New Membership Model (draft)

In terms of the number of images I upload I would come under the Economy mode but I do use the other services and would be happy to pay 43€/year. I take it the internal mailbox facility is included in premium.

Looks a sensible set of options to me, I'll stick to the full membership of course!

... and you are happy that others participate according to their means in ipernity life; this is what I understand and thank you through this community spirit that you express.
Friendly, Eric

I think the economy mode will suit some persons and add members to the community.

I saw some corrections for the french version:

...sont couverts uniquement par les cotisations des membres. (seulement would be redundent).

...couverts par la publicité. (not reclame).

Ipernity offre trois options pour utiliser son site web:

L'activité opérationnelle est gérée par...

And translated the following:

Espace disque
Taille fichier (max)
Limite de téléchargement / mois
Total de téléchargements
Type de fichiers
Membre de groupes
Création de groupes
Échange de fichiers
Téléchargement (download) - in french there is only one verb for upload and download or use
english
Édition d'image
"Explore"
Aide en ligne
Compte personnalizé
Image dans l'image
Posts / Articles
Vidéos / Musique / Documents

Merci Xata : certaines de ces traductions en Français sont en cours d'implémentation (nous avons été pris de court), les autres sont bienvenues. Bernhard, toujours lui !, les mettra en ligne dès demain.
This model, especially the Free and Economy subscriptions, proposes a reasonable offer accessible to those with few resources, we think of the Esperanto community but also of many others. The premium offer remains very affordable compared to the market and benefits from our non-profit status. One of the main objectives, as you point out, is to increase our community, but also to present to members and friends from Flickr an attractive alternative.
But not only: it remains above all to offer, in accordance with what initially motivated us all, an alternative independent of the market in terms of photo sharing and life experience.
The above proposal must undergo the test of democracy before it can be endorsed. But I trust the spirit that brings us here.

I'm not one of ipernity's most loyal members, as you probably know. I therefore do not defend my notoriety or personal interest. Except to take part in this almost unique adventure, in the current context, equivalent to the objective of NGOs, which hopes no longer to depend on any objective of profitability instead of the friendly ones that bring us together.

Always available to help for my mothertongue (portuguese) but also spanish or..., but I think for english it is not needed and there are persons more capable than me, for french the same, you must have many french people wishing to give a hand.
Anyhow if needed... I am there!

I would obviously remain a premium member but these proposals would have my support especially if it increases membership,

Je n'en attendais pas moins de vous, Roger :-)

I think I understand the background to what I consider to be partly hard restrictions on the Free and Economy versions, but I'd nevertheless like to argue in favor of a less drastic restriction on these two forms of an offering. Above all, as mentioned earlier, I consider the exclusion of the owners of Free and Economy accounts from "Explore" to be inhumane and very risky in terms of the social inner balance of ipernity.

Dear * ઇઉ *,

two levels of participation to ipernity are to be considered: that of a full members, which opens the doors of the "hall of fame", and that of a simple contributing member (like me...), which has the great possibility to share widely its interests and to create parallel communities not wishing to take part in the elitist momentum governing part of the site. I understand, after 2 years of partnership in the governance of the new site, that this last category is the majority among our members, and that it allows us to survive more than those we tend to consider as the elite...
The survey we are conducting is designed to gather the majority opinion of our community. Let us express it before drawing conclusions that we, members of the IMA, are even not able to anticipate. Isn't that a right direction?

Dear Eric,

just to make sure I don't misunderstand you, I'm asking you for clarification.
Which of the two levels of participation to ipernity do you think is the category with the majority of members? The "full" members (...), or "that of simple contributing members (like you...), who don't want to take part in the elitist momentum governing part of the website"?

To the last paragraph of your comment and your final question.
Of course, there's nothing to prevent this, but please bear in mind, that I, too, have expressed nothing but my justified opinion and worries in the context of the survey on the draft, which I respectfully ask not to consider a (hasty) conclusion.

I remeber suggestin something along these lines long ago.

Yes I believe it would be good, there are many users that write more articles but seldom post phots would be delighted to have the economy package especially god for Ipernity too as it would mean more cash inthe till.

As a club member the extra 2 Euros per year would not break my bank.

For the free riders some of the many here would be happy to still get their stuff onboard even though it would quickly get lost, Some may at a later date reconsider and become paying members in one ofthe other options but we (The I M A Team) that is must notallow the number on free riders to increase drastically as was the case back in 2011..Among my contacts there are a few friends of long standing that Use Ipernity to keep in touch, s few are Japanese, a few are my siblings and an old fried in England.

proposition de traduction en langue française :
Ipernity est une communauté de partage de photos ayant son propre site web. Les coûts d'exploitation, de maintenance et d'amélioration du site sont couverts exclusivement par les cotisations des membres payants; ici, pas de publicité, pas de commerce des données personnelles ni de vente des contenus.

