8 ms·

I sell my MIT open source Video Hub App for $5 ($3.50 goes to a cost-effective charity - it's charityware). Over the 3 years it's resulted in over $9000 donated

by yboris 6y ago

I sell my MIT open source Video Hub App for $5 ($3.50 goes to a cost-effective charity - it's charityware). Over the 3 years it's resulted in over $9000 donated to protect people from malaria. Public: https://videohubapp.com/en/ https://videohubapp.com/en/ GitHub: https://github.com/whyboris/Video-Hub-App https://github.com/whyboris/Video-Hub-App Charityware: https://medium.com/@whyboris/charityware-doing-good-with-proceeds-from-software-purchases-e48e66a5d1a https://medium.com/@whyboris/charityware-doing-good-with-pro...

jjice 6y ago
I was actually looking for something just like this since I won't have access to my Jellyfin server for a while. This looks perfect.
- xnyan 6y ago
  You should buy this guy’s application, but also keep in mind you can put Jellyfin on any Mac/Linux/Windows box and connect to it locally from your web browser. Obviously you’d also have to move any video you want to watch offline to your travel computer, but that’s true for any offline viewing.
mraza007 6y ago
Pretty cool product. I have a very similar product but my question is that how did you convinced the users to pay for the product if its already free
- yboris 6y ago
  It's not "free" in the sense that there's a download button for it. 99.9% of the people wouldn't be readily able to build the app from source. Given I've spent 3 years building it, I feel comfortable selling it for this price. When I first released the app I didn't have the source code available; so it's more like a "commercial product" with the source code available if anyone is interested.
  - mraza007 6y ago
    Oh I see, yes I was a little curious that product source code is available and I wonder why people are still paying for the product but you just made it clear with your answer thanks man !!
  - echelon 6y ago
    Have you ever thought about charging more?
    - yboris 6y ago
      It's scary. I sell about 120 copies per month. I suspect charging more will drop it down to fewer than 100 copies. I'd rather more people use the app. I will be working on adding facial recognition; I might have a pricier option for facial recognition features perhaps.
      - echelon 6y ago
        I've never had the experience of pricing a product, but my intuition tells me this could be a win. We occasionally see articles on HN that describe how to increase prices without losing your audience. Perhaps there are others here that can offer feedback and advice. Research and experiment. If you do embark on this, a postmortem write-up with your learnings would be a great read. Best of luck with whatever your plans are. It's a cool app!
        yboris 6y ago
        Thank you! For the reference, until I released version 3.0.0 (last November) the price was $3.50 (and all of it went to charity). The number of sales didn't take a hit - but it coincided with some publicity and major improvements to the app.
        k3nsa1 6y ago
        Great App! Just purchased 2 copies cause I am lazy building it from source & cause charity, why not! Tested the demo about 1 hour ago and I was impressed. Very good UI and fast scanning, although on the icons are a bit on the small size for my taste but excellent otherwise. Keep up the great job :)
- prionassembly 6y ago
  The charity aspect is a strong motivator for many people. Maybe George Costanza's idea -- The Human Fund, Money for People -- needs to be revisited.
xwdv 6y ago
I would love to build charity ware to help offset some of the ethically questionable things I do, but I was wondering how did you choose a cause to donate toward? Did you know someone personally who perished from malaria? There’s so many things that can be donated to I don’t know how to pick one or evaluate where donations would even be most effective.
- shkkmo 6y ago
  Efforts work best when they are focused on helping with a problem that you have direct experience with. I think the long term large impact of pushing back against these ethically questionable things, even at the expense of your long term career earnings potential, would have a better result for society. If you can't push back on that stuff internally, consider publicizing the behaviors and starting a conversation around them. Don't just dump money into a charity to assauge your conscience.
  - yboris 6y ago
    Efforts work best when they are focused on cost-effective interventions, not things you have direct experience with. Just about 100% of the US population have no experience with malaria. Yet it costs about $2 to provide a insecticide-treated net that protects on average 2 people for 2-3 years from malaria (while they sleep -- a common time for malaria transmission). There is arguably nothing you can do with $2 of resources in the US that can do as much good as this. So, please focus on cost-effective charities with a proven track record, that use evidence-based methods to help individuals, and do it in a transparent way (so you know what's happening when you donate). To make it easier, start with GiveWell - an independent charity evaluator: https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities
    - prionassembly 6y ago
      Then, it's possible that nets are being distributed by evil people who make their victims kneel for hours before getting help. (This is extreme, but it could involve things diametrically opposed to your values; maybe Islam is being spread in traditional animistic societies[0], destroying traditional culture; maybe they're micro-chipping these people.) Cost-effectiveness is a good metric, but if you know nothing about what's involved in curing malaria... --- [0] Semi-relatedly, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Save_the_Children_Fund_Film https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Save_the_Children_Fund_Fil...
lenkite 6y ago
Doesn't Plex already provide a desktop app that does this ? https://www.plex.tv/media-server-downloads/ https://www.plex.tv/media-server-downloads/
- _benj 6y ago
  You know, that kind of thinking is usually what deters me from building something, but I've come to realize that I (or HN crowd for that matter) is my customer. A quick glance at the Plex site vs his shows a different appeal. One is a "Free Movies & TV" something, while the other is "Like YouTube for videos on your computer" I hope this doesn't come across the wrong way :-) I'm not picking on you or on plex or anything... I'm just wanted to point out how the thinking patter of "but you can do that with [enter FOSS name here]" has been often paralyzing for me.
- yboris 6y ago
  The key feature I wanted for VHA was the ability to scroll through thumbnails without having to be connected to hard drive where videos reside. This is particularly great when you have many external hard drives and/or remote volumes but just want to see if you have a particular video already. With my app, clicking opens the video with your default video player. At the moment you cannot stream to another device (though it's a feature I'm hoping to add in one day).
adidar83 6y ago
Thank you. I have a few people looking for solutions like this for their video collections.

