About a year ago I ranted about MacSurfer's "Subscription" request. At the time I felt that in order to earn my $35 per year MacSurfer had to do four things: improve their site design, offer an ad free option, offer a daily news wrap-up, and offer some kind of feedback.
Back then I used John Gruber's Daring Fireball as an example of a site with a simple buy nice looking layout. Now I am happy to report that I can also point to DaringFireball as a site that is ad free, has a daily news wrap-up (rss feed), and is considering some kind of user coments system.
When a t-shirt was offered up as part of the deal, I couldn't pass up the deal and I put my money where my mouth is. For $35 I get to support a great independent journalist, see his suggested links for the day, and t-shirt. Plus, he promises other "member's only" features in the future. Hell, I might even when some fantastic prizes.
MacSurfer could learn a few things from Daring Fireball. I hope that MacSurfer's subscriptions have done well over the last year, but so far they have done nothing (besides continuing to exist) to encourage subscribers to re-up.
If Apple charged an annual subscription fee on Mac OS X with no feature increases, the Mac community would go ape-shit. Publishing software is not the same as publishing a website, but the anology isn't stretched to thin.
Posted by Noah Brimhall at July 9, 2004 04:50 PMI thought OS X's annual subscription fee was $129...
Posted by: Eddie Hargreaves at July 10, 2004 08:10 AMNot really annual and not really a subscription fee.
Paid Mac OS X versions:
10.0 - "Cheetah" - March 24th 2001
10.1 - "Puma" - Sept. 29th, 2001
10.2 - "Jaguar" - Aug. 13, 2002
10.3 - "Panther" - Oct. 24th, 2003
10.4 - "Tiger" - Mid 2005
So the gap between the releases is getting larger and you never have to upgrade so I don't think it counts as an annual subscription. Plus you actually get new and improved features.
Posted by: Noah Brimhall at July 10, 2004 09:11 AMThe mac community goes apeshit all the time, sometimes without any reason at all.
Posted by: Andy at July 12, 2004 01:16 PM