6 ms·

Seems like a lot of people are unhappy with their new pricing model! https://www.reddit.com/r/RoamResearch/comments/hf2fiq/i_love_roam_but_15_is_simply_too_much

Seems like a lot of people are unhappy with their new pricing model! https://www.reddit.com/r/RoamResearch/comments/hf2fiq/i_love_roam_but_15_is_simply_too_much_for_me_on_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/RoamResearch/comments/hf2fiq/i_love...

gexla 6y ago
What model? A monthly fee? As opposed to what? Free? Getting investors who will pay for development while the service monetizes the users? It's unfortunate that this is what users have come to expect. That we feel should be getting free usage of a service when the developers have bills to pay just like everyone else, in addition to the cloud usage costs. The people complaining about monthly fee in that three are target users for nobody but Facebook, Twitter, etc.
- kshatrea 6y ago
  I personally like the JetBrains model where one can pay yearly and get updates but if you have to stop paying due to some reason you can still use the version you originally paid for.
  - drannex 6y ago
    I miss this model of releasing products, it was the defacto standard for the first 40 years of software development and I shall weep for it's return.
    - gexla 6y ago
      Right, for much of that time we didn't have digital distribution. 40 years ago we were buying vinyl records (probably superior products) and cassette tapes. 10 years ago, selling subs were a pain because we didn't have providers such as Stripe to make it easy.
- healsjnr1 6y ago
  Whether we agree with it or not, I think what is strange is how subscriptions models have become the norm. There _is_ an alternative that isn't free and that is one off payments (rember when we used to buy software?). I happily pay in the order of $50 to $120 for one off payments, often locked to a version. In many cases this is _more_ than I've ended up paying for subscriptions I've used, then abandoned after 6-12 months.
  - dageshi 6y ago
    Regular, predictable monthly income is just a better model for businesses than irregular large one off purchases. Customers generally don't mind so long as they can cancel easily if they find they don't need or want the product. Plus, you can't really buy a "web app" with a one off purchase and much more software is developed as web apps nowadays.
  - Tehnix 6y ago
    The only model where a one-off payment really makes sense is for products that have zero cost for the developer to keep alive. For example an SQL Client doesn’t need a cloud component. The difference here is, Roam and similar services run on servers that cost money monthly. The service is almost worthless without it. Ultimately someone needs to pay for this.
    - d4rti 6y ago
      These products will still require maintenance with changes in drivers and suchlike. No software is really finished.
    - healsjnr1 6y ago
      Thing is, at their heart, these are document editing tools. They don't actually need an on ongoing operational cost (yes, maintenance, but as a number of people point out you can take the jet brains approach and lock to versions). The supposed benefit of my data being hosted is not a benefit to everyone. I already have multiple solutions to backup and sharing, I don't need another silo where my data lives. I don't need another vendor hosting arbitrary data which means I now can't use the product because the megacorp I work for won't let that through their legal. Key point I was making above was that one off payment is an option and can be successful, we don't need to fall straight into the free vs subscription dichotomy.
- input_sh 6y ago
