Matt

Because we have to pay for things too? And those things are billed based on usage too. 🙂 $54/month is not a lot when you consider a decent VPS is almost that on its own. But I accept that everyone has different needs and comfort levels. All we can offer is options. I can't speak on behalf of the third-party developers. I also have not been contacted by a single third-party developer here, or in our shared Slack channel to be told they are leaving. So I can't really say that I agree with the view that we are facing a mass exodus of developers because I'm just not seeing it.

We never wanted to be the cheapest, just the best. 🙂

It's natural to assume that everyone thinks alike, but it's rarely the case. The expectation is now that you buy a service, and not a product. Downloading zips, inflating zips, uploading files, setting up MySQL databases and so on will likely die with Gen x (of which I am, and likely my death is now wished to be expedited 😅) I understand your POV and I'm not mocking you or anyone else. It's not usually wise to make knee-jerk promises. I've found this out the hard way.

The renewal cost also gets you updates (including major features) as well as support. However, as you have rightly stated, there are free tools to build a community on too.

To whom do you speak for? Who is "we"?

Some customers won't have renewals until well into 2022, we have to draw a line somewhere unfortunately.

NSFW is NSFW. I can't give you an answer without knowing more about the site, and I assumed you wouldn't want to discuss it publicly?

The simple reason is that if you choose to not renew, then you cannot upgrade. If you do not upgrade then you are likely to be on an outdated version of Invision Community which may not be compatible with the latest releases of the third party applications. Say you're on 4.3 and you go and buy an app written for 4.5, it likely won't work. It's not a hostage situation, more of a sensible precaution. But I'm serious about the pizza. I can look into your issues if you'd like? We're actually increasing support costs as we'll be hiring new people to ensure good coverage on the support forums. We are serious about wanting to create a comprehensive well staffed support community.

It wasn't my intention, just reminding that our entry level package is $49 which may be suitable. It's hard for me to know without seeing your site and its needs. 🙂

Jordan posted about some new functionality coming in the next release. I also just added stock replies and I'm working through some achievement refinements. Those are in the pipeline over the next 3-4 weeks.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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. Wedding Crashers? Great movie, one of my favourites.

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

A fair point.

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.

Ok, so if your Invision Community license expires, you can: - Update any marketplace apps that are still active but only until they expire. 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). 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.

You do not need to give us $1000 to get support. Our peer-to-peer community-led support forums still exist. We have created new support forums which are staffed. What you experienced in the past from 'unofficial' forum support will not be representative of what support you will get now. Oh boy, I think it's only fair to tell you that I've only just reached Checkpoint 3 with Duolingo. If you need a meal ordering, or a hotel reservation booking, I can do that. But for this, I'm going to have to rely on Google translate. 😄 Ok, well - I think you're expressing your thoughts and opinions which I respect. I know Zapier isn't free but it's a popular app that can really help plug in your community to your existing workflows.

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. 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. 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. You'll get full transparency as to what issues our customers face before you purchase, or even as an existing customer. You might find tips or help for issues before opening a ticket. I realise that any change is often met with resistance, but give it a while and you may be surprised. Zapier is being unlocked for self hosted customers in the next release. Drop us a message and we'll issue you a 6 months invoice. I do not want to be responsible for any soft tissue injuries in sensitive places.

I think the floodgates are open 😅 I do not enjoy reading that people are upset. We could have done better with the announcement via email, but I think whatever we did on this topic would have met with a similar reaction. I want you to know that no one is forcing you out of the door.

That's a lot to digest, I'll do my best. I think we do understand the market quite well. We live and breathe it daily. There's no revelation that smaller communities are closing or moving to social media. It's just a change, like all the other changes we've faced over the last 20 years building community platforms. I don't think it's fair to say that we haven't added any major features in the last 2 years. Our blog shows the following large features added in that timespan: Activity stream email subscriptions 3 improvements to spam management Achievements system (badges, points, rules, ranks, etc) Better PWA support including service worker and notifications where supported Zapier A new health dashboard with better reporting Highlight topics in forum view when staff reply A new solved post feature Anonymous posting Sign in with Apple Brought the marketplace into the Admin Panel Trial functionality added to commerce A new clean default theme Improvements for theme designers Page builder widgets Private staff notes on topics New view modes for forums and topic lists Topic summary sidebar ACP Dark mode Improvements to notifications Brand new stats dashboard with live updating widgets Club improvements Performance and security updates Search insight stats Stock photo picker built in Blog categories Invite and referral functionality added RSS feed improvements (including image support) And those are just the headlines. All of that functionality is available just by paying the renewal which for forums is now only $80/year. I understand that you're upset, and I read every word you wrote.

Fair points, appreciate the candour. I hear you. Maybe just give it a try? It's easy to throw out a thousand mental barriers as to why something won't work. You might actually find it a better system for most support issues. If you have an account issue or something private to discuss, just use the contact us link.