by yboris 6y ago

jjice 6y ago

I was actually looking for something just like this since I won't have access to my Jellyfin server for a while. This looks perfect.

xnyan 6y ago
You should buy this guy’s application, but also keep in mind you can put Jellyfin on any Mac/Linux/Windows box and connect to it locally from your web browser. Obviously you’d also have to move any video you want to watch offline to your travel computer, but that’s true for any offline viewing.

mraza007 6y ago

Pretty cool product. I have a very similar product but my question is that how did you convinced the users to pay for the product if its already free

yboris 6y ago
It's not "free" in the sense that there's a download button for it. 99.9% of the people wouldn't be readily able to build the app from source. Given I've spent 3 years building it, I feel comfortable selling it for this price. When I first released the app I didn't have the source code available; so it's more like a "commercial product" with the source code available if anyone is interested.
- mraza007 6y ago
  Oh I see, yes I was a little curious that product source code is available and I wonder why people are still paying for the product but you just made it clear with your answer thanks man !!
- echelon 6y ago
  Have you ever thought about charging more?
  - yboris 6y ago
    It's scary. I sell about 120 copies per month. I suspect charging more will drop it down to fewer than 100 copies. I'd rather more people use the app. I will be working on adding facial recognition; I might have a pricier option for facial recognition features perhaps.
    - echelon 6y ago
      I've never had the experience of pricing a product, but my intuition tells me this could be a win. We occasionally see articles on HN that describe how to increase prices without losing your audience. Perhaps there are others here that can offer feedback and advice. Research and experiment. If you do embark on this, a postmortem write-up with your learnings would be a great read. Best of luck with whatever your plans are. It's a cool app!
      - yboris 6y ago
        Thank you! For the reference, until I released version 3.0.0 (last November) the price was $3.50 (and all of it went to charity). The number of sales didn't take a hit - but it coincided with some publicity and major improvements to the app.
        k3nsa1 6y ago
        Great App! Just purchased 2 copies cause I am lazy building it from source & cause charity, why not! Tested the demo about 1 hour ago and I was impressed. Very good UI and fast scanning, although on the icons are a bit on the small size for my taste but excellent otherwise. Keep up the great job :)
prionassembly 6y ago
The charity aspect is a strong motivator for many people. Maybe George Costanza's idea -- The Human Fund, Money for People -- needs to be revisited.

xwdv 6y ago

I would love to build charity ware to help offset some of the ethically questionable things I do, but I was wondering how did you choose a cause to donate toward? Did you know someone personally who perished from malaria? There’s so many things that can be donated to I don’t know how to pick one or evaluate where donations would even be most effective.

shkkmo 6y ago
Efforts work best when they are focused on helping with a problem that you have direct experience with. I think the long term large impact of pushing back against these ethically questionable things, even at the expense of your long term career earnings potential, would have a better result for society. If you can't push back on that stuff internally, consider publicizing the behaviors and starting a conversation around them. Don't just dump money into a charity to assauge your conscience.
- yboris 6y ago
  Efforts work best when they are focused on cost-effective interventions, not things you have direct experience with. Just about 100% of the US population have no experience with malaria. Yet it costs about $2 to provide a insecticide-treated net that protects on average 2 people for 2-3 years from malaria (while they sleep -- a common time for malaria transmission). There is arguably nothing you can do with $2 of resources in the US that can do as much good as this. So, please focus on cost-effective charities with a proven track record, that use evidence-based methods to help individuals, and do it in a transparent way (so you know what's happening when you donate). To make it easier, start with GiveWell - an independent charity evaluator: https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities
  - prionassembly 6y ago
    Then, it's possible that nets are being distributed by evil people who make their victims kneel for hours before getting help. (This is extreme, but it could involve things diametrically opposed to your values; maybe Islam is being spread in traditional animistic societies[0], destroying traditional culture; maybe they're micro-chipping these people.) Cost-effectiveness is a good metric, but if you know nothing about what's involved in curing malaria... --- [0] Semi-relatedly, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Save_the_Children_Fund_Film https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Save_the_Children_Fund_Fil...

lenkite 6y ago

Doesn't Plex already provide a desktop app that does this ? https://www.plex.tv/media-server-downloads/ https://www.plex.tv/media-server-downloads/

_benj 6y ago
You know, that kind of thinking is usually what deters me from building something, but I've come to realize that I (or HN crowd for that matter) is my customer. A quick glance at the Plex site vs his shows a different appeal. One is a "Free Movies & TV" something, while the other is "Like YouTube for videos on your computer" I hope this doesn't come across the wrong way :-) I'm not picking on you or on plex or anything... I'm just wanted to point out how the thinking patter of "but you can do that with [enter FOSS name here]" has been often paralyzing for me.
yboris 6y ago
The key feature I wanted for VHA was the ability to scroll through thumbnails without having to be connected to hard drive where videos reside. This is particularly great when you have many external hard drives and/or remote volumes but just want to see if you have a particular video already. With my app, clicking opens the video with your default video player. At the moment you cannot stream to another device (though it's a feature I'm hoping to add in one day).

adidar83 6y ago

Thank you. I have a few people looking for solutions like this for their video collections.