La proposition d'une offre d'essai à bas prix est intéressante, bonne initiative !
Bonne fin de semaine, merci !

Ich finde, die Einteilung in 3 Klassen der Mitgliedschaft ist eine gute Idee. Die Höhe der Beiträge halte ich für angemessen. Ich verstehe die ersten beiden Klassen mehr oder weniger als Gelegenheit zum Ausprobieren. Ich habe allerdings den Vorschlag, die Obergrenze der Dateigröße auf mindestens 5 MB zu erhöhen, da doch die meisten Digitalkameras heute größere Dateien produzieren und mit 1 MB auch das Ausprobieren nicht besonders attraktiv ist.

An der Stelle mische ich mich mal mit technischen Aspekten ein. Denn was Kameras können, ist meiner Ansicht nach für das Sharing, also den Austausch von Bildern oder Videos mit "Familie, Freunden und der Öffentlichkeit" nicht so relevant. Die neue NIKON Z7 kann beispielsweise 8.256 x 5.504 Pixel. Für den Profibereich (Posterdruck etc.) ist das sicher sinnvoll. Aber welches Display kann so was wiedergeben? Schauen wir uns also an, womit Spitzendisplays heutzutage aufwarten:
● Laptop MacBook Pro: 2560 x 1600 Pixel
● 27 Zoll Eizo EV2750-BK: 2560 x 1440 Pixel
● Tablet Apple iPad Pro 9.7 2048x1536 Pixel

Wenn man Bilder in diesem Format bei Photoshop als JPEG in der Qualitätsstufe "hoch" abgspeichert, hat die resultierende Datei ca 800 kB. Für alle oben genannten Displays reicht das. Und weil die allermeisten "Freunde, Familie und Öffentlichkeit" gar nicht so tolle Displays haben und nach meiner unbedeutenden Erfahrung so feine Qualitätsunterschiede auch nicht wahrnehmen, wie höher aufgelöste Dateien sie liefern, behaupte ich: Für 80% der Nutzer liefert 1MB eine völlig ausreichende Qualität, nämlich "economy".

Anders wird es im Spitzensegment. Da sitzen dann Leute wie ich oder andere Enthusiasten an ihrem Eizo und kitzeln das Letzte aus ihren Aufnahmen heraus. Wenn sie dann 2.560x100 Pixel in der Qualitätsstufe "maximal" abspeichern, sind die JPEGs 3 bis 4 MB groß. Diese Qualitätsstufe ist dann "premium". (Ob Betrachter aus dem Web das auf ihren Normalgeräten merken, bezweifle ich. Man könnte es ja mal testen. Meine Fotofreunde hier im Cameraclub St. Johann sind jedenfalls der Ansicht, dass für die Online-Betrachtung eine Kantenlänge von 1.920 Pixel ausreicht. Und das sind durchweg keine "Knipser", sondern sehr anspruchsvolle Fotografen, wie man bei einem Blick auf die Homepage schnell erkennt: www.cameraclub.at

Möglicherweise kommt nun der Einwand: "Aber der Download . . ."! Der ist in obigem Modell allerdings kein "economy"-Feature, sondern bleibt "premium" vorbehalten. Dort kann man dann beispielsweise Dateien mit 4.500x3.000 Pixel (ca. 10 MB) bereitstellen, die für gute A3-Drucke ausreichen. (Wer hat schon einen A2-Drucker?) Und dort finden dann auch komplette NIKON Z7-Fotos ihre Heimat, die in JPEG in der höchsten Qualitätsstufe 15 bis 20 MB groß sind.

Du hast ja völlig recht, Bernhard. Meine Bedenken gehen nur dahin, dass die notwendige Verkleinerung eine gefühlte Einschränkung bedeuten kann und der technisch nicht so erfahrene Interessent deswegen im Vorhinein keinen Spaß an der Sache bekommt. Wenn er dagegen in voller Größe weniger Bilder hochladen kann, kommt er vielleicht eher dazu, die volle Mitgliedschaft zu wählen. Das ist ein rein psychologischer Aspekt (vielleicht von mir überbewertet).

Schon klar! Außer Dir haben 10 weitere das maximale Dateiformat moniert. Damit ist klar, wohin die Reise gehen muss. (Marketing hat sowieso wenig mit Fakten zu tun, sondern mehr mit Emotionen. Da geb ich Dir völlig Recht.)

