3 ms·

Well, you're paying for the middle man. They setup and main the infrastructure for persons that are not technically inclined and for whom it's not feasible to h

by umsm 13y ago

Well, you're paying for the middle man. They setup and main the infrastructure for persons that are not technically inclined and for whom it's not feasible to hire a coder to do it for them.

snoonan 13y ago
No argument! They should charge for the service, but not a % of the value I create. It costs them the same to deliver a $5 file as it does a $50, apart from the transaction fees claimed by their upstream payment processor.
- tossedaway 13y ago
  Interesting...and I don't disagree. How would you like them to charge for a service like this?
  - snoonan 13y ago
    Since they are charged a percent upstream, then they will have to pass that on to operate. So I would imagine they could pass on the percent component of cost with no markup, and then charge a flat fee (ex: $1). I'm assuming they are never stuck with the bill in a fraud case. If they are, then the price should include that risk component as a percentage as well.
  - wavesounds 13y ago
    A flat fee per file seems to make the most sense, since their operation costs are per transaction. They should just figure out how much it costs them per transaction, then bake in a percent of their startup costs to reach the black in a reasonable time and use that as a flat fee. I can't see a justification for a percentage approach, its the same amount of work either way on their end.
  - w0rd-driven 13y ago
    1) Cover the standard 2.6% from paypal. Make that obvious. 2) Add a flat rate on top to cover operating expenses. The current model makes a lot of sense for small to medium amount transactions but I too have a problem with 7.6% total of a much larger transaction this company didn't do any extra work for. Alternatively you could have multiple rates based on the size of the payload. If you're really using their storage, which I doubt, then that percentage cost would cover the bandwidth to serve it. With that you would have people like me that would check their work though, to make sure if I'm really paying bandwidth costs, you better not be leveraging Dropbox's infrastructure for that too. Personally, I do like the idea over a Zapier though that's a flat monthly fee. I couldn't possibly determine if the monthly rate is enough on principle but a cut of my profits is much less of an "up front" cost I can't adequately measure yet.
- monkeyspaw 13y ago
  This sounds pretty much exactly the opposite of what I hear from pricing experts. Charge based on the value you provide to the person using your service, not based on your costs. An easy system to post ebooks and charge for them is probably worth more to a person selling $200 ebooks rather than $100 ebooks.

by umsm 13y ago

Well, you're paying for the middle man. They setup and main the infrastructure for persons that are not technically inclined and for whom it's not feasible to hire a coder to do it for them.

snoonan 13y ago

No argument! They should charge for the service, but not a % of the value I create. It costs them the same to deliver a $5 file as it does a $50, apart from the transaction fees claimed by their upstream payment processor.

tossedaway 13y ago
Interesting...and I don't disagree. How would you like them to charge for a service like this?
- snoonan 13y ago
  Since they are charged a percent upstream, then they will have to pass that on to operate. So I would imagine they could pass on the percent component of cost with no markup, and then charge a flat fee (ex: $1). I'm assuming they are never stuck with the bill in a fraud case. If they are, then the price should include that risk component as a percentage as well.
- wavesounds 13y ago
  A flat fee per file seems to make the most sense, since their operation costs are per transaction. They should just figure out how much it costs them per transaction, then bake in a percent of their startup costs to reach the black in a reasonable time and use that as a flat fee. I can't see a justification for a percentage approach, its the same amount of work either way on their end.
- w0rd-driven 13y ago
  1) Cover the standard 2.6% from paypal. Make that obvious. 2) Add a flat rate on top to cover operating expenses. The current model makes a lot of sense for small to medium amount transactions but I too have a problem with 7.6% total of a much larger transaction this company didn't do any extra work for. Alternatively you could have multiple rates based on the size of the payload. If you're really using their storage, which I doubt, then that percentage cost would cover the bandwidth to serve it. With that you would have people like me that would check their work though, to make sure if I'm really paying bandwidth costs, you better not be leveraging Dropbox's infrastructure for that too. Personally, I do like the idea over a Zapier though that's a flat monthly fee. I couldn't possibly determine if the monthly rate is enough on principle but a cut of my profits is much less of an "up front" cost I can't adequately measure yet.
monkeyspaw 13y ago
This sounds pretty much exactly the opposite of what I hear from pricing experts. Charge based on the value you provide to the person using your service, not based on your costs. An easy system to post ebooks and charge for them is probably worth more to a person selling $200 ebooks rather than $100 ebooks.