Determine monetization strategy

brandon-patterson / chemist

A virtual lab assistant

MIT License

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Determine monetization strategy #6

Open brandon-patterson opened 4 years ago

brandon-patterson commented 4 years ago

Since this is a for-fun project, the easiest answer might be "don't monetize", but it's worth a discussion.

The first approaches that come to my mind.

Free
Free w/ ads
Paid (no ads)
Free (no-ads) + paid "support the devs" version
Free (w/ ads) + paid no-ad version

brandon-patterson commented 4 years ago

My initial thoughts:

Free will definitely be easier to get downloads
Including ads would likely be a good learning experience
Having separate versions would force us to learn how to create differential builds from shared code.

To that end, I think free w/ ads + paid no-ad version probably presents the best learning opportunity. In reality, there's probably a progression we can launch something for free easily enough, then solve monetization once we've actually got a live product.

@zspatter WDYT?

zspatter commented 4 years ago

I really like the idea of following a freemium model. I figure learning how to embed ads could prove to be interesting. I'm not entirely familiar with the Play Store's ecosystem, but I know on iOS free/paid versions can be bundled together.

Essentially a user would download the free version and have the option to make an in-app purchase to disable ads (or add other features/subscriptions). I'd like to see if we could toggle the ads in a similar manner.