5 ms·

Great service. I hope they start charging for the service soon.

by pgrote 14y ago

xxpor 14y ago
From your perspective, why? AFAIK, it's not like it's a social network where you get an increase in value with the filtering charging brings.
- c1u 14y ago
  I love Trello, but cannot commit to using it more for business until I have an expectation of service, which comes from paying for it. They're awesome, but they owe me nothing, and that's just too risky.
  - xxpor 14y ago
    That makes sense.
  - qznc 14y ago
    This argument sounds reasonable. I wonder if it is true though. Businesses that are paid for their services can vanish as well. The question is, if the probability is really lower for paid services compared to free services.
  - gecko 14y ago
    You know, I've had a fair number of services that I'm paying for just vanish out from under me, too (e.g., eWorld, iTools, Grove.io, the original Siri). Sometimes the wind-down is longer, sometime it isn't. And, conversely, some things I don't pay for have been around for a very, very long time (Freenode, Gmail, my old Fidonet BBS, etc.). Maybe paid sticks around longer on average, but I think paid-v.-free is a bad litmus test. I think there's a much better one: how easy it is to take your data and go home. With Trello, the answer is "exceedingly easy." On any board, just go to "Options" -> "Share, Print, Export..." and dump the entire board to JSON. From there, it should be easy to move your data onto Remember the Milk, Pinterest, org-mode, or whatever's appropriate for you. You can even automate grabbing that JSON on a daily basis via the API, if you're so inclined. So while I understand your argument, your actual risk here is very, very low. As another Creeker pointed out elsewhere in this thread, the Trello team has some stuff coming out in the future that you may find appealing, if you would feel better contractually paying for stuff. But in terms of risk, I think that it can be very low, today, whether you pay or not.
    - xxpor 14y ago
      On the other hand, you have a better argument when the service goes down temporarily. They're more likely to respond quickly if they have paying customers.
      - gecko 14y ago
        That may be fair. In this particular case, I can tell you we respond to Trello outages the same we'd respond to FogBugz or Kiln outages, so your concern should be minimal.
        xxpor 14y ago
        Ah, didn't realize you were a Fog Creek employee yourself :)
      - precisioncoder 14y ago
        http://status.fogcreek.com/2012/10/diesel-bucket-brigade-maintains-services.html http://status.fogcreek.com/2012/10/diesel-bucket-brigade-mai... I came in to work and was shocked that Trello was offline since I use it as my todo list in work. Then I read the stories as to why and was again shocked when it was only offline for a day or so. Fog Creek are awesome.
        mhp 14y ago
        We were only offline for a few hours. Self-imposed (and turned out it wasn't necessary but in the fog of war at that moment, was the decision we made).
        precisioncoder 14y ago
        Nice, even better than I thought, after I saw the news I don't think I checked again that day, didn't seem likely to me that in all that chaos that Trello would be a priority. Happy to be proved wrong of course.
    - 14y ago
  - dclaysmith 14y ago