  I'm all for a premium, but $15/month is a bit too much. Almost all their competitors are half the price. Here's the pricing of their competitors I can think of on top of my head: Evernote: €7/month Notion: $4/month Ulysses: $5.49/month Standard Notes: $9.99/month OneNote (+ the entire Office 365): $9.99/month Inkdrop: $4.99/month Bear: $1.49/month ($14.99 per year!)
  - gexla 6y ago
    Same response as I gave to another comment. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23667492 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23667492 Why are we talking about Roam rather than those services then? Why don't we just "find and replace Roam with Bear?" (anyone know the Regex for that?)
  - nika1975 6y ago
    If you do not get a value of $15/month from using Roam then it simply is not the right tool for you. Roam makes it easy for me to explore connections between ideas. It has a user interface that fits my way of thinking. I'm also a Office 365 subscriber but OneNote cannot replace Roam for me.
    - edjrage 6y ago
      Honestly, it's not that hard to implement something like Roam compared to the aforementioned competitors. The value is in the idea, and even that isn't novel. It really is a mystery to me why an open source alternative doesn't exist / isn't more popular.
      - theon144 6y ago
        >Honestly, it's not that hard to implement something like Roam compared to the aforementioned competitors. Getting hard "Dropbox is trivial to implement with FTP, curlftpfs and CVS" vibes from this kind of thinking.
        edjrage 6y ago
skinkestek 6y ago
The problem is everyone wants to sell subscribtions and I cannot: 1. afford too many subscribtions 2. accept the risk that my notes disappears because I miss a few reminder mails (I'm kind of hopeless when it comes to that.)
- ramraj07 6y ago
  Not sure about roam, but services such as Dropbox assure that they won't delete your data if you stop paying, just loose access temporarily. I'm assuming only for a while though. If someones gonna store your stuff on the cloud, someone's gotta pay, a payment model is the best for something like note taking. 15 sounds a bit high though.
  - gexla 6y ago
    > 15 sounds a bit high though No way. Time is short. They aren't selling carrots. This isn't a commodity. There's no "market price" for a quality service. If you don't think it's a quality service, then don't use it. If you do think it's a quality service, then $15 is a no-brainer. I follow the Patio11 school of thought. Charge more. Then charge more again. You should be doing that for your own services and you should be using services which do this. Sure, there are some consumer focused services which in reality do need to be price conscience. Roam isn't one of these services. As I said in another comment, if Roam were a commodity, then why are we even talking about it? Let's change the subject. So, Notepad...
    - cycomanic 6y ago
      $15 a month is a ridiculous price, that's $180 a year, for a note taking App. Compare that to Photoshop + Lightroom in the photography package which are 12 Euro a month here and we can all agree offers a lot more features than roam. The funny thing is if they would have tried to charge a one of $300 people would have called the price crazy, but buy making it a subscription it's suddenly OK. Even though $300 doesn't even correspond to 2 years of subscription (and for notes you quickly end at having to pay for >10 years)
bhl 6y ago
While Roam isn't competitive when it comes to pricing, my main gripe would be 1. people are paying $15 a month for a _beta_ with not that great UI/UX 2. there have been past incidents of people losing all their work because persistence is still a problem.