I am on Flickr as a free user with 1027 photos as of today. There I am following 229 accounts and many of those are free with not much more than 1000 photos. Incidentally those that I value the most have a little more than 1000 photos, up to 3500 maybe. There I am concerned about their contents that I have in my favs there and conversations to be vanished.

So I am observing and participating in some threads at the Flick's forum.
Some people has already came here (hooray!), some others are looking for a service with a reasonable limit of storage - 1 GB is frequently mentioned - and no limit on the number of uploads. Some are suggesting larger limit. Something around 2500 perhaps (just an average from my recollections, I haven't make a study of it yet).

So I don't think that the Economy plan above is going to bring them here.
Is it feasible to offer them something more competitive re total number of uploads?

That is a point we should consider - keeping the 1 GB, but let's say 2000 uploads in total. That would result in a mean file size of 500 KB - but maximum file size remains 1 MB.

Rund 750 der jetzigen Club-Mitglieder haben mehr als 1000 Dateien online. Der Rest (550) hat weniger.

Nur 1.200 freie ipernity-Nutzer haben mehr als 1000 Bilder hochgeladen. Über 20.000 freie Nutzer bleiben darunter.

I agree with you, Marta. I posted my thoughts on the newsletter at the link.

www.ipernity.com/blog/team/4713290

Thank you, by the way, for inviting me here. The more I interact with others I'm loving this place more and more, there is nothing like it, even Flickr.

I don't think we can compete with Flickr solely on numbers of photos/storage. (Not saying we shouldn't see how close we can come - we should. But:

I see the draw we have here on ipernity is that we have a community that cares about photos and each other (even when we disagree!). We are about the art and the joy of photography, not just streams of images. We challenge and support each other in our individual styles and worlds of photography. We accept the casual photographer just as readily as the professional.

Welcome, Frank! Always nice to meet new photographers here. I've just checked out your photos - really enjoyed them. Keep them coming!

You might be interested in my comment around flickr vs ipernity in my reply to Marta above.
"I see the draw we have here on ipernity is that we have a community that cares about photos and each other (even when we disagree!). We are about the art and the joy of photography, not just streams of images. We challenge and support each other in our individual styles and worlds of photography. We accept the casual photographer just as readily as the professional."

You are welcome, Frank :)

You are absolutely right!
We cannot compete with Flickr solely on numbers of photos/storage. We shouldn't...
The community factor is the most important thing from my perspective too.

Maybe I was not clear enough in my previous post. Rambling about the Flickr forum too much ;)
and not getting promptly to the point:

Is it feasible to offer The Economy users something more competitive re total number of uploads ?
Like 2000 suggested by Boarischa Krautmo

I think you're on to something, raingirl. I was beginning to think it's because ipernity is not full of American's, like Flickr is (I can say that because I am one, can't I?).

Agree. In the short time I've been here, ipernity is something special, and not like Flickr at all. In it's own category of true community, etc. ...

"I see the draw we have here on ipernity is that we have a community that cares about photos and each other (even when we disagree!)."

I believe that is a very important point, the caring community! Of course people do disagree on certain issues, but I've never seen something like a "shit storm" here. In my point of view the community is the unique selling point of ipernity.

"We cannot compete with Flickr."

Who would want to compete with a site like Fl*ckr that is imploding and is so bloated that it doesn't work? I say let them be envious of Ipernity because it works.

I think it is important that in the introduction you mention "owned by its memebers", not only "non-commercial".

I agree. Maybe "ipernity is a member owned, non-commercial..." could be the start.

Isn't 1MBper picture too small to pay for these days?

I'd cap economy at 50GB, but all the rest is equal to premium.

I think that the 1 MB limit for Economy class could be upped while retaining the disk space total at 1 GB.
Then it would be up to an Economy member to decide how they want use the trade-off - bigger uploads or more of them.

OK, I know that it is not only about storage costs but also about costs of traffic generated by accessing more small photos. Still... Let's think about it.

Concerning the 1 MB File limit see my technical consideration above, please.

Concerning the cap one has to keep an eye on costs first - regardless of figures that are favourably accepted for advertising purposes. 50 GByte user data (including generated thumbnails and VAT) cause AWS storage costs of 23.68 Euro. If one wanted to cap "ecomomy" at 50 GByte, there would no longer be any money left for operations. In the contrary: It would produce a big loss.

The cost accounting shows why: Of the 43 (23) EUR we first have to pay approx. 3% collection fees (Paypal, bank, credit card). The remaining amount is 41.70 (22.30) EUR. The next step is to cover the general operating costs (data upload, traffic by 70 million monthly website requests from the web, additional AWS services, licenses from Google, Gandi and others, basic IT support without further development). For 2018 they amount to around 37,000 EUR yearly. For 2019 they are budgeted at around 35,000 EUR.

