Where are the newbies?

[exheusden]

I have this old, old fear that I am back in 1999, and my beloved HC is becoming marginalized...

Craig

Same here. I am a pure hobby user and enjoyed HC, RevMedia and LC Community for many years. I wouldn't mind paying a fair amount for LC, but the price is way too much for the amount I would use it. Heck, I was one of the few (I suspect) who shelled out an inordinate amount of money some ten years ago for the book versions of LiveCode Dictionary and LiveCode User Guide (both of which turned out to be poorly bound PDF copies, not in the spiral bindings promised). I would have preferred to have been able to buy a private user licence for the software. The cost is now more than excessive.

[richmond62]

It is time that LC central didn't just "read my lips", but read the large number of lips saying much the same thing.

[stam]

I would have preferred to have been able to buy a private user licence for the software. The cost is now more than excessive.

No one would disagree on the pricing issues - but personally I don't think massive changes are needed, just some smaller sensible ones.

I guess what price point for hobby users is deemed a fair price? Clearly free is what everyone wants, but that is neither fair on LC.ltd nor is it sustainable.

Currently, if you're a hobbyist, it costs $11/month (or weirdly $30/month for 2 platforms) - I say weirdly because it would be 33% cheaper to just subscribe twice... lunacy.

In any case, sticking with 1 platform that means $132/year.
OK that's not trivial, but it is actually cheaper than buying 1 overpriced Starbucks coffee/week, and I would say that is actually affordable.

If the limitation of stopping standalones from working is to persist, I'd like to see LC consider some changes:
1. Offer 2 platforms without incremental cost
2. Adopt a Panorama database style payment (https://www.provue.com/#pricing), at least for hobbyists, meaning that you pay for some months, but the months you pay for can be non-consecutive.

I suspect these 2 small changes would not result in a dramatic drop in revenue and probably would entice many more in, who would normally balk at the limitation of the standalones stopping working on expiration and would not consider the significantly higher cost of the 'standard' license....

Just my 0.02$

[richmond62]

I have just been playing with Hyperstudio 5.2 . . .

It is a sort of HC-on-steroids with no access to code thing which has quite a few interesting aspects to its IDE (which I have examined elsewhere).

https://www.mackiev.com/hyperstudio/

My point in mentioning it here is that it has a trial version:

"This non-expiring free trial of HyperStudio 5 has just two limitations: You cannot create a stack with more than 4 cards, and you cannot link stacks. You can open larger stacks and explore them, but you will not be able to edit and save them. You can make an unlimited number of projects and share them with others."

(emphasis is mine)

Which may be not a bad model for LiveCode to attract new users.

https://www.hyperstudio.com/freetrial/index.html

You can drop prices as far as you like, but without some sort of 'crippled', non-time-limited starter version I doubt very much it will do much good.

That's my 1 Euro.

[Randy Hengst]

Richmond,

I began teaching “Computers in Education” for undergrad education majors in the mid 90s (in Rock Island, IL BTW). I included HyperCard as a key component of the course. Several years later I switch to HyperStudio since it was compatible with Macs and PCs. The pre-5 versions of HyperStudio inluded access to a scripting language that was ‘English-like.’ The current ideas we’re seeing in LC with the no-scripting required, but access to the script reminds of those early versions of HyperStudio. I found it to be robust for the time and easy for the students to understand how to use the automated options and then edit the scripts.

take care,
randy hengst

[stam]

I have just been playing with Hyperstudio 5.2 . . .

Interesting, because I downloaded it and tried to run it out of curiosity and I'm just getting the unusable app icon, presumably meaning this 32 bit only... So much as I was curious to test, it isn't to be...

[richmond62]

It us, indeed, like Supercard, mired in the bog of 32-bit code: a bog that was created by Apple's decision to stop support for 32-code.

[stam]

"This non-expiring free trial of HyperStudio 5 has just two limitations: You cannot create a stack with more than 4 cards, and you cannot link stacks. You can open larger stacks and explore them, but you will not be able to edit and save them. You can make an unlimited number of projects and share them with others."

Which may be not a bad model for LiveCode to attract new users.

I would beg to differ.

A single stack app with 4 cards is effectively a full app (yes you can make more complex apps, but actually you can squeeze a whole lot into 4 cards using hidden groups to change the interface instead of multiple cards etc).

Is this likely to increase the number of paying users?
I doubt it would convert anyone at all to the 'starter' tier aimed at hobbyists and practically no one to the 'standard' tier, which is aimed at developers.
So really what you're suggesting is effectively a return to the golden days of free lunches, supported by high tariffs on paying users. No thank you.

