About discounts


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  • 4 weeks later...
On 11/12/2019 at 2:45 AM, HK-Steve said:

No, there is not.

Worth every cent for my 3x Towers. 😎

Yes, great for those in the US earning USD..... less so for someone earning Aussie micro pesos for example.  The USD is crazy high at the moment, so all up, inlcuding crap bank exchange rates, international credit card fee, my unRAID Pro unlimited drive license cost AUD $204 last week.  And now I find I need a test bed to try things before we unleash them on our live unRIAD server.   With backup to various cloud services being quite hit and miss, I suppose we'll just trash a bunch of cheap USB drives for demo licenses.  Great community and great product, but it gets a bit tiring reading Americans talking about how cheap it is when anyone dare ask if there's a Black Friday discount.  Sure, I can buy a basic license to use for the next 6 months (and maybe the odd pre-installion pre-clear for new drives), that will cost about AUD$94 after fees and so on, but that makes my unRIAD license actually cost nearly AUD$300.

 

Especially for those like myself who've purchased the unlimited Tier 3 option, it would be nice to have accompanying addon basic license for your test bed, say US$30 would be great.  I should point out, that I only have 6 stoage disks, but when added to 2 cache and 2 parity, it eats up slots quickly.  Then add in the fact that I always want to have the abilility to slot in a couple of extra disks during upgrades and so on, maybe a drive outside the array for cameras one day.  A 'Plus' 12 disk license was going to be ok 95% of the time, but unfortunately 'time' ticks away 100% of the time.... well for me anyway.

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1 hour ago, Davin S said:

Great community and great product, but it gets a bit tiring reading Americans talking about how cheap it is when anyone dare ask if there's a Black Friday discount. 

I am not American and I can tell you it's cheap, especially considering it is a lifetime license (with free updates).

 

The sterlings aren't that great due to that racists-driven nonsense called Brexit but FX volatility is something everyone is subjected to in any international transactions. Your local currencies volatility isn't really a reason to justify a discount.

Otherwise, every time some politicians in any country decide to deceive the public and do something idiotic, the Unraid guys will then have to give a discount?

They have to bring the bacon home too and their bacon is paid for in USD.

  • Haha 1
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1 hour ago, Davin S said:

Yes, great for those in the US earning USD..... less so for someone earning Aussie micro pesos for example.  The USD is crazy high at the moment, so all up, inlcuding crap bank exchange rates, international credit card fee, my unRAID Pro unlimited drive license cost AUD $204 last week. 

 

Which is less than a single 8TB hard drive!  In the grand scheme of things, its a tiny portion of the overall cost of a server.

 

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I feel you brother. Try being a neighbor to the Yanks, were the vast majority of your goods come from. A month ago, we were .67 cents to the buck!

 

Fortunately for us, we have many credit card companies that clued into a customer base looking to not be bent over a barrel with conversation fees et. I have a card that exchanges at bank closing rate. 

 

We even got the double bend over. When our dollar was way over par, our retailers never adjusted prices! It got so bad, Canadian's crossed the boarder to grocery shop! I live an hour and a half from the border, saved almost 60%, After gas, doing it. It was great for about a year.

 

TLDR, thems the brakes.

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14 hours ago, testdasi said:

Your local currencies volatility isn't really a reason to justify a discount.

 

 

I think that's an unfair retort.  A couple of points.... I didn't suggest a discount on the first license, or even because of currency issues.  My point related to having just paid for a licence covering unlimited drives, so it makes it harder to swallow having to buy another license, beause some of those drives have to live outside of the main unRIAD server for a few months.   The woeful currency conversion and fees just amplifies this. 

 

Please try to understand that I didn't ask for freebies, or a Black Friday discount, not even a discount on the first license.  I suggested a discounted 6 disk license might be nice to go with your freshly purchased unlimited license.  

 

 

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14 hours ago, StevenD said:

 

Which is less than a single 8TB hard drive!  In the grand scheme of things, its a tiny portion of the overall cost of a server.