If we apply these operating costs to 1,600 paying members - which would mean an increase of +300 (23%) compared to today - then each user will bear approximately 21.90 EUR operating costs. In the Economy tariff 0.50 EUR will remain for storage costs, in the Premium tariff 19.80 EUR. This corresponds to 1 GByte or 42 GByte.

From a business point of view, even the premium limit should have to be lowered to 40 GByte! But that's really not at all publically presentable. This means that in this tariff we have a loss at the expense of the other members if a member actually uses the whole limit.

It would look better with 2,000 paying members. However, one should be careful not to distribute the additional income right away by widening the limits. The necessary development budget, which has not yet been priced in above, must come from somewhere. That "standstill is regression" is not just a proverb. The complete encryption of ipernity is sooner or later a must. The mobile end devices must finally be operated better, etc.. To pay for this, we need much more money than we can dream of.

Free account:
- Download needs to be included
- Being able to be a member of groups but not being able to post seems silly (maybe I misunderstand)
- Isn't Explore just a view option? If yes, it needs to be open to all, also people without an account / who are not logged in (= just delete it from the list).

Maybe it's not clearly stated: Free accounts can be members in up to 10 groups and of course post in that groups. But they can not posts articles.

Explore" does not mean the view option. This must be free for all visitors, as you say. It means the appearance of uploaded images in the gallery. This should be a premium feature in order to create an incentive for its booking.

"Maybe it's not clearly stated: Free accounts can be members in up to 10 groups and of course post in that groups. But they can not posts articles."

Then 'Posts / articles' in the list should be changed to 'Write articles' or "Publish articles"

"Explore ... means the appearance of uploaded images in the gallery."

Ah. Rephrase to "Photos show up in Explore" (and maybe link "Explore")?

Personally I still think

"Explore / What's hot"

is nor understandable for newcomers. Maybe just leave this line away?

I can't imagine omitting this feature. For some it is very important. But we could add a glossary to explain all the terms.

"... too many characters ..."

Then rename

"Explore / What's hot"

"Visible in Explore"

and link the word Explore to www.ipernity.com/explore

Please excuse my interfering in your conversation, Bernhard and Manu, but what I'm reading here is quite confusing, even though William undoubtedly means "Explore/What's hot" in his statement.
As I'd like to understand what this is really about, I'd like to kindly ask for an explanation, especially as I (inter alia) already mentioned the topic "Explore" in this commentary, www.ipernity.com/doc/team/47668898/comment/55881750#comment55881750.

Re: " "Explore" does not mean the view option. This must be free for all visitors, as you say. It means the appearance of uploaded images in the gallery. This should be a premium feature in order to create an incentive for its booking. ", www.ipernity.com/doc/team/47668898/comment/55891268#comment55891268, I understand this statement to mean that "Explore" (previous name in the list of the draft) didn't or doesn't mean "Explore/What's hot!", but the appearance of your own uploaded pictures in your own gallery.
But then there's again talking about "Explore/What's hot!", now even with the corresponding link (comment by Manu), www.ipernity.com/doc/team/47668898/comment/55931578#comment55931578.

If this isn't clearly formulated and communicated to all readers and discussion participants, it could lead to an erroneous vote and final decision. But if I'm the only one who doesn't understand what's really meant on this point, please consider my request for an explanation and my concern to be irrelevant.

Also, if you're aiming at people leaving flickr in protest, there shouldn't be a monthly upload limit on any of the accounts.

When I'm logged out, in Firefox on Mac, the red "Subscribe!" link on www.ipernity.com/club isn't working, neither the one in the picture with the armchair nor the one that only becomes visible after clicking on "See al the advantages" or "Discover the rate plan".

Subscribe bug:

Can you solve it like the text links below the red button? When I click on them without being logged in I get a message "You need to log in to have access to this page" and below the message are the login fields.

Dear Manu!
We on the ima-team are not progammers! We therefore have to tell the programmers who work for us exactly what they should do - in all 16 language versions. This must then be implemented in an old program. The costs will be somewhere between 500 and 1,500 euros. Do you think that this money is well invested for a part of the site that has had this bug for at least 5 years and will be shut down in a few months anyway? I couldn't take responsibility for that in the team, where we really have more urgent problems.

My gut feeling: so people are coming here now, because flickr changed its costs. They open an account now that claims "Unlimited number of photos, videos and docs to upload."
Only to have ipernity change its costs a few weeks later.

I don't have a solution for that, but it will not go down well.