Remembering that LC actually have to pay staff and this stuff doesn't just spring out of a magic well, there is little chance this will be seriously considered.

My point is that fair payment is fine - it's just that the payment feels unfair at present.

[Xero]

This has probably been said before, but I will add to the numbers.
I am an unprofessional developer. I created some in-house business management software that I use to keep track of simple things in my business. They all look like they've been shipped with Windows 98, to hack a previously used phrase.
1. I love writing code and making things happen. The learning experience is better than anything else such as making money.
So... I used the community edition. Which has now been deprecated and although I can still use it, I can't do anything with it that's not in the IDE.
I'm not paying, so I don't expect to make money from it, that's not fair on LC HQ. But I used it to learn the language, and I am more proficient in it than any other coding language, so if I were to make a leap, it would be with LC. If I were coming in now with no Community edition, I wouldn't have learnt the language, and wouldn't think about making the leap with LC.
2. I have a great idea for a cross-over online and IRL game that would see me releasing a chunk of code for people to execute somewhere, somehow. Can't do that with LC unless you download something, paid or otherwise. I can release C# and use an online emulator. People can in seconds execute the code. However, what I want to do cannot be done in C# due to a number of limitations. C# is also a non-intuitive language, since it's not verbose like LC/ x-talk. Consequently, it took me over a year to manage to not get done what I wrote in LC in half a day. LC is easy to learn, but hard to access.
3. I have dabbled in Unity for some 3D game development stuff. As much as LC and Unity are completely different beasts, the learning environment in Unity is vastly better than the learning environment for both LC and C# in general. I learnt more C# using unity than I did trying to actually learn C#. All of the tutorials for C# end with 'hello world' and here is what a list is. When you actually try to implement that in any sort of context, you're flying blind. And asking for help? Ugh. Don't bother as a newbie! LC tutorials also end a bit short, although they do go a step or two further, but only in certain domains. LC has a lot of domains that it covers! And ask for help in LC? Yeah, best experience of the lot. So many helpful users here that have guided me and polished or finished my stuck code. Massive tolerance for newbies, always welcoming!
In short, LC is a great and powerful language to learn, but not well promoted as such. There isn't the slick "Unity Academy" style walkthrough of stacks of different things that LC can do. People learning always want: a) Something free to dabble with. If they like it, they will stick around. b) something slick and professional when engaging with the program, learning etc. and; c) A lot of help to guide them through any stuck spots where they wish to veer away from the 'normal' usages.
LC provides some of that, and if they provided the rest, they could be a real player in my mind. But that's just my thoughts and experience.
LC doesn't need to provide a free platform for people to make programs, apps and money off. Even Unity is reigning that in now. Nor should they. They have families to feed just like the rest of us, but providing a way to access the language for dabblers has really helped sell the platform to me.

[DavidF.]

I echo Xero's words of praise for the forum. In particular, the effect of this thread has been to get me back into using the Community version. Right now, my use of LiveCode is to learn LiveCode - that is, I put together a stack where I can take notes and set down some actual LC demonstrations of what I'm learning. (I can't think of another language that lets you do this so easily - use the language to learn the language.) Beyond that: I have in mind an app to help me in my German learning - want to try and make something that can generate phrases to specified grammatical criteria. Flashcards with a bit of intelligence. I will keep an eye on version 10, pricing issues etc, but for the moment, the Community version is fine for me.

On learning materials for LiveCode - this was a stumbling block for me, definitely. I liked and still use the "Programming LiveCode for the Real Beginner" book. T. Little's Beginner Lab and other stacks are very good - again, using LiveCode to teach LiveCode seems to me like an obvious and under-utilised idea. I would love if there could be an LC equivalent of the "Bibles" of the past, something along Danny Goodman lines like "The Complete LiveCode Reference Book" would be a wonderful thing, but it will never happen. With Xojo, it's videos. Their YouTube site has over 600 of them! Not my cup of tea, but in my Xojo phase I just made up my mind that that's how I would learn it.

The lessons on the LiveCode site are good, but if you're a beginner, how do you know if you want to learn about repeat phrases, or arrays, or groups? What are they? Do I need them? What can I do with them? It's just a collection of topics - which now I find very useful but not as a beginner puzzling over The Whole Thing.

[FourthWorld]

So really what you're suggesting is effectively a return to the golden days of free lunches, supported by high tariffs on paying users. No thank you.

