what price quality?

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shall we increase the price of x2 to $40?

yes, and make me a shareholder plz
4
80%
no, I think it will hurt your income overall
1
20%
 
Total votes: 5

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drac
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Re: what price quality?

Post by drac »

Kilmatead, you continue to be my advocate and my champion. Keep up the good work!!!

Nikos, I agree with Kilmatead's assessment of your attitude towards changes. From my perspective you start with the workaround and then become defensive, as you are in your posts above. You use deflection and excuses (I am working for all the users) to justify your ignoring of input. The problem is, that only works in your own mind. Those of us that have been ignored are not fooled.

I would know more if I could interact with you visually and audibly - not just via text which lacks any of the sensory clues that we humans use to add understanding to interactions with others. However, your "threat" to raise the price of lifetime licenses seems like an angry reaction to our input and another attempt to bite the hands that "feed you: (literally). If you wish to raise that price along with other prices (new purchases, upgrades, etc.) that is one thing, but you make it sound like a punishment to people that have been the most supportive. Financially, I would suggest you eliminate the lifetime upgrade completely (except for those already having it). If you come out with upgrades that are worth having and are fairly priced, people will pay for them. If they do not have any improvements worth having, you will not see as many upgrades. That business model may compel you to cater to user requests more than your current philosophy.

The whole discussion of the decline of the desktop is interesting but moot. This thread is about ways for you to improve your income from X2, not whether you should continue developing X2. If you do not want to implement a suggestion, before discarding it why not ask other users what they think? Find out whether it is a one off (solipsistic) or has appeal to others. A feature does NOT have to appeal to a majority to have value. At this point in X2's life cycle, you have already added all the big stuff and most of the middle stuff. The improvements you tend to make now are in the finish (cleaning up the look and feel - making X2 seem more polished and intuitive). I suggest that you be more open to the smaller changes that, in the past, would NOT have been worthwhile because of much more important enhancements. I suggest you adjust the attitudes that were useful in the past (like denying changes not of use to the majority) and adapt to where X2 is today.
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nikos
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Re: what price quality?

Post by nikos »

drac, clearly a visual connection would help the discussion because you are veering off in the wrong direction :)
i am not threatening anybody, I was planning to increase the price of everything, and now I'm going to increase just the lifetime cover prices, how threatening is that?

as for the requests I ignore, many of them go like this:

user: I am used to do action X like this and xplorer2 does the same in a slightly different way
nikos: please try to get used to the x2 way because if I was to change everything along with each small request I would drive me and other users crazy
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drac
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Re: what price quality?

Post by drac »

Nikos, you are correct that parts of my posts appeared to be a bit off topic, but other parts of the same posts (for example my most recent above) also addressed the financial issues which IS the topic of this thread.

But, as I suggested above, making changes to X2 DOES have a financial impact IF those changes get X2 ranked higher in reviews.

Without access to your financials I cannot offer accurate, knowledgeable input. However with the info I have I can still offer opinions though they are nothing I can stand behind. Lets take a worst (or maybe best for you) case example. ALL current X2 users buy the lifetime license. That gives you an influx of cash (though I do not know how much). It also relives you of ever having to make another change to X2 - and it give users no power at all to get any changes they may want. I do not understand the logic behind raising the price of the lifetime license. If you did so ALONG WITH raising the price of X2 and X2 upgrades that would seem logical. Because it seems illogical to me, based on my knowledge of your financials, I took the position that it was some kind of punishment.

My main reason for talking about enhancements in this thread is to get you to see that enhancements and your financial success are VERY closely related. Making the right enhancements can improve your finances and making other enhancements may not have much effect on your finances.

Being callus, and speaking financially, you do not have to please the people who already have lifetime licenses. You are never getting any more money from them. You need to please people like me who do not have a lifetime license and would have to pay for an upgrade and also people who do not yet have X2 who would have to pay the full price for a new version.

In the relatively short time I have had X2 none of the changes you made were anything I cared about. I think you should make such changes if others want them - but I also think you should include changes that I request IF they make X2 better - and not just for me. I am not asking you to CHANGE the way X2 does something. I am asking you (in the one case I mentioned above) to add ease of use functionality that would not change the way X2 is currently used but would ADD a new interface to reduce the work of doing a common task making that task easier for us less experienced users.

I do not know YOUR vision for X2. Maybe you see it as a tool for sophisticated users and NOT a product for beginning or intermediate users. In that case your market is limited and so are your finances.
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nikos
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Re: what price quality?

Post by nikos »

I am not trying to be confrontational with you, I hope this comes out as a civil discussion!

