5 ms·

"*Subscription required. The LINK Armband does not display information on its own, but rather works in conjunction with the online Activity Manager. Package inc

by kgarten 14y ago

"*Subscription required. The LINK Armband does not display information on its own, but rather works in conjunction with the online Activity Manager. Package includes a free 3-month trial period subscription. Monthly, 6-month, and 12-month subscriptions are available." aehm ... do I understand that correctly, I have to pay them $7 bugs a month to get access to my data? WOW, yes so much better than fitbit :D

jessedhillon 14y ago
Yeah you do in order to use the SaaS, unless you dump the data over USB and process it yourself. Honestly, I have to imagine that the objection to $7/mo is on principle with this crowd, and not a financial issue. This is the same crowd though, who loves to shout "if you're not paying for it, you're the customer" so here we have a situation where you're paying for what you use. Is the price you're paying set by perception of value, rather than cost of goods sold? Yes, mostly. It is a business. But Bodymedia is aggressive in making their product (both SaaS and armband) better over time, so your subscription fees aren't pure profit. So if you accept that $7/mo is a negligible cost, and that the price does not need to be simply an invoice of labor and hardware, but an expression of value, then I think this is a no-brainer. This easily delivers $7 of value even without using the API. A biometric sensor with minute-by-minute granularity of data access for $84/yr plus one-time cost of ~$150? That's very well priced, IMO. It's just the idea of paying twice for a product you already own which hurts -- it's not the easiest pill to swallow, and it kept me from buying one for a while too.
- Dylan16807 14y ago
  If they want to charge more, they should charge more. It's not just about overall value. For a moment let's focus on devices that charge solely to get the raw data two feet onto a computer. The user pays $5 for this service. What are they actually paying for the company to do? Nothing. They're not buying a license, they're not receiving any service... It's in fact not a sale at all, it's a gift of $5. You can't have a contract without consideration on both sides. I'm not interested in giving away money just because a product is neat. Charge me the real price up front if you want more money. Or do it right and charge me for analysis but not for raw data dumps.
  - jessedhillon 14y ago
    You're paying for the SaaS, which not only receives the measurements from the device, but processes and stores it, while giving you a UI to access it. And then they maintain the servers, fix the bugs and add features. So your only gripe really is that they're selling it as a service, instead of a single box install. Which is fine, but let's not pretend that this isn't a legitimate business model and probably the prevailing way of making a dollar in our industry. It's completely legitimate to sell SaaS and allow access only on a subscription basis. Why shouldn't you pay to have your data stored and compiled into reports on an ongoing basis? And if you don't want that, as I've said, the serial protocol is completely hackable by even noobs.
    - berkay 14y ago
      The problem is not being able to use the device at all without the paid service. You have to pay regardless of whether you want them to store your data or not (I don't). I don't think it's surprising that many people have aversion to paying for a product that they can only use as long as they continue to pay a monthly fee.
    - Gormo 14y ago
      But why is the software designed as SaaS in the first place? Capturing and analyzing data and providing a UI are functions easily accomplished by a desktop application. Why are users locked into a subscription model to access the data output by hardware that they've purchased?

by kgarten 14y ago

jessedhillon 14y ago

Yeah you do in order to use the SaaS, unless you dump the data over USB and process it yourself. Honestly, I have to imagine that the objection to $7/mo is on principle with this crowd, and not a financial issue. This is the same crowd though, who loves to shout "if you're not paying for it, you're the customer" so here we have a situation where you're paying for what you use. Is the price you're paying set by perception of value, rather than cost of goods sold? Yes, mostly. It is a business. But Bodymedia is aggressive in making their product (both SaaS and armband) better over time, so your subscription fees aren't pure profit. So if you accept that $7/mo is a negligible cost, and that the price does not need to be simply an invoice of labor and hardware, but an expression of value, then I think this is a no-brainer. This easily delivers $7 of value even without using the API. A biometric sensor with minute-by-minute granularity of data access for $84/yr plus one-time cost of ~$150? That's very well priced, IMO. It's just the idea of paying twice for a product you already own which hurts -- it's not the easiest pill to swallow, and it kept me from buying one for a while too.

Dylan16807 14y ago
If they want to charge more, they should charge more. It's not just about overall value. For a moment let's focus on devices that charge solely to get the raw data two feet onto a computer. The user pays $5 for this service. What are they actually paying for the company to do? Nothing. They're not buying a license, they're not receiving any service... It's in fact not a sale at all, it's a gift of $5. You can't have a contract without consideration on both sides. I'm not interested in giving away money just because a product is neat. Charge me the real price up front if you want more money. Or do it right and charge me for analysis but not for raw data dumps.
- jessedhillon 14y ago
  You're paying for the SaaS, which not only receives the measurements from the device, but processes and stores it, while giving you a UI to access it. And then they maintain the servers, fix the bugs and add features. So your only gripe really is that they're selling it as a service, instead of a single box install. Which is fine, but let's not pretend that this isn't a legitimate business model and probably the prevailing way of making a dollar in our industry. It's completely legitimate to sell SaaS and allow access only on a subscription basis. Why shouldn't you pay to have your data stored and compiled into reports on an ongoing basis? And if you don't want that, as I've said, the serial protocol is completely hackable by even noobs.
  - berkay 14y ago
    The problem is not being able to use the device at all without the paid service. You have to pay regardless of whether you want them to store your data or not (I don't). I don't think it's surprising that many people have aversion to paying for a product that they can only use as long as they continue to pay a monthly fee.
  - Gormo 14y ago
    But why is the software designed as SaaS in the first place? Capturing and analyzing data and providing a UI are functions easily accomplished by a desktop application. Why are users locked into a subscription model to access the data output by hardware that they've purchased?