    I think there is little risk of Trello being discontinued/FogCreek going out of business. They do a lot of hiring and have had a pretty vocal customer segment pleading for them to charge for it. I don't really understand why they haven't tho I'm sure Joel Spolsky has a plan. Disclaimer: I wish he was charging--I have a similar project I've been working on over nights and weekends. It is very hard to compete with free and difficult to position/market a product you have created to appeal to everyone. That being said--I love working on my project so it'll be around for a long time... Link: http://www.thetaboard.com http://www.thetaboard.com
    - onetwothreefour 14y ago
      Haha, "too big to fail". Every company can fail tomorrow. Free or paid.
  - atesti 14y ago
    There's one simple solution for that: A hosted version. Too bad they don't provide that. I wonder how many versions of FogBugz they will still release as hosted version before they only offer it hosted.
- talkingquickly 14y ago
  It's an amazing service but the more I use it the more I become reliant on it. As it stands I don't have any justifiable expectation that they will continue to provide the service to me which makes me nervous. I use it for a lot of smaller projects but am sometimes uncomfortable using it for larger, longer term ones due to the lack of any sort of contractual relationship. It's not that I really think they're going to stop providing it at a moments notice - those guys have a great track record - but paying for it (or having the option to) would provide that extra layer of reassurance that I can expect a given level of service.
- swohns 14y ago
  My major concern here is the speed of the service, maybe by bringing in some cash they will feel more accountable to their users for speed.
  - hamidpalo 14y ago
    We don't hear many complaints about speed. What kind of speed issues are you experiencing?
prs 14y ago
Charging for premium features - Sure. But the basic version will remain free according to the Trello Guide. Free... for how long? Trello is free forever. We may add pay-only features in the future, but everything that's free today will be free tomorrow and forever. Also, we'll not make a for-pay feature that forces you to compromise on privacy, security, or portability. Those are built-in. [...] Trello is free. https://trello.com/guide https://trello.com/guide
- eliben 14y ago
  Forever is such a strong word... What if Fogcreek goes bust one day? I would actually prefer companies to charge money for such services, it gives greater confidence in them in the long run. Even a measly $10/year per user is a great business model if you have 1M users.
  - tnorthcutt 14y ago
    I agree with you, although to be fair, they likely wouldn't have 1M users if they charged.
bmccormack 14y ago
While Fog Creek doesn't announce features and services prior to shipping, we do keep a fairly public account of what we're working on at http://trello.com/dev http://trello.com/dev. Note the cards labeled "Trello Power-ups" in green. Specifically, check out https://trello.com/card/i-want-early-access-to-these-paid-features/4d5ea62fd76aa1136000000c/1335 https://trello.com/card/i-want-early-access-to-these-paid-fe....
dpcan 14y ago
I kind-of agree. Tho, I think if they just asked me to pay what I think it's worth to me, I would pay something. Right away. I'd click the button and pay something, then probably do it again in a couple months. They should call it, "give Trello a hug", and then I can just hug it with some money whenever it makes me feel happy. Too sappy? I don't care. I honestly feel like I've found the solution I've always dreamed of with Trello and I could not believe it was free from the day I signed up until now.