On flickr, the people who are unhappy are the ones with more than 1000 photos and a free account.
Honestly, I think flickr (smugmug) is doing the right thing and if you want to store more than 1000 pictures you should just pay for flickr pro.

I understand the need of ipernity to find more paying members, but I think we should concentrate on what distinguishes us from the others: member owned.

So concentrate on what you learned about the needs of your existing, active members (I don't know the details here), and don't try to fish disgruntled flickr members.

Just my opinion, in great respect of what we have achieved with the takeover.

thumbs up!

you are right in many points you mentioned.

But let me explain the reasons tht led us to this point:

1
Our current number of users is sufficient to keep the site running, but grants no way to do major improvements to the site.

2
When doing an analysis of our costs and users, we found that some 48 % of storage costs where spent for invisible content (uploads > 200) of free users, several hundred thousand free accounts were abandoned or at least not visited by their owner within the last 3 years.

3
Some intensive paying users are cross-fnanced by a large majority of less intensive users. See here:
www.ipernity.com/doc/team/47534580
the chart shows only storage costs, traffic is not taken in account.

these facts led to:
- deleting abandoned accounts
- deleting over quota uploads after several warnings per newsflash and email
- thinking of raising the number of paying users
- thinking of a new, fairer subscription scheme (that means burdening intensive users [using lots of storage] more than less intensive ones)

And then, by accident, flickr announced to cut services of the free accounts and to doube the fee for the pro account, what led to anger amongst flickr users. This might be an opportunity to go about # 3 and 4 - getting more users and adapting the prices.

As ipernity is not a company with a single director making decisions we decided to publish a proposal to the community to get feed back.

According to the above draft, the majority of the less intensive paying users would probably continue to cross-finance the some intensive paying users if they wanted to continue to have access to all available options, or am I wrong?
(I'm not asking for myself, but to focus a little on this aspect...)

And they would finance intensive economy users and non paying users, too.
It is always a mixed calculation. But we should try to avoid really bad deals - that means, not to get many more of non cost-covering users.

I agree with the idea that should concentrate on what distinguishes us from the others. Member owned but other things as well. I replied to Marta, above:
"I don't think we can compete with Flickr solely on numbers of photos/storage. (Not saying we shouldn't see how close we can come - we should. But:

I see the draw we have here on ipernity is that we have a community that cares about photos and each other (even when we disagree!). We are about the art and the joy of photography, not just streams of images. We challenge and support each other in our individual styles and worlds of photography. We accept the casual photographer just as readily as the professional."

Yes, I'm aware of that, Markus, and I fully agree with you regarding the avoidance of really bad deals. I only wish the cross or mixed financing would mainly benefit those who unfortunately really cannot afford the premium offer due to their low income.

"What we want to try here is to define a product /service) that is so attractive for a certain user group that it is willing to pay the costs for it. "

Reading that, this comes to mind, if it might be helpful to you:

“People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe”. —- Simon Sinek

In other words, ask 'why' before 'how' and 'what'.

Wait, please, Bernhard. :))

When I say I wish the cross or mixed financing would benefit above all those who cannot afford the annual contributions due to low income, I was merely trying to express that I'd wish, so I hope that exactly those low-income members can (will) be found in the left and middle membership model, so that they (too) could or would benefit in this way from the cross or mixed financing - without placing any expectations or demands on you or any other IMA team member in direction of establishing a foundation, etc., as on the one hand I'm well aware of the difference (membership model/socio-economic...) and on the other hand as an attentive observer I know about the extraordinary burden of the IMA team.
Moreover, I think we shouldn't only avoid confusion but also do one after another so as not to get bogged down. Last but not least, as well as the members of the IMA team I'm an idealist - and love ipernity, in fact. ;)

By the way, to my knowledge, there already exists a group for the promotion of non-paying members, which could also benefit low-income members. This group, I think it was called "Win a Club Membership" or similar, could be reactivated in due course, perhaps with a revised concept (?).
In addition, it would be welcome from my point of view if donations for non-paying members and/or for ipernity itself could also be made anonymously. The adaptation of this proposal, of course, only if the budget is sufficient.

important remark.
We should communicate ipernity's uniqueness and not only focus on prices and features.

Yes, thank you and here is a timely podcast that might help spread that:

All rights reserved art19.com/shows/akimbo/episodes/6e3853c0-eb50-44cd-b6bf-a616dbfe4fe2

Sorry, 39 minutes of American Slang is too much for my "German" ears, educated only a little bit with Oxford English in school.
(But it really seems to be interesting. Is the text available in a written form anywhere, too)

Don't see it, but if I do you'll hear back from me. Thanks for trying ...

