Perhaps good customer service? Because that’s what you are, you may feel all altruistic paying your subs, but really you’re just a customer.
They could have done a myriad of things for their existing customers, but not even a nod or wink is typical in my mind.
A quick review after trying a month:
John’s new column is going to be great if it stays at the level of the first issue. I expect finding the right level of topic variety will be important; e.g., I would like a part 2 of the first topic but I understand others are looking forward to other topics.
The additional podcast content presented as a few new short chapters makes it more fun to listen to. I didn’t listen to much of the backlog of expanded episodes so I can’t say what themes are emerging in the expanded portion.
As someone who develops some CMSes, their new one is fascinating. First, I was disappointed I couldn’t use it to search all MacStories content, not just Club content, but that’s on me. Perhaps that’s coming later.
The chunky search bar makes a good first impression but more work needs to be done here; search results are just using the most recent entries view, the category/topic explore tools can’t be used to facet search, search keywords aren’t highlighted, etc. It’s currently tolerable because the increased work being put into club content means the best stuff is most recent (subjective, obviously.)
The content explorer (again, should also be available as search facets) does a good drilling into specific content for the most part. Some of the MacStories Weekly content types aren’t sufficiently self-descriptive to be presented without comment. These might need tooltips or an explanation at the tops of their recent entry feeds.
My favorite feature is the RSS feed builder. Any explorer selection can be turned into a feed and gets saved in a list of all feeds the user has created. I got some utility out of this (e.g., I like having a separate feed for the desktop column.) Again, I’ll really like when these explorer options can be used as search facets because a feed creator that sends me new, refined search results would be powerful. I’d like to see this catch on with other publications.
I haven’t done anything with the Discord. I wish club articles had comment sections; it’s a bit annoying to know that all the reactions happened in chat and will never be pinned to the article so future readers can benefit.
Overall, I’m pleased they’re trying to do so much more, and optimistic that they can build something great if they keep improving the app and maintain the level of thoughtfulness applied to the new content.
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@vco1 your friend and my friend @macsparky is one of the best and the most down to earth person. With 600 plus empire he still is like someone who just started his first one. I won’t go into more details here but all I can say is he really cares for his listeners and values them. This itself is more than anything to me to be part of his show.
Never felt that way with the other in subject.
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John and Federico have said that the main MacStories website will eventually move to the new CMS. It’s got about 3x as many articles as the Club, so that transition may take a bit.
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Yes I am a customer. I don’t believe good customer service rests on them giving me free stuff. In my opinion, being a customer doesn’t entitle me to getting free stuff from a company.
Sure, if they want to discount services as a trial period, go for it. But I don’t think the fact that they didn’t do that means they have bad customer service.
It just makes me laugh that folks see there is now this higher tier that doesn’t change their existing subscription and FOMO kicks in…they get mad they can’t have the extra stuff without paying. Makes no sense.
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Right. Point taken. Thx.
Just as an example of this: While this year’s iOS review isn’t out yet, Federico posted an excerpt of the section on Quick Note in the most recent Club MacStories Monthly Log newsletter where he goes into quite a bit of depth on how he’s using it to track Apple TV+ recommendations, annotate webpages from Safari Reading List, and use a shared note to give John Voorhees comments on one of his articles (that the last one actually works is a bit mind blowing).
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I was starting to tune out on the MacStories debate, thinking what harm does it do to me to add new features (see MacStories launches new paid membership programs/Discord server/exclusive content - #86 by Muskatinho ).
Now I have changed my mind.
I was reaading in the Current MacStories about an interesting StreamDeck competitor:
Clearly this story is within the genre that would previously have been included in a MacStories subscription. But now I get this:
So clearly what they have done is a price increase veiled as an “upgrade.” Foul. Foul.
“The Macintosh Desktop Experience” was explicitly advertised as the new, additional Mac-focused column that John Voorhees is writing for Club MacStories+
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Also if I am a paying member I should not be seeing ads on the website. It should be an ad free website.
I definitely agree in principle. That said, is the “ad free” offered at any level? Was it offered before?
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I never see any websites with ads. I use AdGuard. Included with SetApp.
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Isn’t it obvious that if you are not paying then you are the product. If you are paying then you get the ad free version. It doesn’t apply to print publications.
A foot note about the sponsor is fine which is not obstructing the readers flow. A big banner at the top and ads in the middle are just too distracting.
Though he did not mention Ad free anywhere for paying members doesn’t mean that he mentioned with Ads anywhere too. Why do you default to ad version?
The New York Times and Washington Post show adds to their digital subscribers as well.
This is a niche subscription intended for a much smaller audience than NewYork Times or Washington Post. It’s more of a technical subscription than a commercial news paper publication.
So the audience matters here more than those of news papers where they really don’t care for your experience with a “Take it or leave it” concept.
I’m intrigued … what options have you got?
One option, I guess, is to not subscribe to their content.
I suppose another is to install an adblocker - if it’s that important to you.
I suppose another is to just shrug, ignore the ad (unless it feels relevant to you), then focus your energies on the content stuff (which is relevant to you).
Those would be 3 things YOU could easily do that don’t require others to change.
Another would be to reframe the situation, “I pay $2 a day for coffee, which is about $700 a year, and I’m happy with that. The subscription to this is $120 a year, which is about $1 every 3 days, and it makes me happy reading their stuff. So it’s a pretty good deal. And, you know what, a few unobtrusive adverts (that are sometimes relevant) doesn’t really hurt, and I like the idea that by displaying them, maybe they survive.”
That’s a bit harder. But, for me, I’ve found it’s a lot easier for me to cope with things that annoy me by trying to tell positive stories rather than feeling indignant and moaning, and wanting others to change.
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I agree. 20 characters
I kinda agree with you. I am a paying member of MacStories as I like to support content creators who deliver quality content. Same as I subscribe to MPU and other podcasts and Youtube channels either directly or through Patreon.
Support of creators comes first for me, the ad-free experience is a nice to have, assuming my support outweighs the ad revenue the creator foregoes because of my subscription.
There is a limit however as to how many creators I can support and much I can do. Bringing in membership tiering makes you feel a second rank citizen suddenly having to pay more to read/consume what you used to get and additional features (i.e Discord) I am not looking for.
As with all my subscriptions this one will be reviewed upon renewal and I might move my subscription dollars elsewhere. There is ample choice.
I’d rather seen Macstories moving their quality writing and exclusive content into Apple News + or Medium to reach a larger base. Also tiering based on consumption channel (web, forum, Discord, Twitch) rather than content would have been nice. Then again, I hope this adventure works out well for them.
Genuine question for those who feel like a second class citizen with the tiers. If you subscribed to iCloud before Apple launched Apple One, did you feel the same with their tiers? Help me understand what is different with Club MacStories. If you were a Club member previously, nothing is changing for you. You still get those perks.
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I wonder if it’s like groupies. Some people will have been with the band since they were nobodies, but eventually someone will start paying for the closest access. Sure I can still pay to go see every show, but I won’t be able to get backstage anymore because people are paying for that access.
There is a lot of music I like, a lot of bands I have multiple albums of, only a few I’ll be willing to pay to see live, even fewer I’ll schedule ahead of time, fewer still that I will pay expensive tickets for, and maybe one or two I’d consider paying for access in a meet and greet type setting.
If I follow a band on a journey from the bars to an arena, unless I’m an actually best friend, eventually I’ll get priced out. Maybe the band are nice if they see me, maybe they even remember me, but if they can make money of of people that can afford to pay to see them, I guess I wouldn’t be upset. Shoot, I’d be happy to any sucker that would pay money to meet me lol.
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