Guest Level Accounts

[james]

Title:
Guest Level Accounts

Area:
accounts

Summary:
Creating a cheaper, minimal-perk account which still supports DW.

Description:
I've heard interest from folks who would like to be able to support DW and participate in conversations on communities and journals here, but without having to maintain an entire "presence" here, but with more benefits than just a free-level account. Specifically, the ability to track comments and have replies to comments mailed to them.

$35 a year can be a lot for someone who sees themselves as just commenting on other journals, but a minimal amount of paid-account would enable them to comment and keep copies of their comments via email, and keep track of conversations. But even a $15 a year account could be bare bones, and yet let them interact with others on DW.

I have no idea of how the coding works, so I don't know if it's an easy thing to do, or hard, or if being emailed copies of comments is a high-burden sort of benefit.

Poll #7080 Guest Level Accounts

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 57

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
17 (29.8%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
5 (8.8%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
14 (24.6%)

(I have no opinion)
19 (33.3%)

(Other: please comment)
2 (3.5%)

Comments

[denise]

Before people come along to comment, since I know the temptation will be to want to shoot this down on the "DW sets prices really carefully" grounds:

We do, in fact, set our prices really carefully, and figured them out based on what each account would cost us to support, etc, and the paid account prices are based on a lot of calculations, including how much the paid features cost us to offer. I am totally on the fence about offering a "paid lite" type account, with only the paid features that don't cost us much (so, mostly, no additional icons over a free account, fewer tags/subscription + access limits than a paid account but slightly more than a basic account, but most of the commenting-related paid account options and maybe also more subscriptions than a free account but fewer than a paid account): if it would mostly cannibalize our paid account revenues (ie, people choosing it instead of paid/premium paid) it would be a bad thing, but if it would attract people from basic accounts who would never pay for a paid/premium account it would be a good thing.

So, note to commenters: evaluate this one based on whether you think it'd be a good thing, and let me worry about the businessy end of it!

[dreamatdrew]

I wouldn't call this a "Guest" account... that just sounds too... something.

[cesy]

Yeah. "Lite" would be better, though still isn't quite right.

[eleanorjane]

"Lite" sounds like it has _less_ than the basic accounts, though. :)

"Discussion Account" maybe? "Conversation Account"? Hm. Hard!

[justhuman]

I interact on both LJ and DW. I find interest in DW from LJ folks, but their interest often ends with the price tag for a paid account features. I point out the ability to interact with Open ID, but many just do not seem to think it's intuitive enough to try and learn it despite the simplicity of the concept.

While there is a lot to consider with multiple levels of account service, in the end I think it would bring more users and activities to the site. Ultimately, some of them will be willing to invest in the higher cost of a full account.

[erik]

If they're daunted by the OpenID interface and put off by the cost of a paid membership, why don't you give them a code to create a free account?

[justhuman]

Oh - those get offered all the time.

But it comes down to people being used to the paid account features on LJ and a free account not offering them enough of the features they are used to. A bigger obstacle in my LJ flist are that a lot of users have perm accounts. Perm accounts were once an investment on LJ, but not necessarily hard to come by. Prior to that, virtually all of them were content to pay for advanced account features, but the cost was ultimately less.

[erik]

What you are describing is the paid account features I wanted when I bought my paid account, for half the cost. I would totally have been one of denise's cannibalized paid users.

[matgb]

I cautiously support this if Denise thinks it's viable, but most of what you talk about isthe stuff I use the most--sure, I have a billion icons, but rarely use them and am thinking of dumping them, etc.

But comment editing, tracking, etc? That's what I actually pay for these days (oh, and a billion styles and layers, but I'm an outlier there).

If this can be done, great, but I'm ticking 'with changes' for a specific additional idea.

If it's not viable business wise for the fear of losing fully paid users, it might be worth considering it for OpenID users, who basically won't use most full paid features, but undoubtedly would like extra subscriptions and similar.

