Hump Day: A Refresh Has Arrived!

[Daddy]

8 minutes ago, Matt said:

I understand that for you, your support enquiries are private. But you are not illustrative of most customers. 🙂 As always, if you have account issues or something to discuss in private, then use the contact us link.

You mean this? So I have to use the same form guests use to send spam and pre-sale questions to get private support?? The only way I can even see responses from this is by checking the email manually. What kind of BS is this?

[jesuralem]

8 minutes ago, Matt said:

I am just illustrating the change isn't as daunting when you break it down. We're used to speaking in terms of 6 months, and now we're talking in terms of annual costs. So even if we went from $25/6 months to $50/year it feels like a big jump.

You are right, but then you are definitely wrong to do it at the same time of a 50% price increase and without proper warning 🙂

I guess you chose to have kind of a "rip the band aid" approach.

[Matt]

3 minutes ago, Rizenmusic said:

You can't be serious about this, can you?

Yes. I think the changes to support will be beneficial in the longer term. I truly do. More complex issues will be moved to tickets by our team.

[Duken]

Just now, Matt said:

If you want to renewal an app, or buy new apps you need to renew your license (and if you have missed upgrades due to not having an active license, go ahead and upgrade to the latest version).

Ok that sounds fair. So i can stop the renewal and just renew the licence when there a features i really need? Like version 4.7 or 5.0. I don't need to rebuy the forum software again?

[marklcfc]

I keep reading comments about self hosted not getting marketplace now, where does it say this that can't be true surely?

[Daddy]

29 minutes ago, Deathicated said:

With the recent and questionable changes to the marketplace, exclusive cloud-only features, and now this.. Seems like an intentional move to coax people into switching to cloud hosting.

4 minutes ago, Matt said:

Many things were updated yesterday, the site, the self hosting prices, and we launched a new range of cloud packages which offer huge increases in media storage, and we dropped the online user limit.

Edited September 15, 2021 by Deathicated

[Matt]

1 minute ago, jesuralem said:

You are right, but then you are definitely wrong to do it at the same time of a 50% price increase and without proper warning 🙂

I guess you chose to have kind of a "rip the band aid" approach.

A fair point.

[Duken]

1 minute ago, marklcfc said:

I keep reading comments about self hosted not getting marketplace now, where does it say this that can't be true surely?

Yes and no, is you do not renew the licence the marktetplace is a... a.... its a place to update bought applications.

[Matt]

2 minutes ago, Duken said:

Ok that sounds fair. So i can stop the renewal and just renew the licence when there a features i really need? Like version 4.7 or 5.0. I don't need to rebuy the forum software again?

You can, but really we would urge you to keep your software up to date. We often release security updates or improvements that would benefit your community. We are looking to increase the speed of releases to a monthly release schedule so everyone gets bug fixes and new features regularly.

2 minutes ago, marklcfc said:

I keep reading comments about self hosted not getting marketplace now, where does it say this that can't be true surely?

It is not true at all. Self hosted customers still get access to the marketplace, and can upload their own modifications outside of the marketplace as normal. Nothing has changed there.

Just now, Deathicated said:

 

It might be that our cloud option is a better fit when you take into account hosting costs and the hassle of maintaining PHP and MySQL updates, etc. Our infrastructure leverages many tools to improve performance of your site.

But we're not forcing a move.

3 minutes ago, Duken said:

Yes and no, is you do not renew the licence the marktetplace is a... a.... its a place to update bought applications.

This has not changed with this update, to be clear.

[Daddy]

1 minute ago, Matt said:

It might be that our cloud option is a better fit when you take into account hosting costs and the hassle of maintaining PHP and MySQL updates, etc. Our infrastructure leverages many tools to improve performance of your site.

Clarification: We're going to make self hosting licenses so inconvenient to make cloud hosting more appealing. Scummmmmmmmy.

Edited September 15, 2021 by Deathicated

[Matt]

7 minutes ago, Deathicated said:

You mean this? So I have to use the same form guests use to send spam and pre-sale questions to get private support?? The only way I can even see responses from this is by checking the email manually. What kind of BS is this?

That goes directly to our ticket system. It won't have to fight spam or pre-sales questions. The tickets are staffed and you will get a reply.

Just now, Deathicated said:

Wedding Crashers? Great movie, one of my favourites. 

[jesuralem]

11 minutes ago, Matt said:

I believe that we will improve support, and not take anything away with this change. We will build a support community right here, the same thing we do for our customers.

I tend to agree with you, but then again it is a major cultural change regarding the way you provide support, you have to understand that people can't easily project into the new way of doing thing.

Also, if you believe in community support, you should also consider having a community roadmap with a way to vote for features and so...

 

[ZLTRGO]

With this new higher price and not even ticket support anymore after January, I kinda expect faster bug fixes and definitely new "big" features that are suggestion since months on the forum....
And with regular I mean 2x monthly(or comparable) updates etc... and an actual Roadmap.
If it keeps this paste with the new prices and no longer ticket support, I legit feel ripped of 🙂

It's kinda like holding us self-hosters as hostage.

