Can't help but feel that the Livecode team are prone to shooting themselves in the foot
That's also my perception. And they seem to be very good at doing that at every corner of their marketing strategy.
The product pricing is an obvious example... i got very pissed off with what they did!
When i discovered LC, they had a reasonable pricing scheme that changed to a reasonable monthly subscription. Then it became annual... which IMHO is not a subscription anymore, but a pervertion of the traditional one year licence scheme. BTW, usually you pay for one year, and then you benefit from a discounted renewal price for some time...
Nevermind, i found the product interesting and saw they have great ambition to make it even better, so i paid. Shortly after that, price was raised once again and I was asked
to pay two years upfront to "
lock my price"! Were they kidding me? On top of all the free money raining from crowdfunding?
Please take note: i'm a client whose trust you have to acquire, not an investor.
I let LC down and got back to my usual tools and languages.
Recently I was in the mood to give LC another chance, and tried LC 8. Yes it got better. I liked it. That's not to say it's perfect, but it is a pretty good product. $600 a year is a bit pricey but i thought i'll give it a try for a few weeks and maybe jump back on board. I was ready to dedicate time to LC, to start working with it and advertise it. I even thougtht to open a blog (in french) to talk about it, write tutorials...
But today i saw that the Indy price is to uncrease to $700. TODAY. And then continue it's way to $1000. Unless tomorrow they change their mind and decide it will be $4499!
Sorry guys but once again i'm pissed off! I feel i can't trust LC. The company.
My perception is that LC have a little acquisition problem, but mainly a huge retention problem, and that's why they do such nonsensical pricing. They have to get the maximum upfront, because (probably) most paid users don't stay. By doing so they shoot themselves in the foot, and worsen the acquisition problem.
That's very sad. The product is far far better than the marketing.
Some ideas:
- A monthy subscription in the range of $40-$60 depending of included options.
- An annual licence in the range of $300-$600 (not subsciption), with a 20-50% discount on renewal within X months.
- Only one price for the product, then paid options/modules such as premium support.
- If i paid to version X.Y, i shoud keep the right to compile closed source app with these versions.
In other words, that's the evolution of the product that should be driving me to keep paying, either by mensual subscription or by renewing "annually" from time to time. That's a good contract that guarantee me i'm not throwing my money away, and push both them to keep improving and me to keep paying.
I must add that the recent evolution (of the product) looks good.
I have no commercial project for wich i plan to use LC right now (and won't have util i feel i can trust LC-the-company more), but I AM WILLING TO PAY. I was. I was 'til 15 minutes ago.
I am (a bit) sorry if this post seems harsh but : 1/ things have to be said, and i'm sure lots of others feels the same, and 2/ maybe my words are a bit heavier than i wished because english is not my native language.
Don't get me wrong, i only wish the best success to Livecode, the company and the product. But right now i cant trust the company to have any bright future as they not only shoot themself in the foot, they seems to enjoy doing so.
