Hump Day: A Refresh Has Arrived!

[Dll]

10 minutes ago, Jordan Miller said:

In hindsight we could have sent that email out first - btw it's on its way as I type this. We were a few hours late with this and we apologize.

No no no. Come on. You weren't minutes late, you're weeks late. You have clients who have renewals at the new price due in days (maybe hours), which due to the change to annual pricing and the increase will mean an outlay of more than double what they were expecting. Can you not see how giving a reasonable amount of notice is the least you should have done?

Edited September 14, 2021 by Dll

[MythonPonty]

Thanks for support us / me the last years... But now it's time for me to check new possibilities.

310 $ a year are bad news. 

[Nathan Explosion]

50 minutes ago, Dll said:

You have clients who have renewals at the new price due in days (maybe hours)

This, to me, is the worst thing - I'm unaffected, I can plan for February, I can cover things.

But when you have someone who suddenly sees a "slight" rise in what they have to pay in a few days compared to what they had previously budgeted for? That's not on.

Edited September 14, 2021 by Nathan Explosion
Removing profanity

[CoffeeCake]

8 minutes ago, Jordan Miller said:

It would have been a good call to get that email out first

I am concerned that you might think that the feedback is "send an e-mail a few hours before changing the look of your web site (and oh-by-the-way-side-note-pricing-models-for-existing-clients-go-into-effect-immediately-with-no-significant-advance-notice)."

The feedback is that you should have provided notice on revised pricing models, inclusive of what those revised prices would be months before implementing those changes so that organizations could make appropriate changes in their expected operational expenses.

Speaking for our organization, there's no issue with the changes other than you didn't give any notice to revise our operational forecasts and planning, and our renewal is also in November. Thankfully, we have the ability to reallocate funds unexpectedly, yet not all of your customers are in that position, and it's rather poor form for what we consider a partner in our organization's ongoing success.

I receive an e-mail from a streaming video service that their monthly price will go up one dollar with more than a month's notice. It's just inexcusable to have tied this all into throwing a new shade of paint on your sales site.

[Jordan Miller]

📣  Hey fam, got word from the team. Hopefully this can help!

If you are facing an annual renewal very soon, and you want us to split that annual invoice into a 6 month one, we’ll happily do that for you this time. 🙂 

Reach out to us via our Contact page and we'll get you sorted. 

Btw just worth mentioning if you want to save up, you can pay into the account credit (in the client area) to help you budget for your site. 

[CoffeeCake]

Now, with lay-a-way!

[nodle]

This is kind of a bummer for me today. Just last week I was so excited to convert over from Xenforo. I thought man I really like this community and the route that they are going with their products. I wanted to join this platform so bad. Was so excited to see what the future holds. I really liked the way all the developers interreacted with the members here. I am ok with a slight price increase for a better product. I think the biggest disappointment is the lack of support coming. I am paying for a product, if I run into a problem with that product as long as I have active support I would like help with it. It's like purchasing insurance. Might not ever need it but it's nice to know that it's there. I even thought about paying for the premium support here recently. For $100 even if I never needed it I thought it's not to bad of a price, now mine shows $1250 for that same support. I thought this morning after checking out the new site design, that this was all just a mess up with the prices from the new site design. But after reading all day it seems real. No one will go with the addons purchases anymore unless you are a big forum because of the price increase. Then it will start a chain reaction and won't have developers anymore for addons since people will be bailing. Now I am stuck with two choices either pay the high prices or now I have to convert everything back over to Xenforo after being back with IPS for only a week. Kind of depresses me. 

Edited September 14, 2021 by nodle

[MythonPonty]

19 minutes ago, MythonPonty said:

Thanks for support us / me the last years... But now it's time for me to check new possibilities.

310 $ a year are bad news. 

The only way I would go, would be ...

The current costs of $ 310 split to $ 155 if the customer pay in 6 month method, or a customer benefit of $ 210 if you pay annually. This gives IPS a clear advance and allows you to calculate better.

