maintain coding to prevent usage after a year or so as other products do...

I could, however, see some sort of a minimal charge ($5-$8?) to upgrade to a significantly new version, with existing users grandfathered as is...but IF we as users donate now and then, this could be more beneficial to Don.

[jacky]

Dude, are you crazy?

Actually, Don already told us many times he was

Dude, you need to stop being Santa Klaus and take yourself and your product seriously.

This is a funny remark, I mean just like some people only wants free stuff (freeware, etc) and think that any such product is better than a payware rival, some still believe that the more expensive it gets and the more you have to pay for it, the better it must be...
It this was true, Vista would be like, pretty much the opposite of what it is.

I think XY's lifetime license pricing is one more valuable "feature" on its end, why in the world would it be seen as a down point?

And as everyone mentioned previously, you are more than welcome to donate to Don whenever you feel like it: after a new (major) version is released, when a new feature you're already addicted to gets implemented, when you just spent a day/week where XY saved you a huge lots of trouble/time, ....

[graham]

[/quote]
I think XY's lifetime license pricing is one more valuable "feature" on its end, why in the world would it be seen as a down point?

I totally agree with this - a lifetime license will retain it's current users and Don's remarkable ability to update this product so frequently plus listen to the user base on ideas means that more new buyers will be attracted. A product with this development concept has a very bright future. Whilst the competition dither over charges and versions, XY leaps ahead.

What is most needed to secure the success is for people to pass on the word to attract new users.

[admin]

Don't you want to stay in business as long as GPSoft?

No!!! I want to shut down business as soon as possible to go out and play! I'd need about 3,000,000 Euros to quit. That's about 133,333 paying users. I don't think I get there faster if I remove the lifetime license. What I really need is global TV presence!

The app is good enough -- yeah, that's the part I agree with. It's unbelievably great. I can't believe that I'm still not a millionaire!

[admin]

Dude, are you crazy?

Yes, of course. But how crazy???

You made me think... here are some facts:

(1) The Lifetime License for such a low price is generally not appreciated, probably not even recognized or fully understood. At least I think so because (a) it is hardly ever mentioned in reviews or fan post, and (b) hardly any shareware site can handle this kind of license and instead simply prints "1 XY license = 29.50 bucks".

(2) The regular donation idea is a flop. It does not happen. There are exactly 5 users which give regular donations, which is absolutely fantastic and keeps me going. Without those donations I might have given up. But of course, this does not compensate the Lifetime License for 29.50.

So, the whole scheme failed:
(1) Sell incredibly cheap in the long run (which your lifetime hopefully is!).
(2) Receive regular donations from the lifetime users for the daily non-stop work and product enhancement.
This does not work. Period.

So yes, axfleming, I'm in the mood to try something better!

What about this? Sell two products:

(A) A "normal" license that works just for the current X.X version (that would be version 6.20 right now). Of course this is "lifetime", too, in the sense that you can use it all your life, but just for XY 6.20! For XY 6.30 you'd need a new license. This could be as low as 14.95 US$! (80% of my customers are from the US, so let's talk dollars now)

(B) A Lifetime License (just as is now) for 49.95 US$!

The prices can be tuned... but you get the idea. What do you think??

[j_c_hallgren]

I'm in the middle of a cottage change-over day so only have a few min to spare now...but that idea has some potential!

How often do you do a "official" release? That would have some effect on pricing as too often would mean price for update should be less...I have to buy new tax software every year for about $25 and that's ok with me...

And how about once incremental price exceeds lifetime, that some special handling to convert to that scheme would be available? Maybe $15 * 3 = lifetime, presuming life would be $45 instead of $49..or similar...

I still wonder about a fixed base price of maybe $25 with major updates at $5-$8 and a cap where/when price exceeds higher initial lifetime of maybe $45-50 or so..

[graham]

the prices can be tuned... but you get the idea. What do you think?

You could play around with prices for ever more and it will make little difference. This product is mainly attractive to computer literate users. What makes more sense, I think, is ensuring Don gets his rewards and this will be most easily accomplished by the product being better promoted which will return new sales. For this type of product users want to stay with it - it is not a get one version only as users will want to have the ability to enjoy the unique support given.

Promotion in the work place can bring big returns and I do think a special commercial multi-user license it a good possible option. The best promotion approach is for existing users to actively tell others who they know will want this.

Pity MS don't buy in but then again that is probably the quickest way to ensure its demise!

[jacky]

No, I'm a cheap bastard, I'm against it!

There are exactly 5 users which give regular donations, which is absolutely fantastic and keeps me going. Without those donations I might have given up. But of course, this does not compensate the Lifetime License for 29.50.

Damn, I'm embarrassed now I really love XY, so I'll have to donate ! Let's all go the zridling way

What about this? Sell two products:

(A) A "normal" license that works just for the current X.X version (that would be version 6.20 right now). Of course this is "lifetime", too, in the sense that you can use it all your life, but just for XY 6.20! For XY 6.30 you'd need a new license. This could be as low as 14.95 US$! (80% of my customers are from the US, so let's talk dollars now)

(B) A Lifetime License (just as is now) for 49.95 US$!

The prices can be tuned... but you get the idea. What do you think??

Well, I guess you could do something like that. I see somewhat of a problem though...