I am happy to see a new Membership model and would be OK about paying the Premium Level BUT how close am I to 100Gb and how do I find out?

I don't think many Free Flickr users will be attacted by the Economy plan only those who agree with the User owned model versus Big Company model when they understand the ideas behind iPernity.

I am resisting paying Flickr but I have 12500 photos on there with a remarkably high percentage of photos on there NOT also on iPernity.

Colin, I would estimate this took maximum about half of your 100 GB space.
Perhaps less, because old pictures were not so "space-hungry".

Thanks for the comment and your estimate which does look a good one on reflection.

12,500 Photos in good online quality correspond to 12.5 GByte.
In maxiumum Quality they are corresponding to 50 GByte.
Which means: In "premium" is space for another 12,500 high quality pics or 87.500 pics in sufficient quality. Who should look and/or comment on them?

"12'500 high quality pics ... Who should look and/or comment on them?"

I have a private ipernity club account with botany photos. I use the photos outside of ipernity, the account is the 'drawer' where I store them. Not in the sense of a backup or dump, but in the sense of a work tool.

Just to explain that there are other uses than sharing within ipernity.

I Understand.
Thank you!

:-)

Hi ! Economy subscription is worthless v. Flickr, it needs 2 MB files, 2500 files, Explore, post ability; 23 euros is fair price.
I'll stick with Premium.
Great admiration for IMA effort !

Have a look to the economical calculation above, please.

Regarding number of groups in Premium account:

Unlimited numbers of group memberships is OK.
What we could think about is a limitation of putting one picture into a maximum number of groups. Because the more groups an image is placed in, the higher is the probability that there are groups that it does not belong to. What we really don't need is group-spamming for clicks an favs. In my opinion here are too many!

Limitation to 1 MB per one photo in the Economy account:

I think that's very close. Looking at a picture should be fun for everyone and that also requires a minimum size.
Depending on the image content and processing intensity, the spacesize varies. Maybe a limitation to the image size (for example between 1200px and 1500px on the long side) would be more reasonable. This is easier to control.

My 5 cents

I agree any limitation would be easier to handle using a long side limit from the user side.

I think the model presented is a good compromise, with a couple of tweaks. I agree with upping the mb limit, include explore and ability to publish articles (maybe with a limit) for the economy account - in other words, make it attractive to potential flickr refugees. I think including explore and publishing articles might make new accounts view ipernity as being more inclusive (hence attractive).

I have less than 300 photos on flickr (free) and less than 200 here, with no plans to increase those numbers greatly. I will continue with ipernity premium to support the community, regardless.

Please excuse me if I encounter high-flying dreams with dry numbers. But in contrast to what was written in the organization chart in December 2017, in the course of the year 2017 the function of the controller grew over me. That's why I have a very precise overview of ipernity's entire business calculation work.

At 40,000 EUR/year is our economic bottom line. Since a migration to servers other than AWS is associated with very high costs, we cannot get away from AWS. We have to shut down ipernity under 40,000 EUR/year.

With 50.000 EUR/year we can pay the current maintenance, as well as small subsequent improvements.

But in order to be able to pay for urgently pending developments, which are repeatedly reminded by many of you, we need an annual budget of at least 75,000 EUR/year. Please take this into account when thinking about alternatives.

To illustrate the numbers:
1.300 users at current rates = 52.000 EUR, means site is running.
Additional 20.000 EUR = 500 users at current rates resp. premium users or 1.000 economy users.

And now the big question: What is more likely - gathering 500 premium users or 1.000 economy users?

Well, I would of course prefer 1.000 premium users ;-)

I slept on it. And I am - as you know from looking at my pictures - not only a dry number-cruncher. For my other passion, mountaineering, I am willing to take calculable risks within the scope of my physical abilities, as long as they do not become a danger. This is also the case here.

Reason warns me: We can only lose a price war with Flickr. (If those responsible at Flickr have any sense, they'll read our public discussion anyway.)

The creative and daring one in me says: Why not try 2,000 uploads / 2.5 MB file size / 5 GByte in a slightly increased "economy" rate of 25 EUR? This would exactly cover the real operating and storage costs of such a tariff and would therefore be mediable. Above all, all technical discussions regarding file size would be obsolete and there would be an attractive volume for the "normal users" Marta talks about.

Our concern in the team is only that the club tariff bleeds out then. A look at the numbers shows: At present approx. 520 club members have more than 2,000 files in the Portfolio. Hopefully they will stay. If we add a few more people who stay in "club" or later "premium" because of the other features, we could maybe assume 650 members who stay in this tariff. That is half of the current club members and would correspond to almost 28,000 EUR budget. The other half would downgrade and bring another 16.000 EUR. Altogether we would have then 44,000 EUR. For a target of 75.000 EUR 31.000 EUR are missing. That would correspond to about 850 additional users on an "economy" basis.