(the ongoing 'improve the UI and workflow' aroudn the site needs more OpenID specific work anyway, and anything that makes OpenID users feel more welcome is good, giving them a specific cheaper paid level that only gives them the stuff they're using might be good business anyway)

[adalger]

Ooh. I selected "Shouldn't be implemented", but I could honestly see a "Paid OpenID" account being very cool.

[azurelunatic]

Since you mention both of these: replies-to-comments in email is a validated-email-address thing, rather than a paid thing; it's one's own comments emailed that are the paid thing.

It would be really nice for OpenID users who never intend to become more than OpenID users to be able to upgrade their accounts to allow copies of their own comments and ... hm. Probably more icons, and defriending notices?

[susanreads]

Something like this. Iirc, OpenID accounts already have all the features the OP refers to except copies of your own comments. More tracking slots, and comment editing, are the other things I would have wanted.

[majoline]

I don't know how I feel about this because while $35 a year looks like a lot, $3 a month doesn't to me.

So I am on the fence because I like DW getting money. And the Paid account does seem like it might contain more than a casual user might find useful.

But I wouldn't know how to reconcile that, sorry. :(

(I'm the ticky box 'other' because I had to comment!)

[turlough]

Yeah, this was pretty much what I thought too.

[liv]

Given that we have both free accounts (for people who can't afford or don't want to pay $35 a year) and OpenID accounts (for people who want to participate but don't use DW as their main site), I don't really see what this would add. If people want to donate money but less than the minimum yearly amount, they can always buy DW points in smaller denominations. Also, the general culture of LJ-clone sites means I really don't see most people being willing to pay any money if it doesn't get them extra icons.

I would rather see OpenID support being ironed out so that the system is usable and not confusing. And possibly, if comment editing and email copies of own comments are cheap anyway, extend those to free accounts. I may be wrong, maybe there are loads of people who would pay $15 a year to be able to get their own copies emailed to them but don't want any of the flashy features of a paid account. It just seems a bit unlikely that that's a big demographic. In general I think it makes more to sense to have bundles of features, rather than trying to put a specific value on each premium feature DW offers and let people buy them a la carte.

[silverflight8]

I would rather see OpenID support being ironed out so that the system is usable and not confusing.

Yes, this.

[goodbyebird]

+1

[allen]

It's probably worthwhile to see if there's a feature set we could offer for primarily readers/commenters at a lower price point than the standard paid account. I have no idea what it would look like, so I called that a 'with changes' vote.

Mostly I just think denise needs more work to do.

[denise]

:P

[musyc]

Thoroughly unrelated to the conversation at hand: I've been poking at an entry of Why Dreamwidth Is Teh Awesome for my friends who don't understand why I've moved. The temptation to put in "because you can have a friendly-teasing comment and potentially start the equivalent of a water balloon fight with the owner" is ridiculously strong. XD

[denise]

*giggle* I like to think of it as "being approachable". it sounds so much better than "answering comments when stoned out of my mind on painkillers".

(ps: point them at the dreamwidth <3 meme!)

[azurelunatic]

*hides hands behind back quickly*
(Apparently they have 100-packs of neon-colored water balloons at dollar stores at this time of year now.)

[axiom_of_stripe]

Do OpenID accounts have sufficient discussion features for this request? Perhaps it could be thought of as "OpenID-like"? For people who don't have an OpenID account elsewhere (and yes, I know, you can always get one somewhere, but the sort of person likely to do that almost certainly has two or three OpenID accounts already) or who are for whatever reason disinclined to use that id here (technological intimidation, don't want to cross the streams, etc.), it could be a way to get pretty much the same set of OpenID features around signed commenting with the same disinterest in direct journaling.

[adalger]

I am in general against the idea, because to me, more choices means more confusion. I think there's a line between "feature-bundle" accounts and a la carte features, and the more you make incremental choices, the more you create an a la carte culture. I see a slippery slope (possibly imaginary, for the sake of disclosure) that leads eventually to

* "it will cost you 1 fbdw credit to edit this comment."
* "it will cost you 1 dw credit per day to receive tracking notifications for this thread."
* etc. ad nauseum

And then we become a facebook app called dreamville. :(

[instantramen]

Maybe a sampler? For a reduced price, a user could pick x paid features they really want or are curious about, and when the sample time expires they can either pick the same features again or try others.

