@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.
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.
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.
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).
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+
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?
I never see any websites with ads. I use AdGuard. Included with SetApp.
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.
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.
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.
@jaketheo based on my reading of this thread, it seems because they now have higher tiers, they will be saving articles for the higher tiers which previously may be just included in the club mac stories membership. Off course they will never admit to this. It’s hard to gauge these things. For example, this article from John may have previously been included in the monthly log but now since they have higher tiers it’s going to be included there instead.
The Apple one example is different because Apple basically combined all the other services into one bundled price.
Because I am not a subscriber, I cannot speak from experience but this is what it seems like.
It also is human nature to want something like a discount for being an early adopter or a long time customer. I am not saying they should get it. Just because you want something doesn’t mean it will be offered to you. But as humans, when we do not get what we want, we make some noise lol
I wish anyone trying to grow an online business all the best.
I didn’t because Apple One introduced new services to me, without impacting what I already paid for. I could make a rational choice whether it was at value for me to upgrade to get AppleTV+, Apple News +, Arcade etc. It didn’t affect at all my use of iCloud data, iPhone backups and application sync.
In the MacStories case I am teased by an article I want to read (In the past I read everything from them) and get a paywall asking me to upgrade my membership. If this happened because they branched out into PC news or gaming reviews or anything non-Apple I would understand and I have a choice to determine value add for upgrade.