And now I'm doing something really crazy: I'm reducing the tariff for "premium" to an attractive limit price of less than 40 EUR, for example to 37.50 EUR. (Then we would have to cap the "premium"-volume at 50 GByte of course and offer a fair solution for the 85 club members who currently exceed this limit.

The calculation would then look as follows:
650 "premium" users from the current "club" x 37.50 EUR = 24,375 EUR
650 "economy" users from current "club" x 25 EUR = 1,.260 EUR
Sum = 40,625 EUR

To recoup the EUR 13,910 deficit compared to the current club rate, 556 additional new "economy" users would be necessary. In order to get a sustainable budget of 75.000 EUR, 1.375 new "economy"-users would have to find us.

If the majority of you think that such a balloon could fly, I would be ready to get in. If things go wrong, we'll just look for a meadow to land on and pack up. Then the ipernity experiment is over.

Concretely: Do you think that in this way we could get 600 - 1,200 additional economy users?

Auf deutsch:

Ich hab drüber geschlafen. Und ich bin - wie ihr aus dem Anschauen meiner Bilder wisst - nicht nur ein trockener Zahlenmensch. Für meine andere Leidenschaft, das Bergsteigen, bin ich im Rahmen meiner körperlichen Fähigkeiten bereit, kalkulierbare Risiken einzugehen, solange sie nicht zur Gefahr werden. So auch hier.

Die Vernunft warnt mich: Wir können einen Preiskampf mit Flickr nur verlieren. (Wenn die Verantwortlichen von Flickr etwas Verstand haben, lesen sie sowieso unsere öffentliche Diskussion mit.)

Der Kreative und Wagemutige in mir sagt: Warum probieren wir es nicht dennoch mit 2000 Uploads / 2,5 MB Dateigröße / 5 GByte in einem leicht erhöhten "economy"-Tarif von 25 EUR? Das würde die realen Betriebs- und Speicherplatzkosten eines solchen Tarifs nämlich exakt abdecken und wäre deshalb vermittelbar. Vor allem wären dann auch alle oben beleuchteten technischen Fragen hinsichtlich der Dateigröße vom Tisch und ein attraktives Volumen für die "Normalnutzer" gegeben, von denen Marta spricht.

Unsere Sorge im Team ist nur, dass der Club-Tarif dann ausblutet. Ein Blick in die Zahlen zeigt: Derzeit haben ca. 520 Club-Mitglieder mehr als 2.000 Datein im Portfolio. Die werden hoffentlich bleiben. Rechnen wir noch ein paar Leute hinzu, die wegen der anderen Features in "club" bzw. später "premium" bleiben, könnte man vielleicht von 650 Mitgliedern ausgehen, die in diesem Tarif bleiben. Das ist die Hälfte der jetzigen Club-Mitglieder und entspräche knapp 28.000 EUR Budget. Die andere Hälfte würde downgraden und brächte weitere gut 16.000 EUR. Insgesamt hätten wir dann 44.000 EUR. Für ein angepeiltes Ziel von 75.000 EUR fehlen also 31.000 EUR. Das entspräche ca. 850 zusätzlichen Usern auf "economy"-Basis.

Und ich mach jetzt mal was ganz Verrücktes: ich reduziere den Tarif für "premium" auf einen attraktiven Grenzpreis unter 40 EUR, beispielsweise auf 37,50 EUR. Dann müsssten wir das Volumen dort allerdings bei 50 GByte deckeln und für die 85 Club-Mitglieder, die diese Grenze derzeit überschreiten, eine faire Lösung anbieten.

Die Rechnung sähe dann folgendermaßen aus:
650 "premium" Nutzer aus derzeitigem "club" x 37,50 EUR = 24.375 EUR
650 "economy" Nutzer aus derzeitgem "club" x 25 EUR = 16.260 EUR
Summe = 40.625 EUR

Um die 13.910 EUR Defizit gegenüber dem aktuellen Club-Tarif wieder herein zu bekommen, wären 556 zusätzliche neue "economy"-User nötig. Um ein angepeiltes zukunftsfähiges Budget von 75.000 EUR zu bekommen, müssten 1.375 neue "economy"-User zu uns finden.

Wenn ihr mehrheitlich meint, dass solch ein Ballon fliegen könnte, wäre ich bereit, einzusteigen. Wenn es schief geht, suchen wir eben eine Wiese zum landen und packen ein. Dann ist das Experiment ipernity zu Ende.