gexla 6y ago

What model? A monthly fee? As opposed to what? Free? Getting investors who will pay for development while the service monetizes the users? It's unfortunate that this is what users have come to expect. That we feel should be getting free usage of a service when the developers have bills to pay just like everyone else, in addition to the cloud usage costs. The people complaining about monthly fee in that three are target users for nobody but Facebook, Twitter, etc.

kshatrea 6y ago
I personally like the JetBrains model where one can pay yearly and get updates but if you have to stop paying due to some reason you can still use the version you originally paid for.
- drannex 6y ago
  I miss this model of releasing products, it was the defacto standard for the first 40 years of software development and I shall weep for it's return.
  - gexla 6y ago
    Right, for much of that time we didn't have digital distribution. 40 years ago we were buying vinyl records (probably superior products) and cassette tapes. 10 years ago, selling subs were a pain because we didn't have providers such as Stripe to make it easy.
healsjnr1 6y ago
Whether we agree with it or not, I think what is strange is how subscriptions models have become the norm. There _is_ an alternative that isn't free and that is one off payments (rember when we used to buy software?). I happily pay in the order of $50 to $120 for one off payments, often locked to a version. In many cases this is _more_ than I've ended up paying for subscriptions I've used, then abandoned after 6-12 months.
- dageshi 6y ago
  Regular, predictable monthly income is just a better model for businesses than irregular large one off purchases. Customers generally don't mind so long as they can cancel easily if they find they don't need or want the product. Plus, you can't really buy a "web app" with a one off purchase and much more software is developed as web apps nowadays.
- Tehnix 6y ago
  The only model where a one-off payment really makes sense is for products that have zero cost for the developer to keep alive. For example an SQL Client doesn’t need a cloud component. The difference here is, Roam and similar services run on servers that cost money monthly. The service is almost worthless without it. Ultimately someone needs to pay for this.
  - d4rti 6y ago
    These products will still require maintenance with changes in drivers and suchlike. No software is really finished.
  - healsjnr1 6y ago
    Thing is, at their heart, these are document editing tools. They don't actually need an on ongoing operational cost (yes, maintenance, but as a number of people point out you can take the jet brains approach and lock to versions). The supposed benefit of my data being hosted is not a benefit to everyone. I already have multiple solutions to backup and sharing, I don't need another silo where my data lives. I don't need another vendor hosting arbitrary data which means I now can't use the product because the megacorp I work for won't let that through their legal. Key point I was making above was that one off payment is an option and can be successful, we don't need to fall straight into the free vs subscription dichotomy.
input_sh 6y ago
I'm all for a premium, but $15/month is a bit too much. Almost all their competitors are half the price. Here's the pricing of their competitors I can think of on top of my head: Evernote: €7/month Notion: $4/month Ulysses: $5.49/month Standard Notes: $9.99/month OneNote (+ the entire Office 365): $9.99/month Inkdrop: $4.99/month Bear: $1.49/month ($14.99 per year!)
- gexla 6y ago
  Same response as I gave to another comment. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23667492 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23667492 Why are we talking about Roam rather than those services then? Why don't we just "find and replace Roam with Bear?" (anyone know the Regex for that?)
- nika1975 6y ago
  If you do not get a value of $15/month from using Roam then it simply is not the right tool for you. Roam makes it easy for me to explore connections between ideas. It has a user interface that fits my way of thinking. I'm also a Office 365 subscriber but OneNote cannot replace Roam for me.
  - edjrage 6y ago
    Honestly, it's not that hard to implement something like Roam compared to the aforementioned competitors. The value is in the idea, and even that isn't novel. It really is a mystery to me why an open source alternative doesn't exist / isn't more popular.
    - theon144 6y ago
      >Honestly, it's not that hard to implement something like Roam compared to the aforementioned competitors. Getting hard "Dropbox is trivial to implement with FTP, curlftpfs and CVS" vibes from this kind of thinking.
      - edjrage 6y ago

skinkestek 6y ago

The problem is everyone wants to sell subscribtions and I cannot: 1. afford too many subscribtions 2. accept the risk that my notes disappears because I miss a few reminder mails (I'm kind of hopeless when it comes to that.)

ramraj07 6y ago
Not sure about roam, but services such as Dropbox assure that they won't delete your data if you stop paying, just loose access temporarily. I'm assuming only for a while though. If someones gonna store your stuff on the cloud, someone's gotta pay, a payment model is the best for something like note taking. 15 sounds a bit high though.
- gexla 6y ago
  > 15 sounds a bit high though No way. Time is short. They aren't selling carrots. This isn't a commodity. There's no "market price" for a quality service. If you don't think it's a quality service, then don't use it. If you do think it's a quality service, then $15 is a no-brainer. I follow the Patio11 school of thought. Charge more. Then charge more again. You should be doing that for your own services and you should be using services which do this. Sure, there are some consumer focused services which in reality do need to be price conscience. Roam isn't one of these services. As I said in another comment, if Roam were a commodity, then why are we even talking about it? Let's change the subject. So, Notepad...
  - cycomanic 6y ago
    $15 a month is a ridiculous price, that's $180 a year, for a note taking App. Compare that to Photoshop + Lightroom in the photography package which are 12 Euro a month here and we can all agree offers a lot more features than roam. The funny thing is if they would have tried to charge a one of $300 people would have called the price crazy, but buy making it a subscription it's suddenly OK. Even though $300 doesn't even correspond to 2 years of subscription (and for notes you quickly end at having to pay for >10 years)

bhl 6y ago

While Roam isn't competitive when it comes to pricing, my main gripe would be 1. people are paying $15 a month for a _beta_ with not that great UI/UX 2. there have been past incidents of people losing all their work because persistence is still a problem.