Great service. I hope they start charging for the service soon.

by pgrote 14y ago

Great service. I hope they start charging for the service soon.

xxpor 14y ago

From your perspective, why? AFAIK, it's not like it's a social network where you get an increase in value with the filtering charging brings.

c1u 14y ago
I love Trello, but cannot commit to using it more for business until I have an expectation of service, which comes from paying for it. They're awesome, but they owe me nothing, and that's just too risky.
- xxpor 14y ago
  That makes sense.
- qznc 14y ago
  This argument sounds reasonable. I wonder if it is true though. Businesses that are paid for their services can vanish as well. The question is, if the probability is really lower for paid services compared to free services.
- gecko 14y ago
  You know, I've had a fair number of services that I'm paying for just vanish out from under me, too (e.g., eWorld, iTools, Grove.io, the original Siri). Sometimes the wind-down is longer, sometime it isn't. And, conversely, some things I don't pay for have been around for a very, very long time (Freenode, Gmail, my old Fidonet BBS, etc.). Maybe paid sticks around longer on average, but I think paid-v.-free is a bad litmus test. I think there's a much better one: how easy it is to take your data and go home. With Trello, the answer is "exceedingly easy." On any board, just go to "Options" -> "Share, Print, Export..." and dump the entire board to JSON. From there, it should be easy to move your data onto Remember the Milk, Pinterest, org-mode, or whatever's appropriate for you. You can even automate grabbing that JSON on a daily basis via the API, if you're so inclined. So while I understand your argument, your actual risk here is very, very low. As another Creeker pointed out elsewhere in this thread, the Trello team has some stuff coming out in the future that you may find appealing, if you would feel better contractually paying for stuff. But in terms of risk, I think that it can be very low, today, whether you pay or not.
  - xxpor 14y ago
    On the other hand, you have a better argument when the service goes down temporarily. They're more likely to respond quickly if they have paying customers.
    - gecko 14y ago
      That may be fair. In this particular case, I can tell you we respond to Trello outages the same we'd respond to FogBugz or Kiln outages, so your concern should be minimal.
      - xxpor 14y ago
        Ah, didn't realize you were a Fog Creek employee yourself :)
    - precisioncoder 14y ago
      http://status.fogcreek.com/2012/10/diesel-bucket-brigade-maintains-services.html http://status.fogcreek.com/2012/10/diesel-bucket-brigade-mai... I came in to work and was shocked that Trello was offline since I use it as my todo list in work. Then I read the stories as to why and was again shocked when it was only offline for a day or so. Fog Creek are awesome.
      - mhp 14y ago
        We were only offline for a few hours. Self-imposed (and turned out it wasn't necessary but in the fog of war at that moment, was the decision we made).
        precisioncoder 14y ago
        Nice, even better than I thought, after I saw the news I don't think I checked again that day, didn't seem likely to me that in all that chaos that Trello would be a priority. Happy to be proved wrong of course.
  - 14y ago
- dclaysmith 14y ago
  I think there is little risk of Trello being discontinued/FogCreek going out of business. They do a lot of hiring and have had a pretty vocal customer segment pleading for them to charge for it. I don't really understand why they haven't tho I'm sure Joel Spolsky has a plan. Disclaimer: I wish he was charging--I have a similar project I've been working on over nights and weekends. It is very hard to compete with free and difficult to position/market a product you have created to appeal to everyone. That being said--I love working on my project so it'll be around for a long time... Link: http://www.thetaboard.com http://www.thetaboard.com
  - onetwothreefour 14y ago
    Haha, "too big to fail". Every company can fail tomorrow. Free or paid.
- atesti 14y ago
  There's one simple solution for that: A hosted version. Too bad they don't provide that. I wonder how many versions of FogBugz they will still release as hosted version before they only offer it hosted.
talkingquickly 14y ago
It's an amazing service but the more I use it the more I become reliant on it. As it stands I don't have any justifiable expectation that they will continue to provide the service to me which makes me nervous. I use it for a lot of smaller projects but am sometimes uncomfortable using it for larger, longer term ones due to the lack of any sort of contractual relationship. It's not that I really think they're going to stop providing it at a moments notice - those guys have a great track record - but paying for it (or having the option to) would provide that extra layer of reassurance that I can expect a given level of service.
swohns 14y ago
My major concern here is the speed of the service, maybe by bringing in some cash they will feel more accountable to their users for speed.
- hamidpalo 14y ago
  We don't hear many complaints about speed. What kind of speed issues are you experiencing?

prs 14y ago

Charging for premium features - Sure. But the basic version will remain free according to the Trello Guide. Free... for how long? Trello is free forever. We may add pay-only features in the future, but everything that's free today will be free tomorrow and forever. Also, we'll not make a for-pay feature that forces you to compromise on privacy, security, or portability. Those are built-in. [...] Trello is free. https://trello.com/guide https://trello.com/guide

eliben 14y ago
Forever is such a strong word... What if Fogcreek goes bust one day? I would actually prefer companies to charge money for such services, it gives greater confidence in them in the long run. Even a measly $10/year per user is a great business model if you have 1M users.
- tnorthcutt 14y ago
  I agree with you, although to be fair, they likely wouldn't have 1M users if they charged.

bmccormack 14y ago

While Fog Creek doesn't announce features and services prior to shipping, we do keep a fairly public account of what we're working on at http://trello.com/dev http://trello.com/dev. Note the cards labeled "Trello Power-ups" in green. Specifically, check out https://trello.com/card/i-want-early-access-to-these-paid-features/4d5ea62fd76aa1136000000c/1335 https://trello.com/card/i-want-early-access-to-these-paid-fe....

dpcan 14y ago

I kind-of agree. Tho, I think if they just asked me to pay what I think it's worth to me, I would pay something. Right away. I'd click the button and pay something, then probably do it again in a couple months. They should call it, "give Trello a hug", and then I can just hug it with some money whenever it makes me feel happy. Too sappy? I don't care. I honestly feel like I've found the solution I've always dreamed of with Trello and I could not believe it was free from the day I signed up until now.