A Poll regarding bandwidth and costs (important)
Sunday, July 27, 2003 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk
This as good a time as any since this subject is going to have to be dealt with at some point:
Our Story So far...
As long time users know, the amount of traffic this site gets has steadily increased. This month something like 1.3 million unique individuals will visit this website.
Since the dot-com collapse, bandwidth prices have increasingly become painful because there's no realistic way to pay for the site via banner ads. We are getting ready to unveil Textbanners.net this next week and hopefully that will help (users can take out ads on the site directly for as little as $1 per day).
But realistically, we're at something like 50 megabits of bandwidth much of which is dedicated to this site.
Right now, Stardock pays for virtually all of the tab. The goal was always for WinCustomize to become self-sustaining. But as the site has grown, that hope has drifted further and further off.
But to try to off-set costs, we instituted WinCustomize subscriptions. For $19.95 a user gets a 2 year subscription to the site which gives them unlimited downloads, 2 premium suites, and the WinCustomize browser along with 5,000 free impressions on TextBanners.net.
Non-subscribers have been restricted to 50 megabytes of bandwidth they could consume in the form of downloads. You'll occasionally see a post by someone who suddenly discovers scruples and expresses his outrage and desire to defend innocent artists everywhere for having to pay to download more stuff. But it's been one of the few ways of getting people to subscribe or at least go away and go to some other site to download stuff.
Subscribers have helped us pay for new hardware, more bandwidth, etc. But it's still a fairly low percentage. Well not just fairly low but amazingly low (far less than 1% of visitors).
One reason for that is because Stardock customers are currently exempt from the bandwidth restriction. So are users with access levels Apprentice and up.
Who should pay the bills?
That's put Stardock in an awkward position. It's facing either having to raise the price on Object Desktop (the proposed price is $69.95 up front and $37.95 for renewals) or put some sort of cap on the amount of megabytes a non-subscriber Stardock customer can get. The proposal on that end is 250 megabytes.
We'd like to hear from you. Which way do you think is most fair? My opinion is that we should go with the 250 meg cap on SDof bandwidthvery few people download that amount of bandwidth so it would only affect a small percent (most of the bandwidth is used by a small percent btw). Those users can contribute either by subscribing for $20 for 2 years or contributing in other ways (skins, themes, walls, message boards, etc. and gaining higher access).
What's your view?
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Reply #62 Tuesday, July 29, 2003 5:51 AM
Reply #63 Tuesday, July 29, 2003 7:42 AM
| No free love? I think someone woke up on the wrong side of the outback. I thought you guys were supposed to be whimsical and sing songs like tie me kangaroo down sport, what a grouch. |
OK .... and we all wear slouch hats, have Kangaroos hopping down the main streets of our cities, can ride stock horses and drink gallons of Fosters!
Butter me on both sides and call me a stereotype!
The things most people get out of 'free love' is pregnant or a nasty rash...or both
Reply #64 Tuesday, July 29, 2003 10:03 AM
Reply #66 Tuesday, July 29, 2003 3:28 PM
| #63 by Developer wombat_1 - 7/29/2003 7:42:41 AM | ||
Haha...cough, cackle, chortle.... Oi, Digger, Blue, chuck us a nuvver tinnie will yas? Me throat's as dry as a dead dingo's donger. Crikey [last one is for the Yanks...they like that one]... G'day, cans oi calls ya 'Stereo' fer short?... |
Reply #67 Tuesday, July 29, 2003 4:20 PM
since i change skins very rarely raising the cost of the OD subscription makes no sense to me. given how little i download it does raise the question why have i subscribed to this site? the answer is simple
this is my "home", it is a very important place to me, so i want to do what i can to support it.to repeat, the proposed 250 meg cap is a *lifetime* cap! given this site has only been running for what 2 years now?, this doesnt sound to bad. but, looking forward in time to when this site has been running for 10 years, are lifetime caps going to be more of a problem than a solution?
it seems that when most people see this magic number they automatically think it is a limit for 1 year. so, is a 1 year limit (with a much smaller number) the better solution? i am presuming (perhaps wrongly) that this isnt much harder to do. and from a presenting to the users point of view it sounds a lot better. after all, say the "average" OD subscriber downloads 50 meg a year, this cap means they are locked out after 5 years
Reply #68 Tuesday, July 29, 2003 4:31 PM
now, i am aware the site server has a lot to do with this. however, based on watching this site load graphic by graphic, it *feels* very bulky. this might just be a mistaken perception, but what i really want is a very streamlined view of things.
take the message board. to read it and post, i really do not need to load the latest additions, top author, skin sections, etc every time i load a page with some messages on it. i know most of the graphics are supposed to be cached locally, but the bottom line is loading the full page is a LOT slower than loading the messages only page in the skin browser IE control, and uses more modem activity (presumably this equals bandwidth).
so, based on this practical experience, it suggests there is room for faster pages (which hopefully mean less bandwidth) by having a very minimal mode available.
of course, given the statistic (its on a different page, so quoting from memory) that 25% of the bandwidth is used by 2% of the users, this seems unlikely to be the main issue. however, is it an issue that is worth looking into in parallel?
Reply #69 Tuesday, July 29, 2003 11:06 PM
It could mean some bandwidth savings from unregistered users?
I still think 10 mb per month limit on non registered is good idea, it will still block "hit and run" massive downloading, someone is right on just creating new account and downloading more, and 250 mb is quite large even as lifetime limit. While 10 mb per month limit still don't prevent the new account creation and download more, the user would have to make more accounts to download same as 250 mb.
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Reply #61 Tuesday, July 29, 2003 5:50 AM
Consider a system like we have over here with mobile phones: you can by pre-paid packages. With such a pre-paid package you have (say) six hours of phone time. When it's up, you can get a new package. Much more flexible than a regular subscription.
Now apply this to the case in question: each account gets 50M (just a random number). A subscriber can buy packages of 50M. A client (one who purchases a Stardock app) gets a number of free packages. This way you can regulate the flow without resorting to drastic measures.