 

 

Finding a more expensive component is't really an arguement.  If RAM manufactuers took that line...... 4GB of 2400 DDR4 could now be $380, because an X570 motherboard is at least that much.  Then WD jump on board, and say, hey we've seen RAID contollers that are $1000, here's our new 240GB SSD for $900.  It's just not a valid method to convey that point in my opinion.

 

Besides, a point that has been raised a few times before on this forum (in resposne to a similar line of comment), is that you don't know the other person's circumstances.  In my case, I'm stuck archiving crazy amounts of wedding video footage, that rarely gets used, and I'm not getting paid for it anymore.  AU$100 just to test for a few months seems such a waste when you've only yesterday coughed up $204 for the best license you can buy, and need to buy more for a temporary solution. 

 

I'm not talking about me, or your resposne in particular, but a little empathy towards some poor sod who says "that's a lot".... would be nice :)

 

Anyway, I reiterate my point, when you buy the unlimited, some way or rewarding those users witha lsighter cheaper and limited second license for testing would be a nice gesture. 

 

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5 hours ago, Viper359 said:

I feel you brother. Try being a neighbor to the Yanks, were the vast majority of your goods come from. A month ago, we were .67 cents to the buck!

 

Fortunately for us, we have many credit card companies that clued into a customer base looking to not be bent over a barrel with conversation fees et. I have a card that exchanges at bank closing rate.

 

We even got the double bend over. When our dollar was way over par, our retailers never adjusted prices! It got so bad, Canadian's crossed the boarder to grocery shop! I live an hour and a half from the border, saved almost 60%, After gas, doing it. It was great for about a year.

 

TLDR, thems the brakes.

I feel like us Aussies and Canadians are kind of kindrid spirits in some stange way.... but then I feel befause of the way the Aust government treats the super nice New Zealanders, they probably think of us the same way as Canadians do about the US  😂 😂 😂

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If you truly need something temporary, then the 30+15+15 time frame hopefully should work for you.
You could, as you say, burn through a USB stick every 60 days, and deal with reconfiguring your setup each time.  One would have to question, how many sticks do you need to burn through and how much time is wasted in the hassle, before just buying another license isn't worth it to be done with the dance?

As for the other aspects of your posts, if you're not getting paid for something you feel you should (not-so-subtle poke in the ribs btw), perhaps you should deal head-on with that issue instead?

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13 hours ago, sota said:

if you're not getting paid for something you feel you should (not-so-subtle poke in the ribs btw), perhaps you should deal head-on with that issue instead?

Legally and at a moral obligation level, I can hit delete now on most weddings.  But sometimes life (especially when dealing with weddings and brides), isn't always that simple.  For example, we have had half a dozen clients come back years later and ask for extra footage or a re-edit because of family members who passed, music that became innapropriate after the fact (good old MJ), a change of mind (fads....ugghh!), and family circumstances.

 

Another couple split up before chosing music.  But here's the most extreme example.... the bride that we shot her 4 day event spread over 3 weeks in Dec 2014; engagement party (a big 9hr West African affair), pre-wedding shoot, wedding, and a ceremonial 'welcome to your new house' event after the wedding.  The bride had trouble picking music for her video, so 400GB of data sat unedited for 5 years.  We've now also shot her sister's 4 day weddings event (2017), and don't have music for that either.  Nearly a TB together.  Late Jan this year, we had begun discussing how best to tell the bride we're editing using production that we'll choose, but we got a call from her sister in Feb telling us she had just died.  We'll now be sitting on that footage as long as is needed.

 

I was not paid to store this stuff in high availability local arrays, and in the cloud for 5 years, but I'm sort of obliged to anyway.  So sometimes other people's cicrumstances are a little more complicated than you might imagine, something we could all do well to remember when replying on these generally really great forums :) 

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Understood.

However, your "obligations" are of your own making, and of your own choosing, as is your methods of dealing with them.  How you choose to run your business is your choice, just as we all make choices for our own occupations.  The terms for the software in question were laid out before you purchased.  I'm assuming you read them and understood them.  Any risks involving them are then yours to accept or to deny.  You chose to purchase the product.  Ergo you have accepted the terms.

 

I think that will be my final word on this.

