Sunday, October 11, 2009 by Chris Houston

I love getting feedback, but why bother spending time getting in touch when being anonymous. It's like the person sending this almost knew that (s)he was asking a little too much ;-)

Picture 49

The irony however was that the person missed the opportunity of getting free umbraco.tv forever with just twenty minutes.

If you'd like to get some free umbraco.tv content, there's always the videos on Document Type basics or User Control basics.

16 comment(s) for “Another day at the office”

  1. Gravatar ImageSimon Justesen Says:
    11 Oct 09 @ 02:32 GMT+1

    Hehe, maybe it was Stallman who stopped by to say hello :D

  2. Gravatar ImageJay Greasley Says:
    12 Oct 09 @ 11:31 GMT+1

    They are very angry aren't they, what a waste of energy!

    Of course they are right, who charges for anything in this world. oh, hang on - everyone.

  3. Gravatar ImagePaul Duncan Says:
    12 Oct 09 @ 04:49 GMT+1

    They're not asking "too much".

    Not everyone in the world charges for "how-to" videos.

    You want to promote the software? You want people to install it and be successful? Perhaps instead of charging them a bunch of money on a subscription basis for things like "Introduction" and "Creating an Edit Page" you should be "giving them away" (as if) so people will be empowered to install and USE the software.

    Imagine if you gave someone a car then charged them $50 grand for the key? Justified? A great business model? How many cars (or rather keys) would you sell?

    Not a lot. And not without a lot of "angry" customers.

  4. Gravatar ImageUmbraco Convert Says:
    12 Oct 09 @ 05:38 GMT+1

    Is it or is it not justified to ask ppl for money on video tutorials when there is not one printed book tutorial out there for your platform is not something I would like to get into now...I have decided Umbraco's gonna be my WCMS of choice so I'm gonna pay.
    However..I do very much mind the fact that only PayPal payments are allowed now; not all the planet has access to PayPal, so how much would it cost you more to allow direct cc payments? PP must be charging you % anyway, so why not allow me to use just my Visa or moneybookers.

    p.s.I'm now working on getting myself a PP, but it's gonna be a hassle, and it allready cost me 10% of what I'm gonna use it for :(

    Justifiably angry!?

  5. Gravatar ImageJason Says:
    12 Oct 09 @ 06:20 GMT+1

    IMO, At 19 euros it is not prohibitive. Less than most technical books. You could easily watch all of the videos in a week or so. Then cancel it at the end of the month.

    Even better, roll the cost into your contracts or expense it.

  6. Gravatar ImageHans Says:
    12 Oct 09 @ 09:40 GMT+1

    I am researching Umbraco to see if this will be our CMS of choice. I was "amused" by the thoughts. While I agree that providing basic information for free is a good thing, I also think that if I got a $30k car for free, I would be able to pay $300US for a key (cost of many high tech key replacements in our region).

  7. Gravatar ImageHartvig Says:
    13 Oct 09 @ 09:17 GMT+1

    I think Hans got a point.

    After all remember that the software is free.

    We'll include umbraco.tv subscriptions for free to all PRO versions within a few weeks.

    We'd also love to add another payment provider and it'll come for sure, but for us it was the easiest thing to use PayPal in the beginning. We're based in Denmark, Europe and unfortunately it's a little bit more of a hassle to get a proper payment gateway than in the US/UK for instance.

    Thanks for the feedback!

  8. Gravatar ImageMikael Says:
    14 Oct 09 @ 06:20 GMT+1

    If people just spend 10 minutes to watch the free videos, before complaining, they would realize that 19 Euros is not a lot for the rest.

    Just my 19 eurocents

  9. Gravatar ImageHeather Floyd Says:
    14 Oct 09 @ 11:11 GMT+1

    Hey, I appreciate all the work that the core developers do - most umbraco users/developers don't ever pay anything to use this excellent software. I personally want umbraco to continue to exist and be developed, so I think it is justified that the core development team work out some different business models/revenue sources.

    I think the professional-quality production of the .tv videos (and how much time goes into creating them) certainly justifies the price tag.

    And hey, if you don't want to pay - there is a TON of free content, blog posts, code samples, packages, and yes, even videos, available online from the core team, and the wider community.

    Peace.

  10. Gravatar ImageWayne Says:
    15 Oct 09 @ 02:39 GMT+1

    I agree with Floyd. Don't forget, Umbraco, such a wonderful software is free for users. Umbraco team, I will stand behind you.

  11. Gravatar ImagePaul Marden Says:
    15 Oct 09 @ 05:58 GMT+1

    I paid, cos I thought the videos were a great training aid.

    But let's just think about another famous, hugely successful opensource company, RedHat for example. They give their software and source code away for free. But they are a commercial company with overheads (staff and buildings) and shareholders who'd like to earn a buck or two so they charge for their support and professional services.

    Umbraco give away their software and source code for free and what d'ya know they charge for training materials and support.

    I think it's a very democratic model, if you're clever then read the source code, you don't need the video's or the training.

    But if you want to gain a competitive advantage by fast tracking your learning, then you need to pay the guys a few Euro's. They're not asking much, just remember they have overheads (family and kids) and they'd like to earn a Euro or two.

  12. Gravatar ImageDarren Ferguson Says:
    16 Oct 09 @ 10:28 GMT+1

    @paul duncan - i think your argument may be valid if the training videos were the only source of information out there, but this isn't the case.

  13. Gravatar ImageMatt Tilbury Says:
    16 Oct 09 @ 04:40 GMT+1

    Niels,

    To misquote Abe Lincoln, "you can please some of the people all of the time, all of the people some...".

    Keep up the good work and we get the business model and appreciate the effort.

    :-)

  14. Gravatar ImageNik Wahlberg Says:
    16 Oct 09 @ 10:10 GMT+1

    There is always going to be a handful of people in a crowd that have nothing but negativity to add to an otherwise productive environment. Unfortunately, these people don't get the point of the Umbraco project. You are already getting, literally, thousands of man-hours for free when you download your latest version of Umbraco.

    Do you **REALLY** think $25 is out of the question? Again, check out the forum (our.umbraco.org) for a slew of helpful, talented, and dedicated members that are standing by to help you get started. We all want this project to succeed, hence want you to succeed as well.

    Cheers!

  15. Gravatar ImageVarun Maggo Says:
    28 Oct 09 @ 01:26 GMT+1

    I wish these videos were free!

  16. Gravatar ImageComicsken Says:
    19 Nov 09 @ 12:47 GMT+1

    Since it is the national day of public peeing in Belgium today... (don't ask...)
    1 public pee costs between 0,3 to 0,5 euro here. So, lets take 0,4 as a moderate. And since 'we' pee about 6 times a day, a day of peeing would cost about 2,4 euros. So 1 month of umbraco tv licence costs you about 8 days of peeing. So tell me again, is that really too much???
    (for the record i don't think it is too much)

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