It's been two years since the open source edition was cancelled. Have prices gone down?

[richmond62]

So . . . going completely OT . . . I am going to write about my EFL school in Bulgaria:

1. I know how much money I need to be coming in a month to pay:

1.1. Building rent.

1.2. Electricity.

1.3. Water.

1.4. Cleaning.

1.5. Assistant teacher's salary.

1.6. My salary.

1.7. Monthly fees (accountant, social security, and so on).

1.8 Consumables (erasers, pencils, paper, printer toner. glue sticks, laminating foil, paper . . .).

1.9 'Sinking Fund': so much a month saved for situations such as when one of my school computers goes 'pop'.

Now, unless I have enough money to cover that it is time to lock the door and go somewhere else and do something else.

As, so far, for 20 years, I have always had more money coming in than I need for the things listed above, I can:

2. Have children attending the school who pay nothing (children of the gypsies who clean the street outside, Ukrainian refugees, a kid whose father died of COVID). Obviously if the 50 or so sets of parents who pay for their children to attend my language school stop paying (or at least some of them do) it will be the FREE children who get pushed out the door first.

Of course, as the average Bulgarian is racist I do NOT tell the paying people that the gypsies, refugees, and so forth, are coming for free (nor do I tell parents that the gypsies are gypsies) as this would probably result in quite a few parents taking their children away.

I can only afford to be generous when my operating costs are met.

I would assume that LiveCode Central's concerns are almost identical to mine, and I would also assume that anyone hereabouts (whether they appear to want to get a free lunch or not) understands that sort of thing.

So, there seem to be the following questions:

1. How do LiveCode generate enough money to cover all their operating costs?

There seem to be 2 models that spring to mind:

1.1. Charge a few, 'select' people, large sums of money.

1.2. Charge lots of people smallish sums of money.

The second possibility assumes there is high demand (which, face facts, there isn't at the moment).

For the second possibility to stop being a possibility and become a fact high demand has to be stimulated.

As far as I can see LiveCode is doing almost nothing in that direction.

[stam]

So really what you're suggesting is effectively a return to the golden days of free lunches, supported by high tariffs on paying users. No thank you.

It's been two years since the open source edition was cancelled. Have prices gone down?

An interesting point… one could argue that supporting loss-leading tactics (which gave so many free access) let to a situation where prices had to be dramatically increased, as judging by events, that wasn’t sustainable.

Given that this also necessarily came with a significant expansion in the dev team to push things forward, in other words significant financial investment, it would actually be surprising if suddenly there was enough capital now available that two years later prices would significantly drop… although that have had 2-3 sales with significant discounts (which I’ve also used).

However this is a pyramid scheme (or a “Ponzi” scheme if u like) as it is. They can only keep this up for so long until the natural attrition of existing user base and gradual unwillingness of users to keep forking out $$$ sinks this tactic.

At some point this WILL need to change and sooner is probably better than later - offering a free product has a long track record at increasing users but a poor record of converting them to paying customers.

This is why I keep mentioning payment structures like the Panorama DB one. It’s accessible for hobbyists at a fair price and encourages long term users to make an early larger investment. One would hope with something like this that larger numbers of paying hobbyists and pro devs would offset the reduction in profit per individual licence. Because without increasing numbers future is bleak indeed and the current pay structure seems very unlikely to achieve this.

Ultimately only LC knows what works for them, but judging by the many replies the current pay structure is stopping many from purchasing and I suspect a fairer pay structure would do wonders at this point.

Arguably, going through this phase of high prices may lead to increased sales of a less aggressive pay structure if they do change, compared to actually doing that at the point of dropping open source, as the it would now seem like a bonus

[Klaus]

The german LC Facebook group is simply dead, and so it the german LC forum.

I'm the moderator of both of them and after asking the members, it is the new
LC pricing structure that lead them to use other languages like some sort of Basic,
Flutter or whatever...

[richmond62]

Well, Klaus, the erstwhile users of LiveCode before the open source version was dropped 2 years ago probably fall into several categories, one which consisted of:

People who used LiveCode for little return, but their customers wanted their work to be developed by a supported language.

They occupy what I would term 'the middle ground' well below types like C. Fadden, and quite a bit above people like myself (were LC code, or computers, for that matter, to vanish tomorrow, it would not affect my income at all).

Frankly, LC should not be chasing types like either C. Fadden (they already have him) or myself (hopeless case), BUT they should be chasing the vast excluded middle.