I always imagined xplorer2 as a tool where there is a small set of consistent fundamental actions (e.g. filtering on attributes) that can be applied synthetically to any file management task. A generic tool is a jack of all trades and master of none (in the sense that it isn't tailored to the job, not as user friendly as it is possible)

down the road what I plan to do is to develop a range of specialized tools (separate products), which will be just tailored for the job done, e.g one for syncrhonizing, one for cleaning up your disk etc

and no, I'm not trying to sell you a lifetime cover, I'd much rather you paid for all your upgrades every now and then :)
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pschroeter
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Re: what price quality?

Post by pschroeter »

If you don't raise the price you could use the lack of a price increase for marketing: 10 years and still only 30 dollars!
For some psychological reason $40 dollars seems like a big price increase to me, but something like $35.99 doesn't bother me.
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drac
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Re: what price quality?

Post by drac »

Nikos, I was not trying to be confrontational. That is a problem with posts as opposed to being able to hear voice inflection, volume and pitch or see body language. I am just trying to be helpful and address the issue of making you more money.

It would be nice if those other products could be used either standalone or could integrate with X2 and appear on the menu. The problem with a single function application is that there is a very low price point. If there are enough to choose from, you could adjust pricing so the average price decreases as one purchases more: $10 each or 3 for $20.
profess
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Re: what price quality?

Post by profess »

how i see it is

there are different types of users. you need to 'appeal' to as many of us/them as possible. probably you feel that appealing is pandering to. probably away from your original philosophy.
nikos wrote:I always imagined xplorer2 as a tool where there is a small set of consistent fundamental actions (e.g. filtering on attributes) that can be applied synthetically to any file management task.
but i would say yes, you have achieved what you originally set out to do.

x2 has always adhered to the original idea. but like in any civilisation there is an advancement and a progression of the people. the pioneers just wanted to 'get it to work', the next set of people may 'make it look nice', and once the foundations have been laid then the real advancement and technological breakthroughs happen. you've done these steps already. however consider that new architects come along and improve the building; artists come and retouch the artwork and allow others to appreciate the original even more. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19349921 - but i digress... :)

i know the reason certain features are not in place is because you may not use them. you may not have a care for them - but there are others that do.

as the different types of users of x2 may be:

basic users doing basic functionality. every now and then they read the manual and get some new insight and are excited by new possibilities. they touch on the surface of the app and every now and then scrape slightly deeper to find it can do more (lots more).

these users may like a few basic functions and to access them simply. most of your users (or a third) may be from this group.

intermediates will apply a few filters and do some more complex copying and syncing.

advanced users - coders, DOS, command liners etc. These people use 'all' of x2's features, or have the ability to use it to its full capabilities.

one of these users may make a suggestion. suggestions appeal to other 'like minded' users.
-

each of these users will suggest something that will 1) primarily make their use/work easier, 2) make others lives easier too. will the new feature be used all the time by everyone - maybe not. but does it come in handy when you do need it - yes.

some changes make people's lives easier. something that still bugs me (and i think why is it still like this) is setting up new user commands and having to jump forwards and backwards through setting everything; different boxes and dialogues for the same process. would it make my life easier if it was changed - yes slightly. will it probably improve others workflow if changed - yes still. but does it appeal to you?

remember some of us have been with the program (and you - which is important) from 2xExplorer days. we're all still with you.

this discussion started off with asking about raising prices. generally people (here!) won't have a problem because x2 is already valuable. some have invested in the product (and you) and bought lifetime guarantees. x2 is valuable. we know it. we use it. we compare it to the others with how 'simple' we can get things done. other file manager users would swear by theirs. we stick by x2 (and you).

x2 is already successful and valuable. add value to your product.
Live life...
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drac
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Re: what price quality?

Post by drac »

Profess, well said!

In your description I would qualify as somewhere between a basic and intermediate user. However I started using computers before the PC and when I started with the PC it was on the original - with DOS and 2 floppy drives. I am a programmer so I am quite technical but not with the latest technologies (anything added after Win 95 :oops: ). I use the parts of X2 that I need and, occasionally learn about something new. I read the daily tips that appear each time I start X2 (I am into the 2nd iteration of the same tips) and hope that I at least remember what it can do - figuring if I need that feature I can find out HOW to do it, then.

I keep my folders small so for the most part, searching is not much of an issue. If I need to search it is usually the entire drive or the entire HD and I can use the Window's search for that (slow, but not needed very often). So even though X2 has an extremely robust search it is not all that important to ME. As Profess said, we (the X2 community) are a varied lot with different needs and ways of doing things. If Nikos is writing X2 based on his needs, he is not meeting the needs of all his users.

As I have said repeatedly in this thread, the best way to make more money is to ask all the users to submit requests for features and implement as many as are feasible (without taking away from or changing the way X2 works). Unfortunately it seems that those on this forum represent just a small number of the total users and even this group is not all that interested in voicing an opinion as evidenced by the survey Nikos added to this thread.
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