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13 minutes ago, sota said:

You chose to purchase the product.  Ergo you have accepted the terms.

 

I think that will be my final word on this.

 Duly noted.  I shall remember that suggestions for various bundling and pricing models are most unwelcome here.... or prepare to be judged 😜

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12 hours ago, jonathanm said:

When someone comes to you in your video production company and asks that you accept significantly less than the best deal you are prepared to offer for your services, how does that make you feel?

A great, but misguided point..... yes, as a creative who works in photography and video, if a new enquiry tries to beat me down on price by saying a studio down the road will do it cheaper, I feel like my skills have been treated like a commodity.  That hurts.  But, have you ever seen me pressure Tom for a Black Friday discount, or to give me freebie/more disks than is included in a 6 or 12 disk licence?  Absolutely not, but many keyboard warriors love jumping all over newbies, as if all of us had done that.

 

Now for an apples to apples comparison.  If a client who'd booked our unlimited wedding coverage package said "hey, can you film the groom at 2 locations: briefly at the barber shop, and then also at home getting ready.  I've paid for your top of the line unlimited coverage, but I'm happy to pay you even more money for the 2nd location, although it would be nice if you could offer a discount for that extra time?"  If my other customers started getting all judgy, passing comments on their circumstances without really knowing shit about them, displayed zero empathy, and just generally behaved like people do who have too much internet time on their hands, I would be extremely annoyed at those clients.  Then I would say to the bride who asked the question.. "don't be silly, you've paid for unlimited, it's not like your holding another wedding, it's the same wedding....we'd be glad to assist".  And I could always politely refuse, and charge full price for an extra location.... tempering my response with the fact that they are a paying client.

 

So far, Tom hasn't weighed in on my polite suggestion, only the forum members who's approaches do risk turning newbies off.  I'm trying hard to contribute, share test results when some of us are having the same problem, while ignoring the mob mentality, as most of the people here are great.  But I do expect (maybe unfairly) much higher standards from moderators..... perhaps just a little bit more thought before posting, to ensure you're not promoting the overly defensive mob mentality that I've noticed infects the forums at times.  Don't get me wrong, it's really great that there's a loyal following ready to defend the product at the drop of a hat, but simmer down a bit kids, there's so much more to life.

 

 

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I was thinking like giving out a test key that does not change unless you change the usb stick like a normal key does and have it attached to the master key somehow that you can use it for 30-60 days and gets automatically reactivated on major releases each 8-10 months, this would be for those who are waiting on doing any upgrade on the main system and the countdown to start once it gets automatically reactivated each time regardless of using it or not.

And that test key can be upgraded in stages to a basic license like so:

Each stage would cost 10$ and extend the time duration by 30 days until it reaches the basic key license then it will auto upgrade to basic license, also the upgrade would carry to the next auto reactivation in case is not fully paid by then.

Maybe someone else have a better idea to improve this one.

This is still paying the full price of a key, just not all at once and would make it easier to buy a second license for people who can not afford to pay even the basic key upfront for example and need to wait until they gather all the money to buy a license, that way they can start using the test system without playing around with trial keys and change usb sticks every 30-60 days.

That would be somehow a waste of money throw on usb sticks that they may or may not use them all in the long run since the stick id gets blacklisted once trial period ends.

Instead of doing that they would pay a final total of 64-69$ for the basic key but they start using unraid without waiting and the 5-10$ would be considered the usb sticks waste in exchange of time waiting.

This would require at least a basic master key ( or it can start from a trial key for new users maybe? )

Not to mention that each time they want to have the test server there is another time consuming of formatting the unraid test server since unraid would detect the time of the system and the trial key will instantly stop working.

Just and idea.

Edited by Jidovu Marius Adrian
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  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/12/2019 at 5:31 PM, Davin S said:

A great, but misguided point.....

Except that it's not.  I run an IT services company and people constantly complain about my pricing, but they keep coming back.  I'm not the only place in town they could get support from or get their computers fixed at, but I'm also not the cheapest.  I refuse to budge on my pricing because there are significant reasons they are the way they are.  I have my fixed and variable expenses, labor costs and taxes.  Once that's all taken care of I get to pay myself with what is left.

