In reply to Making a case for subscriptions-based Market.

Andrew Boon•24th of January 2016•to Spinetta

You can think of it as of a way to trial-run an extension. If it's good for a month or two - you can buy it.

Spinetta•24th of January 2016•to Andrew Boon

And how long before module makers figure out they can exploit more cash out of people using the monthly model & start refusing to put a one-off payment, or jack it so high no one in their right mind would pay it? You see it happen with just about every such based market, hell even Ebay & we all know you're not going to bother policing it, you never have.

As far as passing the buck, your attitude talking to me right now is a great example. I'm a paying customer. I very likely would have see more

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Prashank25•24th of January 2016•to Spinetta

Well if something doesn't feel like its priced right then you simply just don't buy it and about vendor "exploiting", you do know vendors want to actually sell and is not the cure for cancer that you have to buy.

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Spinetta•24th of January 2016•to Prashank25

Thank you, you summed up the attitude I'm worried about vendors cocking very nicely. Andrew, right here, case & point.

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Prashank25•24th of January 2016•to Spinetta

And you sound like a good client to have as well. Good luck with your sites.

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Andrew Boon•24th of January 2016•to Spinetta

I'm worried about product quality and support, not attitude. And look, if you have paid $100 to a vendor, received a product and don't plan to pay again - would you expect better attitude compared to a situation when you pay $10 and would continue paying $10 each month IF you're happy with the product? If anything, vendors would have to become a lot more accomodating then.

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Spinetta•24th of January 2016•to Andrew Boon

Touche', Mr. Boon lol I do see your point...I just see an incredible potential for abuse and more cost in the long run. There's several modules I've purchased that were worthless, despite having great reviews & thus aren't used, at about $50/ea. But on balance, there's several I have purchased at much lower price points (around $10-20/ea) that are fantastic and used daily. It's one hell of a Catch 22. However when it comes to Prashank here, I more meant he read your post & is seeing dollar see more

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Spinetta•24th of January 2016•to Spinetta

Joomla, Wordpress, etc. all have curated markets and have never had to do anything like this. Might be worth studying their modalities before you make any changes? Granted they do have subscription based modules but they are by far in the minority.

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Andrew Boon•25th of January 2016•to Spinetta

We once made a WP plugin for a project we've been experimenting with (called "webhome"). It was listed although it was half-done and was more like a proof of concept. It also sat there for a few years despite being incompatible with at least a few latest WP versions. Why? We just had no incentive to update it, or even look after our listing. If we were receiving at least $20/moth for it, we'd certainly give it more love.

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Andrew Boon•25th of January 2016•to Spinetta

I find that clients are a lot more price conscious when dealing with subscriptions. So, vendors would have to set prices wisely and make sure they continue providing added value continuously. Also, we can work out a way to provide free trials.

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Spinetta•25th of January 2016•to Andrew Boon

Yeah but due to their ranking structure, etc. your project was likely actually seen by very few. Which granted, that presents it's own problems in & of itself as far as new guys getting started & ranked, etc.

And yeah, you hit the nail on the head with that one. The pricing is exactly what I'm seeing become a huge issue. Say each of them decide they want $5/mo. They decide that's "reasonable". I go and add 15 of 'em. My operating costs just spiked from $50/mo for the server, see more

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Spinetta•25th of January 2016•to Spinetta

For the numerous instances of Dolphin that barely stay open from ad revenue, where do they get this money?

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TravelNotes•17th of March 2016•to Andrew Boon

Free trials are a must. But don't expect too many buyers (sorry, renters) to stick around once they realise that each module has a monthly 'service' fee.

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TravelNotes•17th of March 2016•to Spinetta

I'm thinking some of those 'reviews' are from fake accounts.

Take a look around, how many of these 'reviewers' actually show how good the mods are working on their sites?

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Andrew Boon•24th of January 2016•to Spinetta

I really didn't mean to display any kind of negative attitude. Sorry if it seemed to be that way. In this exchange I am trying to talk to both you and anyone who reads it potentially - and explaining my ideas to clear things up.

Subscriptions is going to be one of the options, and there will be people - both clients and vendors - who would benefit from such options. I see it as a positive development and not at all as another way to "milk" community. I see forums posts where clients see more

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Spinetta•24th of January 2016•to Andrew Boon

Well, you asked for feedback & that is my feedback; and it's coming from someone that has been in this industry just about as long as you have. It is a VERY BAD idea. I'm sorry but the potential for abuse is HUGE. Unless you're planning on actually moderating the market and keeping it under control, I see this blowing in your face Andrew.

Please understand that my frustration with you & Boonex as a whole is entirely born out of 10 years of loving this product, despite it's numerous flaws. see more There is no consistency with the code, or the database structure. When you get under the hood it looks like a bunch of amateurs slapped a ton of scripts together & prayed it would work. That's what I meant by "poor quality control". QA is a HUGE part of software development and you guys never do it. In fact, I'm still running 7.0 because I know better than to upgrade when you release something, it usually takes a few years for you get the bugs out. Hell it's been 10 & Orca STILL doesn't work.

So far as subscription anything on this site, my answer is a loud and resounding NO. By moving the licenses to subscription you insured I'll never buy another, even if you somehow manage to regain the trust you lost the last time you decided to modify the licenses.

