4 ms·

I'm not convinced charging is the correct way of monetising this. Could you not target advertising instead?

jbrennan 15y ago
I'm glad to see some people have the balls to actually charge for a service instead of peppering me with ads. You get what you pay for. If I were looking to use a service like this, I'd be much happier investing in my time in one I pay for rather than a free one.
- alexchamberlain 15y ago
  I agree with you about peppering me with ads, but subtle text ads promoting equipment sales would be more appropriate. Do Amazon still do affiliate links at 6% or something? You could easily beat $10 a month and I'd get it for free.
- Karunamon 15y ago
  >You get what you pay for. GMail cost me $0, and it's probably the best webmail service/interface out there right now. >If I were looking to use a service like this, I'd be much happier investing in my time in one I pay for rather than a free one. Why would the amount of cash you throw at something impact how you invest your time in it? I love Evernote, but me throwing a few bucks a year at it isn't going to change how I already use it.
  - jbrennan 15y ago
    > GMail cost me $0, and it's probably the best webmail service/interface out there right now. Yes, you get a good product, but you also get ads. Your information isn't really entirely private. Some people are totally fine with that, and that's OK. But if you don't want a service to do that, usually that means you pay them money. Nothing is free. > Why would the amount of cash you throw at something impact how you invest your time in it? I love Evernote, but me throwing a few bucks a year at it isn't going to change how I already use it. I mean that in the sense in order to really use a product like this, I've got to spend time putting recipes into it. The very basic (and not perfect) theory is: if this site is making money from me directly, it's less likely to shut down or want to sell out. I take comfort in that but I know there are counter-examples.
RyanMcGreal 15y ago
Just yesterday I was looking up an online recipe for chocolate chip cookies that I had found earlier. I had my netbook in the kitchen with the recipe up on it, and something immediately struck me. It's an Acer Aspire One with a small widescreen 1024x600 display, and the mouse touchpad is a bit temperamental. Now, the recipe was on an ad-supported site, and the recipe itself was in a narrow column in the centre of the page with the recipe sections (title, description, ingredient list, directions) stacked vertically on top of each other. The menu was on the left, and the banner ads were on the right. The entire recipe was pretty small and would easily have fit easily on one screen, but because of the boilerplate and ads, I repeatedly had to scroll up and down to switch between the ingredients and direction. Again, because scrolling is a bit awkward on the Acer touchpad, I was particularly conscious of it. I found myself thinking: I should develop my own online collection of recipes and display them with the ingredients on the left and the directions on the right.

I'm glad to see some people have the balls to actually charge for a service instead of peppering me with ads. You get what you pay for. If I were looking to use a service like this, I'd be much happier investing in my time in one I pay for rather than a free one.

alexchamberlain 15y ago
I agree with you about peppering me with ads, but subtle text ads promoting equipment sales would be more appropriate. Do Amazon still do affiliate links at 6% or something? You could easily beat $10 a month and I'd get it for free.
Karunamon 15y ago
>You get what you pay for. GMail cost me $0, and it's probably the best webmail service/interface out there right now. >If I were looking to use a service like this, I'd be much happier investing in my time in one I pay for rather than a free one. Why would the amount of cash you throw at something impact how you invest your time in it? I love Evernote, but me throwing a few bucks a year at it isn't going to change how I already use it.
- jbrennan 15y ago
  > GMail cost me $0, and it's probably the best webmail service/interface out there right now. Yes, you get a good product, but you also get ads. Your information isn't really entirely private. Some people are totally fine with that, and that's OK. But if you don't want a service to do that, usually that means you pay them money. Nothing is free. > Why would the amount of cash you throw at something impact how you invest your time in it? I love Evernote, but me throwing a few bucks a year at it isn't going to change how I already use it. I mean that in the sense in order to really use a product like this, I've got to spend time putting recipes into it. The very basic (and not perfect) theory is: if this site is making money from me directly, it's less likely to shut down or want to sell out. I take comfort in that but I know there are counter-examples.

RyanMcGreal 15y ago

Just yesterday I was looking up an online recipe for chocolate chip cookies that I had found earlier. I had my netbook in the kitchen with the recipe up on it, and something immediately struck me. It's an Acer Aspire One with a small widescreen 1024x600 display, and the mouse touchpad is a bit temperamental. Now, the recipe was on an ad-supported site, and the recipe itself was in a narrow column in the centre of the page with the recipe sections (title, description, ingredient list, directions) stacked vertically on top of each other. The menu was on the left, and the banner ads were on the right. The entire recipe was pretty small and would easily have fit easily on one screen, but because of the boilerplate and ads, I repeatedly had to scroll up and down to switch between the ingredients and direction. Again, because scrolling is a bit awkward on the Acer touchpad, I was particularly conscious of it. I found myself thinking: I should develop my own online collection of recipes and display them with the ingredients on the left and the directions on the right.