[Ardour-Users] Could this solve Ardour's financial headache?

[John Emmas]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Patrick Shirkey"
Subject: Re: [Ardour-Users] Could this solve Ardour's financial headache?
>
> We have at least three solutions for ramping up funding for Ardour that
> have been put on the table. Subscriptions are doing a good job, if we
> add the ticker and the svn access ideas into the mix then we will force
> people to make a choice. The choice is do they like what they get from
> Ardour and are they willing to contribute or not?
>
That's all true Patrick but it's not quite the full picture.  The
fundamental problem is that most people will only pay for software if
there's no other way to get it.  And (most importantly) if someone *has to*
pay for software, a one-off fee is more attractive (to most people) than an
ongoing subscription.  What Ardour needs is a more reliable way to encourage
those one-off payments.

My own view is that the best time to do this is early on in the user's
experience.  In fact, most of the previous replies have only confirmed a
point I made in an earlier post - namely that when people start off with the
notion of NOT having to pay for something, they are rarely receptive to
paying for it later.  The best time to ask for payment is usually after a
successful trial period - and the best way is either to make the s/ware time
out (which isn't practical in Ardour's case) OR to offer something that
isn't strictly needed but is highly desirable (such as premium support) OR
to have a set of "pro" features that only work in the paid-for version.  I'm
sure there must be other options too - but the key is that they must offer
something of value that you can't get if you don't contribute (either
financially or technically).

Just food for though.

John