- First, what will you do with all current registered users? Still lifetime, or will they have to pay to get lifetime (or upgrade each version) ? I think the later might "annoy" some of them!
(You should also have a special price to go from registered to lifetime registered, obviously)

- Also, I don't think you should go that far. Say someone buys XY now, he's got a license for v6.x. All upgrades in the 6.x branch should be free, and only to go 7.x would a fee be due.
I honestly think otherwise it's too much, and with your (amazing) dedicated & constant work on this fantastic application, that still makes it something like a new major (5.x, 6.x, 7.x, etc) release every year!

This would allow to keep the current "beta system", with a constant development and frequent (free) beta releases, and still pretty frequent free official releases (for users who don't spend that much time around here as others).
Sure using the last version of the 6.x branch and the first on the 7.x branch might not differ that much, or at all, but one wouldn't but the 7.0 only, but all of the 7.x branch versions.

The only thing is that, you might have a rule like "if one buys a 6.x license and 7.0 is released soon after, eg. 2 or 3 weeks, then one gets a free upgrade to 7.x".

[admin]

And how about once incremental price exceeds lifetime, that some special handling to convert to that scheme would be available? Maybe $15 * 3 = lifetime, presuming life would be $45 instead of $49..or similar...

I still wonder about a fixed base price of maybe $25 with major updates at $5-$8 and a cap where/when price exceeds higher initial lifetime of maybe $45-50 or so..

Too complex. I'm a 1-person enterprise and need a full-automatic sales handling.

[admin]

You could play around with prices for ever more and it will make little difference.

Having not much to lose I'd like to test your opinion and play around a bit.

Promotion in the work place can bring big returns and I do think a special commercial multi-user license it a good possible option. The best promotion approach is for existing users to actively tell others who they know will want this.

Absolutely. I do offer multi-user licenses, by the way.

My impression is that companies are very reluctant to buy software from individual developers. And it's no wonder when you see all the crap that is being offered in the shareware market. My typical customer is the experienced stand-alone power-user.

[admin]

- First, what will you do with all current registered users? Still lifetime, or will they have to pay to get lifetime (or upgrade each version) ? I think the later might "annoy" some of them!
--->>> Of course, all current registered users will stay registered forever without paying any cent! I'm not a criminal. Lifetime is lifetime.

(You should also have a special price to go from registered to lifetime registered, obviously)
--->>> too complex.

- Also, I don't think you should go that far. Say someone buys XY now, he's got a license for v6.x. All upgrades in the 6.x branch should be free, and only to go 7.x would a fee be due.
I honestly think otherwise it's too much, and with your (amazing) dedicated & constant work on this fantastic application, that still makes it something like a new major (5.x, 6.x, 7.x, etc) release every year!
--->>> No. When I offer a full blown professional file manager for 14.95 you pay for the product, this product. You buy a car, a guitar, a banana, a file manager -- all the same. You don't expect to get the next one for free. And, other than the banana, you can use this file manager a very long time if you treat your computer well.
If you want to take part in the experience of seeing the product grow, you can get the lifetime license.

[serendipity]

, bananas. Yes we humans have to pay for every banana, monkeys get it for free.
I like the idea of lifetime license and also the pay-per-feature thing that JC mentioned.
1) The current version should be the same price or lesser and then for every major release (like say find dupes, drop stacks, dual pane etc) one has to pay extra. this license is for people who dont want to commit into the soft bigtime and take tiny steps in trusting something.
2) While some people see the potential in the developer and go for the kill, the GRAND LIFETIME LICENSE.

@DON: regarding point 1 above, do you think it is possible or feasible or sensible to think about features which are more like addons. I mean you have control your soft and can switch things ON/OFF easily. Say a user likes XY and he needs a "find dupes" feature but not "dual pane" feature. Can you have the basic present frame intact and addON either one or the other feature. I would find this to be important thing because for some reason people like addONs (think firefox) and providing them with them makes XY more dynamic, flexible. But on the other hand when someone reports bugs you have to ask what addon he/she has and debugging can be PITA. But revamping XY into addONable beast is something you can think about.

[admin]

@DON: regarding point 1 above, do you think it is possible or feasible or sensible to think about features which are more like addons. I mean you have control your soft and can switch things ON/OFF easily. Say a user likes XY and he needs a "find dupes" feature but not "dual pane" feature. Can you have the basic present frame intact and addON either one or the other feature. I would find this to be important thing because for some reason people like addONs (think firefox) and providing them with them makes XY more dynamic, flexible. But on the other hand when someone reports bugs you have to ask what addon he/she has and debugging can be PITA. But revamping XY into addONable beast is something you can think about.

Too much trouble in maintenance. I need a solution that runs by itself 100%. Otherwise, if I get more customers (which is the aim of the whole thinking here), I have no time left for coding.

I still like my 2-product idea very much (despite of all your mails ). I see only one problem still unsolved: Somebody buys a 6.3-only license. Then later, a bug turns up and is fixed while development is already at version 6.4. The 6.3 user will never get the bug fixed. (Even a bad banana can be returned and exchanged to a good one...) Forget it, I will not release service packs for older versions...

One way out would be to make it very very clear:
(1) test this thing carefully or 30 days free
(2) if you like it and it does the job for you, buy it extremely cheap.
(3) but do not expect support or bug fixes.
If you want support or bug fixes get the Lifetime License!