At the same time, the (loyal) customer receives a loyalty bonus if he pays annually in advance.

That would be one way that I would support.

[vometia]

Well that's a massive bummer.  Email out of the blue telling me "oh btw your next bill will be over three times what you were expecting.  oh btw² support will now be a Premium add-on, instead you'll have to make do with the forum nobody uses and where we've just hidden everything.  lol."

😧

27 minutes ago, Jordan Miller said:

Btw just worth mentioning if you want to save up, you can pay into the account credit (in the client area) to help you budget for your site. 

Er... no?

[Arcade King]

Happy to pay extra for a premium product however not sure how I feel paying for support for issues created by the software itself.

Myself and my users have been very happy since moving from VB5. I've put in a handful of requests relating to the conversion such as passwords not transferring, VB5/4 links not pointing to the topic/posts they are supposed to and other errors in the Admin CP.

In each case support has been great to a certain point with "yes we have a fix" but none of the issue have yet to be resolved. Should I be paying for premium support for these issues that are out of my control?

[Steph40]

39 minutes ago, MythonPonty said:

Thanks for support us / me the last years... But now it's time for me to check new possibilities.

310 $ a year are bad news. 

Yep, me too. Been thinking about it since marketplace changes now this, grrrr.

[Marc Stridgen]

1 hour ago, Yamamura said:

"We have thousands of clients to email." Now these thousands of clients will write not to email, but to the forum, creating thousands of topics.

Sorry, but I think this is an absolutely wrong step in development.

I don’t mind the new prices, but I don’t like the new type of "support" at all 😞

Those emails created those same topics, just in the ticket system. So your issues will not become any more hidden than they have been. We have the same volume, just in a different location, monitored more effectively. 

[Steph40]

4 hours ago, opentype said:

There is the established system of grandfathering existing prices while only charging more for new customers for example.

That would be very respectful.

[Nathan Explosion]

Interesting: 2 minutes ago, I didn't edit the post up above...someone else did. I still stand by the jokey reference I made there, and I don't mind it being edited out. What I don't appreciate is you editing it and making out that it was me that did the edit.

 

[Marc Stridgen]

3 minutes ago, Nathan Explosion said:

Interesting: 2 minutes ago, I didn't edit the post up above...someone else did. I still stand by the jokey reference I made there, and I don't mind it being edited out. What I don't appreciate is you editing it and making out that it was me that did the edit.

 

That appears to be a bug I will get a report in for. I assure you it wasn't intentional and should actually state myself who edited 

[Hexsplosions]

1 hour ago, The Heff said:

Secondly, and this is leaves a far more bitter taste in my mouth, it's a great way of increasing IPS's cash flow whilst simultaneously hurting mine.

44 minutes ago, Jordan Miller said:

Btw just worth mentioning if you want to save up, you can pay into the account credit (in the client area) to help you budget for your site.

I honestly think I'm done here.

[Ramsesx]

Just seen, the "create button" was removed from the top on desktop. On mobile it looks like that:

Edited September 14, 2021 by Ramsesx

[Yamamura]

26 minutes ago, Marc Stridgen said:

Those emails created those same topics, just in the ticket system. So your issues will not become any more hidden than they have been. We have the same volume, just in a different location, monitored more effectively. 

Sorry, but "support" from the community on forums is inherent in free software. When a client pays money, he wants to have a private communication with the support (there can be many reasons for this).

[Square Wheels]

Holy crap, I missed the no more support part.

So, just so I understand.

Improvements and substantial releases will likely continue at the snail's pace we've seen over the past few year.

I like the six-month plan because of the lack of updates.  Why do I want to pay when there's nothing to upgrade?  Now I can't do that any longer.

Everything costs a lot more, more than hobby sites can afford.

Developers are already telling us (after only a few hours) that they are bailing out.  Add ons (sometimes for things you remove) will dry up.

If I need support, I have the honor of paying for it.

Seems like you helped your small customers make up their minds.

What a mess.

