I’m not grandfathered, have been using TR for 8-9 years, first 4 years I paid monthly, had a couple of years break and been mostly on and off since then (last year was mainly on, on monthly), so expect my contribution to TR is higher than yours, I also gave away all my referral codes, but I don’t see how this is releveent, I was paying for a service, it was either good for me / or not, Nate might have used that money for new bikes, or to change the app, I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter, he owns the company, and I was paying to use the service, not buy shares in the company, TR doesn’t owe me anything because I’ve put “so much” money into them, was paying for a service, which I haven’t used
Why shouldn’t I get the new features? They made the commitment. I didn’t ask for it. I just took the offer they made and have stuck to it taking them at their word.
I also doubt very much you’d be happy to change the payment on your bike subscription you mention. When someone gives you a deal and tries to change it it leaves a bad taste.
As for growing the platform, if they change the pricing they’d get less from me. I’m an annual subscriber, I’d move to monthly as I only use it for the winter month’s 3 to 6 months. So they’d get less revenue… Would take even longer to bring new features. The way to increase revenue is grow the user base, cut expenses…not just put up prices.
While the net income would probably be equal if they increased the legacy price (according to your calculations), you are forgetting the cost of running the service. The number of servers needed to support TR and the ML models that need to run every time a workout is completed is not insignificant. Plus the cost for those isn’t locked into a legacy price.
For every new feature TR adds to the platform it will cost them more to run them. Now this cost for some things might be negligible (especially split across all users), but some will scale linearly with workouts.
I think this analogy is flawed. If the deal was $3k for a bike with 9speed, and 2012 components every 4 years, but now there is 12 speed wireless, but you need to pay a bit extra to get it. Would you pay it?
I wasn’t saying I’m owed anything for what I’ve paid in/people referred…my point of that was that I was accused of slowing development by not paying more when in fact my commitment has helped grow the platform.
I think what they are referring to (and I posted this earlier in this thread)
$99 a year is a smaller percentage of a developers wage than it was 7 years ago due to inflation (and pandemic has caused a increase in developer wages … for me)
if you had paid, what I think the service is worth over this period, TR would have received 50 - 80% more revenue from you
And the other thing of course, that a guaranteed income, does not always cause a company to innovate (completion (for your money) is good for business and all that)
So some people could per sieve this as hold the company back, I still don’t see how what you have paid, is relevant to the company going forward, and the company is where it is, with or without
But totally onboard with a promise is a promise (if not a contract)
As I made clear I was only looking at the revenue side. I agree with increased subscriptions, as well as increased staff, new developments, new features requiring larger capacity in tech, licencing etc. etc.the cost model changes or expands. It is not easy to judge the incremental/marginal cost difference of two teams.
I had thought their cost model might be something like (were I to want some working assumptions And they are entirely speculative.)
Staff costs 40-50%
Technology costs 30-40%
Other costs 20%
but that does not help the incremental revenue / two new teams debate much.
That wasn’t the commitment. There are a lot of posts making the assumption that he inferred “I will not raise your price but you won’t get anything new”. He didn’t. He said something to the effect of “as long as I am CEO I will not raise your price”. There was no caveat and there was none implied.
Oh come on…he’s a very decent, honest CEO. we know what he meant. He’s not some shifty politician. If he never mentioned we wouldn’t get new features and that was his thinking he should have said that. If that is the “get out of the deal” excuse I’d be even more disappointed.
I agree, it’s s good deal for me but probably a bad deal for TR. At the stage the company was at it provided, stable, long term funding. For any tech company this is great.
I’m not saying they can’t change the deal…I’d agree it makes sense to…but I’d leave on principal.
I use another competitor that’s has some more advanced features than TR at $99. Why would I pay more for less? However, I’ve never left TR as I don’t want to lose legacy pricing.
I’m okay with a flat increase across the spectrum of legacy and new member pricing. A $5 increase across the baseline yearly fee is fine with me, but not sure if that is enough of an increase in revenue for TR to provide the services/features.
Probably get blasted for this. However, its interesting that everyone threatening TR over something that has not happened over a promise not kept, have all broken promises in their life – whether to themselves or others. But Nate has to keep his or else.
I have used TR off and on for several years. The service has a value to myself. When the pricing vs value changes, then I have the choice over whether to stay or leave. So, do others.
That’s what people are agreeing with . Change the pricing and you have the choice to stay or go. Some will stay, some will go. I’m fine with then to change the price… Then I’ll leave.
Personally, I can’t understand why people can’t accept that people may not like a change to a deal they thought they had whilst they remain a subscriber. If they can accept that TR have the right to change a deal they previously offered then why can’t they accept that people may not like that?
This thread is, in my professional opinion, exactly why you don’t make comments like this. Sure, there has been a ton of “feedback” but you have no idea how accurate it is. Further, you have angered some of your core customers…and literally nothing has changed.
You might be right. Yet… when people ask for surveys, you usually just get people who delete the email and move on. Candid feedback has it’s own use and insight.
Maybe not the best way to go about it… but hey… if they were hoping for honest feedback, honest feedback is what they got!
Nate is trying to be a good person here.
He is trying to please everyone.
Sadly, this is a business.
The point of a business is to make money.
Nate remind me the owner of a company I used to work for. They would take the whole company (less than 150 employees) to a holiday getaway to a resort. Paid by the company including the whole family.
They would pay a baby sitter for people who needed it, so employees and +1s could go to the big dinner and have fun, dance and drink (all paid).
I think he has the best interest not only for the customer, but also his employees.
The sad reality is that running a business like this cost money, might not seem like much, but you have to pay developers and many other layers above them. Plus servers to store the massive amount of data we are producing.
Paying a legacy price is a privilege. TR do not owe us anything. We paid for a service, they provided said service. So people need to stop calling out if the business raise the prices.
Will it SUCK BIG TIME? 100%
Can they do it? Yes they can (promises be damned TBH).
Some people will leave, new people will come. Its part of the business.
My take:
Nate developed TR from scretch. He’s grown into CEO role but still a dev at heart. The mindset is like: Put a cool product first and the rest will follow…it’s not ROI or shareholder value first…
This and his forum interaction is what I like so much. I’m sure he’ll come with a good solution for this thread.
I wonder if @Nate_Pearson knows and compares his situation to Jon Mayfield? One of the original Zwift devs. Still at zwift, but recently having taken a step back and trying to develop cool or unknown marginal things again not wanting to be involved in all that big business…
Seems like Nate can do both…prototype of a relatable CEO geek!
At first PB was just a tool to help in avoiding support requests (which plan to pick next…etc)… but it’s evolving into a one stop shop for all kinds of tasks. I use TR self coached (plans don’t fit my needs) so limited PB use for me…but with those upcoming features mentioned I might give it a try again (but it’s not too important for me).
Would love to hear more about Chad’s daily business and which features he’s involved in. Back in the days he told more about the design of the origin training plans and stuff like that. Then it sounded like he was more into studies (physiology/nutrition?)…and he became less present in the podcast besides his famous deep dives…