This is just how business works.  If you want something for free, there are options for that.  Unraid offers a product at a price they have decided on.  Complaining about their pricing isn't really going to change things.

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22 hours ago, TheShadowDuke said:

Except that it's not.  I run an IT services company and people constantly complain about my pricing, but they keep coming back.  I'm not the only place in town they could get support from or get their computers fixed at, but I'm also not the cheapest.  I refuse to budge on my pricing because there are significant reasons they are the way they are.  I have my fixed and variable expenses, labor costs and taxes.  Once that's all taken care of I get to pay myself with what is left.

This is just how business works.  If you want something for free, there are options for that.  Unraid offers a product at a price they have decided on.  Complaining about their pricing isn't really going to change things.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and guess that you've just skimmed the thread without reading it fully.... before popping your post cherry.  Welcome BTW :).   No matter how valid your story though, it can easily become misguided input too, if you're paraphrasing without understanding the original comment.

 

A quick catchup.  I didn't complain that their prices are too high.  I didn't come here without buying anything, asking for free stuff or Black Friday discounts. 

 

Here's what did happen: I politely suggested that the unlimited product might be handy if it allowed you to use some of that capacity (of unlimited disks) in a test machine during pre-clears and other prep work.  I was even happy to pay more for this extension of an unlimited license.  I also made mention that woeful exchange rates and fees make it harder to swallow extra costs for more full licenses, right after your purchase of an unlimited license.   The LimeTech team have weighed in, and it's not something they're going to do.  No hard feelings, it was just a suggestion after all.

 

Here's the ironic part..... people were so busy getting upset at this suggestion, that no one chimed in with the fact that you can use an expired demo to preclear disks all day long.  It doesn't address my wish list of a companion testing platform so you don't need to risk your production machine, but it's a great start.

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On 12/10/2019 at 12:59 PM, Davin S said:

Yes, great for those in the US earning USD..... less so for someone earning Aussie micro pesos for example.  The USD is crazy high at the moment, so all up, inlcuding crap bank exchange rates, international credit card fee, my unRAID Pro unlimited drive license cost AUD $204 last week.  And now I find I need a test bed to try things before we unleash them on our live unRIAD server.   With backup to various cloud services being quite hit and miss, I suppose we'll just trash a bunch of cheap USB drives for demo licenses.  Great community and great product, but it gets a bit tiring reading Americans talking about how cheap it is when anyone dare ask if there's a Black Friday discount.  Sure, I can buy a basic license to use for the next 6 months (and maybe the odd pre-installion pre-clear for new drives), that will cost about AUD$94 after fees and so on, but that makes my unRIAD license actually cost nearly AUD$300.

 

Especially for those like myself who've purchased the unlimited Tier 3 option, it would be nice to have accompanying addon basic license for your test bed, say US$30 would be great.  I should point out, that I only have 6 stoage disks, but when added to 2 cache and 2 parity, it eats up slots quickly.  Then add in the fact that I always want to have the abilility to slot in a couple of extra disks during upgrades and so on, maybe a drive outside the array for cameras one day.  A 'Plus' 12 disk license was going to be ok 95% of the time, but unfortunately 'time' ticks away 100% of the time.... well for me anyway.

 

I payed for unraid years and years ago and am still receiving updates...

 

To be perfectly honoust the machine (and my backup server, I have no test system, if you do not want to be on the bleeding edge you do not need one) is such a big thing in my household that I would prefer an option where some kind of payed subscription would guarantee me support in the long run.. I have seen to much one-time-pay situations that end up saturating their market halting growth and then dying off..

 

Unraid has found a new user base in virtualisation which (I guess) has caused a second wave. I can see a third wave coming with better support for secondary systems..

 

But secretely I hooooooooope that they find some kind of great feature that I would love to pay for on a monthly basis 🙂

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1 minute ago, Helmonder said:

I have seen to much one-time-pay situations that end up saturating their market halting growth and then dying off..

Limetech have at least committed to making the source for the  part of Unraid that is currently closed source freely available if they ever stop supporting Unraid.

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