[abobader]

What strange email I got today from @Matt 

First the subject was somehow give the idea my account license had problem, then they are good news to start with as price rise? Good news for whom? Yes for IPS indeed not for customers.

I and other whom been with IPS from start been with this, no problem, if that will lead for better support, but:

Now with this price rise you drop the support (no matters how you explain it, it very clear you drop your support) and force me to use the community for it, or of Couse pay as well for support.

My records show I always goes and supporting IPS, but this time, the term for support is not acceptable at all.

I hope you reconsider you support term again, thanks.

 

[Sonya*]

15 minutes ago, Yamamura said:

Sorry, but "support" from the community on forums is inherent in free software. When a client pays money, he wants to have a private communication with the support (there can be many reasons for this).

To be fair, consider support communities for paid software:

• https://talk.plesk.com/
• https://community.kaspersky.com/ 
• https://communities.sas.com/
• https://community.adobe.com/

Searching for already fixed issues can save time. 

[ahc]

Jesus Christ

The timing of this is just so uncanny to me. I was already doing the last app/plugin updates for what we have on our community with our current renewal, but we(staff) already silently decided to leave Invision behind going forward and I'd say we made this decision at the perfect time. 

When I joined back in 2017 this community was thriving. Now I come to check and it's quite dead when you take into consideration how many users it has and how many used to be active. I believe the final nail in the coffin for this was when the forum was reorganized and all community content was placed behind a paywall (needing an active license).  It's pretty much a ghost town unless you give someone something to argue about, but I've already given my opinions on this in the past so I won't waste time rehashing.

In the past year alone we have noticed a huge decline in the marketplace with numerous developers leaving and a lot of things becoming abandoned due to low sales and neglect from Invision's part for some of their own apps. I've been worried about this since 2018/19, and my concern just kept growing after each update and policy change. I've slowly realized that this may have not been the best software to use for my type of community, but I knew with the marketplace we could do our best to mold it the way we need it.  That clearly won't be an option for us now when there's only a few developers I trust to buy from and I see them posting about dropping support for apps that we use heavily. (An art site can't exist without a gallery, even though the gallery app is the most atrocious thing and we've spent so much money trying to improve it ourselves.)

I say good luck to those who didn't have plans of leaving before today and also to those who decide to stay due to whatever circumstances. We've put thousands of dollars into this software, but eventually you have to sit down and really think about whether or not taking the loss is worth it in the end if you can do better elsewhere. The lack of transparency while preaching about transparency, the cheesy community manager reply rhetoric, and the subtle gaslighting is just bonkers.

Edited September 14, 2021 by ahc

[Zapusto]

Your sandbox, your rules.

Certainly I can understand the price increase as that helps foster development. But it should also foster a quality and convenient support level.

I can say without hesitation that i have zero interest in posting a support question publicly, to then have it dissected and commented upon by people with whom I have no financial relationship. And with the alternative being $1250 for a few questions I have during the year, I just cannot justify that cost. Without justifiable product support, it's time to move on.

As an aside, with my first license being 17 years ago in 2004, it's been a good run.

Best regards.

Edited September 15, 2021 by Zapusto

[Square Wheels]

So here's an example.  I put in a ticket (a while ago) and was told the slowness of clicking view more content at the bottom of a stream was a query issue on their part and would be fixed in the current release.  It does not seem to be.  So now, I need to pay 1250 dollars to ask you to fix an issue with your software, that I paid for, and hear again that I need to wait for the next update?

I'm normally a pretty levelheaded person.  I can't understand, or explain, how angry I feel, how tricked and deceived this makes me feel, and how likely I will simply move my sites to another platform just to feel like I won.

I need to cool off for a bit, I am one very unhappy customer 

[marklcfc]

1 minute ago, Square Wheels said:

I put in a ticket (a while ago) and was told the slowness of clicking view more content at the bottom of a stream

I’ve been asking about that for about five years 😆 @Ryan Ashbrook has a fix but I have to keep reuploading it as it’s never in the official releases for some reason