All the new marketplace changes since 4.5 don't make it better.

[Matt]

1 minute ago, jesuralem said:

I tend to agree with you, but then again it is a major cultural change regarding the way you provide support, you have to understand that people can't easily project into the new way of doing thing.

Also, if you believe in community support, you should also consider having a community roadmap with a way to vote for features and so...

 

 Oh, you snuck in the roadmap debate! Respect for getting that in. 😄 

Yes, I understand that customers are concerned about what this change means to them. I can only listen (well, read), understand and do my best to address those concerns.

[Paul2020]

56 minutes ago, Matt said:

We understand that people are upset and considering leaving

Yes. We have already decided to leave and not renew the licenses. 6 projects.

Edited September 15, 2021 by Paul2020

[kims79]

 

1 minute ago, Matt said:

It might be that our cloud option is a better fit when you take into account hosting costs and the hassle of maintaining PHP and MySQL updates, etc. Our infrastructure leverages many tools to improve performance of your site.

You should really make politics, we pay our hosting 42€ per month with a plesk license that allows us to change your PHP in one click and that hosts other sites with medium traffic without difficulty.
We would have no interest in switching to a proprietary cloud hosting at 129$ without any access to the machine and its configuration and without the possibility to install anything else from ipboard.

[Matt]

Just now, ZLTRGO said:

With this new higher price and not even ticket support anymore after January, I kinda expect faster bug fixes and definitely new "big" features that are suggestion since months on the forum....
And with regular I mean 2x monthly(or comparable) updates etc... and an actual Roadmap.
If it keeps this paste with the new prices and no longer ticket support, I legit feel ripped of 🙂

It's kinda like holding us self-hosters as hostage.

All the new marketplace changes since 4.5 don't make it better.

Ticket support still exists! We simply ask that you post your issues in the staffed forum and then they will be either resolved, or triaged into tickets.

We are moving to a monthly release schedule to deliver bug fixes and features more regularly.

We are not holding you hostage, but if we were, I'd ask for two helicopters and pizza with pineapple on.

[Paul2020]

55 minutes ago, Matt said:

We understand that people are upset and considering leaving

Yes. We have already decided to leave and not renew the licenses. 6 projects.

[Matt]

1 minute ago, Paul2020 said:

Yes. We have already decided to leave and not renew the licenses. 6 projects.

I'm sorry to hear that Paul. Feel free to DM me if you need help with anything.

Just now, kims79 said:

 

You should really make politics, we pay our hosting 42€ per month with a plesk license that allows us to change your PHP in one click and that hosts other sites with medium traffic without difficulty.
We would have no interest in switching to a proprietary cloud hosting at 129$ without any access to the machine and its configuration and without the possibility to install anything else from ipboard.

You could try our starter package, which is $49/month. You won't need to manage the internals, we do all that for you. It'll be one less thing to worry about so you can focus all your attention to growing and leading your community.

[jesuralem]

1 minute ago, Matt said:

Oh, you snuck in the roadmap debate! Respect for getting that in. 😄 

I have to say i am kinf of proud of myself 🙂

Coming from vbulletin, we had both public forum support and public roadmap and it seems appropriate. I have to say i really did appreciate the roadmap.

Maybe without going so far as the roadmap, having a suggested feature list and a voting system would be nice so the community would feel listened to and it may be a good input for you.

For instance my alarm provider has this very basic system : https://ajax.systems/features/

[Paul2020]

2 minutes ago, Matt said:

Feel free to DM me if you need help with anything

In addition to the price increase, we did not like your support. When we identified the error, you did not unsubscribe soon and said that it was not an error 😅 We corrected it ourselves

[WP V0RT3X]

Talking about the cloud and please correct me if I'm wrong but in the past there were afaik no guidelines what kind of communities are allowed on that hosting. I mean are NSFW sites allowed? In the app they were not for example.

[Matt]

Just now, Paul2020 said:

In addition to the price increase, we did not like your support. When we identified the error, you did not unsubscribe soon and said that it was not an error 😅 We corrected it ourselves

Appreciate the feedback and I'm sorry we weren't able to resolve your issue for you.

[Duken]

9 minutes ago, Matt said:

You can, but really we would urge you to keep your software up to date. We often release security updates or improvements that would benefit your community. We are looking to increase the speed of releases to a monthly release schedule so everyone gets bug fixes and new features regularly.

Ok clear, what are the new features of this year? Is there coming anything new before 2022? That can be a, yes i really need to renew the licence thing 🙂

[Matt]

Just now, Darth Vortex said:

Talking about the cloud and please correct me if I'm wrong but in the past there were afaik no guidelines what kind of communities are allowed on that hosting. I mean are NSFW sites allowed? In the app they were not for example.

Drop us a message and we can discuss it in more detail.