[denise]

That isn't very practial, because doing a-la-carte things like that doesn't take into account the fact that different paid account features cost us different amounts to offer, and are "priced" based on the idea that not everyone will use all of the features adn not everyone will use the features to their full extent. (The message i wrote about this a long time ago, to the pre-beta mailing lists, is no longer available, but you can still find a cached version of it on the Wayback Machine.)

But I can totally see, and make a case for, a "commenting lite" type account for people who don't want to maintain an actual journal here but still want to either a) support the site or b) get access to certain of the (commenting-related) paid features. I just don't know if it's a compelling case or not.

[instantramen]

I'm honestly having trouble finding a case more compelling than "paid accounts are already as cheap as they're getting for a company this size", but I thought I'd throw it out there in case someone else had ideas for making it work.

[azurelunatic]

Some more random thoughts:

Is there a market for something that's very very clearly labeled "Pay $SMALL to create an account and enjoy paid benefits for $SHORT-TIME as well! (account with free feature set remains indefinitely once created!)" -- which is the same as the current process, if you don't have a code buy a paid account to create one, but that sounds like it might catch the attention of some of the people who want to participate beyond OpenID levels, but for whatever reason the psychological step of creating a paid account is a little too steep for them.

I wonder if a "allow journal entries to be displayed and made" toggle that is accessible to the user would be a good option, even though it's Yet Another Setting. I suspect it might be something that some people would be all about (the read-and-comment-only people might feel a little more secure with that turned off, to have an indication visible to others that they are not planning to make new entries) and some people would be entirely appalled by (the people who like to make personal connections and hope for entries in the accounts of people they encounter just to get a better idea of who they are and where they're coming from).

[embroiderama]

FWIW, I'm one of the people who would buy one of the guest/lite/whatever accounts. I did have a paid DW account, but the only paid account feature I really care about is the ability to get copies of my own comments. The ability to track is important, but less so. Unless I decide to move my main journal activity over here, I won't become a regular paid member again, but frankly it bothers me A LOT not to get copies of my comments. Because of that, since I let my paid membership lag I've left almost no comments on DW.

I like Dreamwidth quite a bit, and I'd be happy to support the site with a smaller amount of money for the features I want to use, but I can't justify paying for full membership to both LJ and DW. I'd love to have a middle option. I don't know if this is something doable, but maybe to limit cannibalization of paid accounts you could put some activity limits on the lite accounts? Like, copies of comments up to x number/month, which would make it an unattractive option for people who really are making DW their main journaling/commenting platform.

[foxfirefey]

When I think about an account type, the additions to the Basic features I'd make would be along the lines of:

* Increase tracking subscriptions (100?)
* Increase recent comment view (50?)
* Allow comment editing
* Allow comment expansion
* Ability to receive notifications to individual comment threads
* Ability to receive copies of comments you make in other journals

Pretty simple features that aren't very expensive to offer and probably won't cannibalize the full paid accounts much, since there's no more icons and no search, which are popular but expensive.

Additionally, this paid account type would only be purchaseable by the year (and maybe half year, too), so that processing fees won't eat it up.

I'd want this paid account type to be available to OpenID users. Heck, maybe all paid account types (with a possible warning about not being able to take advantage of some features) should be available to OpenID users--don't see a reason to say no if somebody wants to give us money for a reasonable service we can provide them.

If we did do an account level like this, it would be a good idea to kindly ask Scans Daily if they wouldn't mind posting about it--there's a bunch of casual users there who like the community and might appreciate reading features-lite.

Another thing about this is we can start it in a six months to try and give our income another "spike" point, so it's not so heavily loaded towards May.

Personal desire: one more style slot/layer set for this account type so someone can have one they were using and one they are working on. Because there's lots of things I'll do to further my agenda of people making styles...that might end up percolating to others.