Konkret: Glaubt ihr, dass wir auf diese Weise 600 - 1.200 zusätzliche economy-Nutzer bekommen könnten?

Oh, well...
I didn't think about the eventuality of current club members downgrading to Economy tier.
It didn't cross my mind at all.
Now I get it...

I don't believe in an increase of paying members in a short time. To survive we should keep at least our 1200 (??) paying members we have on this moment at the current fee.

Perhaps we could introduce a kind of 'Ipernity light' for a more or less symbolic fee - which covers the storage costs - for the 22.000 free users of this moment.

For me there shouldn't be a completely free membership (only a Free Trial period).

"Then the ipernity experiment is over."

That would be a pity.

When I look at the price chart again:

43 € a year looks like a very good deal.

If the free account is limited in time this needs to be stated very clearly on that list.
Call it "Free trial" like on the start page.

My feeling is: the economy account is mainly for free users who want to stay after the time is up but don't want to / can't pay 43 € per year.

So maybe the way to go is not "Raise the value of the economy account to something that's dangerous for ipernity in the long run" but "lower the price of the economy account so it's a no brainer for the free users whose time is up" * and trust that if they need more from ipernity and/or want to support the ownership model, they'll pay 43 €.

* But raise the minimum file size both for Free trial and for Economy.

Edit:
This fits with Jaap's suggestion:
"Perhaps we could introduce a kind of 'Ipernity light' for a more or less symbolic fee - which covers the storage costs - for the 22.000 free users of this moment."

-----

On the other hand I like the idea to be able to pay for additional space, if I need it.

So _if that's better for ipernity_, I wouldn't mind 50GB plus the option to buy more storage.

My feeling is: the economy account is mainly for free users who want to stay after the time is up but don't want to / can't pay 43 € per year.

I don't believe they will be willing to pay € 23,- a year.

There's a way coming, I think. Whereby the financial lower limit of the economy rate is not determined by the storage costs, but by the general costs and the traffic (see above). Below 22,50 EUR ipernity writes red numbers at the payment accounts, at 23 EUR 1GByte memory would be covered, at 25 EUR it would be 5 Gbyte.

As far as the symbolic fee is concerned: Good idea, but no idea how to realize such a thing administratively. I need to talk to Qwellcode about it. Because the programming must not be more expensive than the hoped for yield.

To be clear: I didn't mean symbolic fee in addition to Economy but instead of the Economy plan.

You just explained that this would result in a loss for ipernity. So: no.

For me the same: 'symbolic' instead of 'economic'.

I don't quite understand the figures. I'm a right when I say 1 TB (= 1.000 GB or 1.000.000 MB) = € 400 storage (did read it somewhere); which means for me 5 GB = € 2, - storage costs. Perhaps a symbolic fee of € 5,- would be enough to cover the costs ??

Whatever symbolic fee you think up, it is difficult to calculate. 2.50 EUR would only cover the pure 5 Gbyte storage costs at AWS. If you consider that the "free" users also contribute to traffic to a considerable extent, you would have to at least double the amount to 5 EUR. In addition an administration help must be programmed, because ipernity has no program modules for such an action. It must also be clarified whether it should be a voluntary contribution or a compulsory contribution and how to reach the users. (I would vote for a compulsory contribution, whereby the account is released only after payment of the amount again. Possibly this gives however substantial stress with many actually good-willing users, because they feel blackmailed.) With voluntary contributions I see black. Because how should the seldom users be informed about it? (With our mailings for the returnee offer only about 15% of the mails were read at all.)
Personally, I think we shoot ourselves at the most unwilling target group with the free users. Maybe we should better look where the money is more loose?

Just on the English in the example here:

1) The sentence that reads "Neither are revenues generated by advertising nor by data trading or sale of any content." is not a complete sentence (it would work in conversation, but isn't correct written). A way to say that sentence could be "No revenues are generated by advertising, data trading or sale of any content.".

2) Americans don't use the word "tariff" much. We would use "fee". We understand "tariff", but it sounds clunky to us. I don't know about how it's used in England, probably "tariff" is more common there than here in America.

And as I said in a reply to a prior post, I think it would be nice to include that ipernity is member owned right a the first sentence. Maybe instead of "ipernity is a non-commercial photo-sharing community with its own website", it could be "ipernity is a member owned non-commercial photo-sharing community with its won website." Although typing that out it feels lengthy. But somewhere on the page is should be written about ipernity being member owned!

And I LOVE that there is a donate button on this. Yes!!!!

As always - thanks for the continued work on keeping us going and keeping us running well!