While I am positively allergic to monthly charges, it strikes me that having a paid listings service is a good idea for a reason that no one here has yet mentioned: that it mitigates a major risk for anyone wanting to build and sell Myth boxes.
I don't sell Myth boxes, but the idea has occured to me. I'm a tinkerer not a salesman, and I would have a hard time selling someone a $1000 machine that I knew could stop functioning at any time for reasons entirely beyond my or the user's control (let alone the reasons within my control). If you give a person the option of a free listings service that can drop off sometimes and may be cancelled in the future, and a paid service that adds good content and is priced reasonably, the person will more than likely chose to pay and feel good about it. I also like the idea of the voting system -- it encourages participation in the project and does something to show where the subscription money is going, and it allows the project to develop at an even faster clip. I'd be curious to know what kind of strategy estimates LxM has -- how many people they figure will sign up in the next year or so. The FAQ says that they may have to raise the $5 fee in the future. If it takes off like wildfire and they have 100,000 subscribers next year, would the fee go down? I'd be more skeptical of this if it didn't have the blessing of the developers. On balance, however, this is a very good move for MythTV. It will open Myth to more users, provide a financial base for future development, and, most importantly, allow MythTV to continue as a free, collaborative project of unlimited flexibility, which is why most of us got involved in the first place. We shouldn't be fretting about this, we should be toasting it. Congratulations, MythTV. _______________________________________________ mythtv-users mailing list [email protected] http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
