Open rfay opened 9 years ago
jstaffans
commented
9 years ago I have heard from several users that they would be willing to donate. One possibility would be to have two versions in the app store - one free, one with a price tag for donation purposes. Both would have the same functionality.
Maybe that route is worth a try first?
rfay
commented
9 years ago After thinking about it a bit, I think it would be better to have the functionality tied to donor-membership on the site, which is also pretty easy to do. It would be best to provide the ability to sign up in the app though...
Thanks for your openness to the idea.
-Randy
This is mostly for @jstaffans but anybody else is welcome to chime in. Most people know that we've decided to increase the resources available for managing and improving Warmshowers by quite a lot - we're now asking everybody on the site to choose a "Membership level" between a $0 free level and on up, and to renew it annually. The goal is to be able to professionally respond to the many needs of this great community, adding important features, etc. The Board's decision was that WS just won't exist into the future if we don't figure out how to become financially sustainable. Annual report and donations faq have more info.
So.. since we're going that way in general. it only makes sense that the mobile apps would be part of it. Two obvious ways to monetize the app are to put a price on it in the app store, or to promote/accept in-app donations. The first is far easier though.
However, this app was developed entirely by Johannes, for free, and given to the community, so for me it's a bit sensitive. On the other hand, development of (all) our apps has been financially unsustainable just like site and community management, so raising money to maintain it is a worthy thing too. And I've been the most active maintainer in recent months, and am now getting paid for my work at the Warmshowers.org Foundation as of the first of the year.
Would love to hear any feedback.
Currently we have 7100 active installs of the Android app. If half of those could be converted to paid at $10, it would be a pretty impressive addition to our budget for this year. I know that I'd be happy to pay $10 for an app to access Warmshowers, but I'm fairly liberal about that sort of thing.