I completely agree that Dolphin is the best on the market, as I said, but it's reputation is crap. Like I also said, search around. Feedback for this product is not hard to find. Good feedback, anyone saying anything good about it at all however, is very fleeting.

You issue is not pricing & it never has been. Your issue is a complete lack of support & crappy attitudes from your staff. To be blunt (ok, more blunt) you make us feel like freeloaders. And we're not. We paid you fortune.

On a side note, you really need to explain what "DolphinPro" and "Trident" and all these new buzzwords mean. You've made a lot of changes, that much is true & I'm glad to see some forward motion here however you changed so much that even your veterans are confused and uncertain as to the future of this company....which is likely why none of us are buying.

What is "DolphinPro" and how does it differ from Dolphin? What is "Trident"? I thought that was new version of Dolphin, as that was said at some point but at this point I have no clue what it's even supposed to be. I'll tell you the way it's been presented it looks a Dolphin clone that you're going to have separate licensing for. Like I said, milking customers. When I buy a LIFETIME license for something, this is exactly what I expect to get.

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Spinetta•24th of January 2016•to Spinetta

The bottom line is that there is already so much abuse on the Market, abuse that's been there since the ZZZ sites that has never been dealt with I have little faith this is going to work. It would require constant supervision and strict policies that are actually enforced.

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Andrew Boon•24th of January 2016•to Spinetta

I agree. And as any continuous work that is to be done it has to be backed by sustainable revenue that covers the cost. Subscriptions would be the way to arrange it. We plan the subscription-based products to be reviewed and supervised strictly, since the payments would go through us and we must ensure quality.

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Spinetta•24th of January 2016•to Andrew Boon

If it means the market's going to be cleaned up, as in honestly cleaned up then I'm much more open to the idea. In any case, please don't take my blunt nature as ungrateful or unappreciative. I code as well & know full well how much work has gone into Dolphin, Oraca and Ray to become what they are today and they are great, could be better but compared to virtually any of the others on the market that allow self-hosting it is hands down the best. My users love it, I just get tired of beating my see more

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Andrew Boon•25th of January 2016•to Spinetta

I appreciate the blunt nature of your feedback. Easier to process and understand this way. Thank you! ;)

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Spinetta•25th of January 2016•to Andrew Boon

It's rare that I get thanked, I usually piss people off LOL Thank you for at least listening.

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geek_girl•24th of January 2016•to Andrew Boon

"We plan the subscription-based products to be reviewed and supervised strictly, since the payments would go through us and we must ensure quality."

I doubt if the vendors are going to like this. Most vendors want the payments to be handled by them; now Booenx is going to be the man-the-middle? Some vendors have already moved their products outside of the Market and more may follow.

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Andrew Boon•25th of January 2016•to geek_girl

Yes. They won't like it. I know for sure though that it would increase sales significantly. Frictionless billing is what made Apple App Store so successful.

"The average rate of cart abandonment in 2015 is 68%." - this can be halved if billing is done through one-click order billed to preset card. It's even more pronounced in Boonex Market, because every vendor has their own separate checkout, so shopping cart has be checked-out in stages. Theoretically, we should be able to DOUBLE see more

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Andrew Boon•24th of January 2016•to Spinetta

You should try 7.2.x. It is by all means a MUCH more polished product than 7.0. In fact 7.0 was a big core update that had to come out quite "raw". 7.1 and 7.2 were evolutionary and stabilised the platform significantly.

Also give our support a second chance. In last 4-5 months we have been attending to every single support request with an average response time of 6 hours. All through email and online chat.

And as for DolphinPro and Trident - we have announced before and re-confirmed see more

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Doc•25th of January 2016•to Andrew Boon

Dude, My support emails take about 2 or 3 days round trip just to get back to me.. and that's on trivial matters. I'm trying to evaluate this thing so we can actually buy a subscription for our club, but if I can't even get simple stuff handled, what's the point. We want to move to a paid membership setup, but I looked in the forums about it, and a request to fix this module (money maker for customers) is only met with impudence and a blasé attitude. It took you guys over 2 weeks to add Captcha see more

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Andrew Boon•25th of January 2016•to Doc

Thank you for feedback. I've looked into your conversion with us. It is indeed going slower than most, because it is assigned to AlexT and he's a bit overloaded, bust still trying to fit it within 48 hours. Also, please check - there's an unanswered email we've sent you a few days ago.

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TravelNotes•17th of March 2016•to Andrew Boon

You're fighting your corner well, Andrew. Kudos for that!

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TravelNotes•17th of March 2016•to Spinetta

Every time Dolphin upgrades it's becoming a real pain going through all the market modules to see if they are keeping up.

One has, another hasn't.

Some module version numbers change, others don't.

Updated dates on the modules may be altered without any clue as to whether certain files need to be uploaded again, or not.

If anyone is considering purchasing Dolphin, I would have to advise them to think very carefully about whether the out of the box package does everything they want.

Using see more

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Andrew Boon•24th of January 2016•to Spinetta

And yes, as for exploiting more cash... you would see that it would rarely mean that clients spend more cash. Majority would actually save quite a bit. Only those who PREFER subscriptions and use the extensions for long-long periods of time and like it that way - those would pay more, willingly.

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