🎙️ AMA: From Rippple to Trakt

[ImpaktNY48]

@kcador

There was a price increase and then changes happened. One is not a consequence of the other other than the fact that Trakt is a service that lives and makes changes in terms of features, infrastructure, partnership, team,… you want to see a link between the two but there’s not.

Seems like you want to insist there isn’t a link when there is. Like I don’t know what to say here you are describing exactly what I said. The change that Trakt made as a service as you describes is the Partner Program.

@kcador

This is not true, you are not paying for any third party apps if you are not using them in the first place!

No, if the money I am paying is going towards third party apps then I am paying for third party apps. I’m not sending Trakt an itemized invoice specifying what I’m paying for.

@kcador

This is not the case.

It evidently is looking at these comments.

@kcador

That’s how referral links works. I get something, you get something, Trakt gets something.

Right. Funding. Something we don’t want.

@kcador

Funding has nothing to do with revenue sharing in the sense you are using it. Trakt does not fund apps. Trakt shares additional revenue apps are helping getting in the first place.

So again, a distinction without a difference. Trakt has raised prices to financially support third party apps and that’s not good.

@kcador

I said “at the time” and “things changed”.

Right these qualifiers are what makes him dishonest. At the time he said one thing then things changed with no notice and he went back on his word.

@kcador

It wasn’t the intention and Justin communicated about it.

He just said it happened and moved on. Like someone reported a bug. No explanation of how it happened.

@kcador

we listened, we can’t communicate now because we’re not ready to

What on Earth??? What do you mean you’re not ready to communicate after implementing a huge change? This is the time! Horrible sign of the supposed commitment to better communication. Users should not wait for you. Trakt should be proactive.

@kcador

But you need to hear me out, your Trakt VIP won’t fund me in any way if you are not using my app.

So you guys worked out a system where the money for the referral going to you only comes from the VIP sub of the app user? So Trakt gets $51 and you $9. And you say subscription tiers are too difficult?

But of course that’s not what’s happening. It’s revenue sharing. Meaning the referral funding comes from Trakt’s revenue. Which comes from ALL paying VIPs.

@kcador

This is not how it works since Trakt and your VIP subscriptions are not funding the app.

So stop saying this. Like my god man

@kcador

We are going to address this perception problem, yes! But you need to hear me out, your Trakt VIP won’t fund me in any way if you are not using my app.

You literally admit it’s a perception problem! Not an objective financial misunderstanding. And no, we’re not going to hear you out on that.

@kcador

This is not how it works: you base your pricing on the fact that any Trakt VIP is not paying for Rippple and Younify entirely and only.

No, you don’t. The money to Rippple and Younify needs to come from somewhere.

@kcador

The perfect tiering does not exist

As I told you previously, the best tiering does. Seems like you’re letting perfection be the enemy of good.

[otakunet21]

at this point you’re just not going to believe what he’s saying so why bother continuing to repeat yourselves. You have an opinion, and his answers refute your opinion. I’m more inclined to believe the person that works for a company than a customer who doesn’t have the insight into how the company is running things.

Obviously you’re opinions are strong, and i’m not saying they’re wrong or right. Just agree to disagree on some points and move on.

[ImpaktNY48]

@otakunet21

I’m more inclined to believe the person that works for a company than a customer who doesn’t have the insight into how the company is running things.

And I’m not more inclined to believe a company that has proven to be dishonest over paying users asking questions.

@otakunet21

Just agree to disagree on some points and move on.

Move on to where? Nothing has been resolved.

[otakunet21]

@ImpaktNY48

Move on to where?

you keep asking the same questions and getting the same answers. in your opinion nothing has been resolved but they’ve told us why the price increased.

@ImpaktNY48

dishonest

since you keep talking about what was said about keeping people grandfathered into their price, things change. circumstances change. If i tell you i don’t like horror movies and then six months later i love horror movies, that doesn’t make me a liar/dishonest. The circumstances that have changed we aren’t privy to, so you’re going to get semi-vague answers, just accept it even if you don’t like it. If you’ve already cancelled your service and are using another provider then why are you still here?

[ImpaktNY48]

@otakunet21

you keep asking the same questions and getting the same answers.

And that’s a problem because the answers are not satisfactory.

@otakunet21

in your opinion nothing has been resolved but they’ve told us why the price increased.

And I’ve had questions about it that went completely unanswered. Like what, I should just accept it? No, and if you want to do that then that’s fine but that’s your decision.

@otakunet21

things change. circumstances change

How they went about those changes is the problem.

@otakunet21

If i tell you i don’t like horror movies and then six months later i love horror movies, that doesn’t make me a liar/dishonest.

Awful comparison. This isn’t an opinion about movies.

@otakunet21

just accept it even if you don’t like it.

No? Lmao what?

Like what even is this comment why don’t you move on? If all of this is fine to you then don’t engage in any of these threads.

[great_vc (Vassilis)]

@kcador

Great question! I started developing in BASIC with my uncle (who was the one person helping me build a PC when I was around 13 to be able to play games

BASIC, on my ZX SPECTRUM, yes the original with the plastic keys

[kcador (Kevin Cador)]

Hey all,

I’ve had a chat with the team. Here are some more information I can share:

Infrastructure

What we mean when we say infrastructure is mainly our databases. This is by far the biggest line on our cost sheet.

Price Increase

In 2022, Trakt’s was down due to a database crash. One of the actions the team took was to add redundancy to those databases to avoid data loss in the future and improve the general availability of the service. This had the effect of basically doubling that (already big) line on the bill.

Then there’s also salaries: Trakt has been getting new people on board across all disciplines. From support and moderation to design and UX going through engineering with web/infra to Android specifically. Trakt was reaching a size that just couldn’t be sustained by just Justin and Sean, even with the help of some contractors here and there. As mentioned in this thread, we are a rather small team for the size of the service. Removing people is not the answer here.

Pricing, Tiering & Grandfathering

I’m going to refer to this post by Justin (in Feb):

VIP Pricing
Why was the decision needed?
In 2015, we introduced two VIP pricing tiers: $30 and $60 per year. It is expensive to run Trakt, servers aren't cheap :sweat_smile:. We retired the lower cost plan because it just wasn't sustainable anymore.

You can go through the whole post, it explains a lot of things (imo). Maybe with the additional context I’m giving here it will better explain things.

The API Partner Program

The Partner Program is based on a referral link system and the Public API:

• Partners will get another level of access to the Public API,
• Users of those apps will get a better level of service,
• Partners will get a share ONLY of the VIP subscription of the new users going through the link,
• Existing VIP will get a bonus in the Partner app. This could be a free access or a promo — in Rippple I choose to give something my Premium for free, but it’s my choice as an independent developer and I’m sustaining that loss in revenue,
• Existing VIP (using or not the app) subscriptions are not shared with Partners

The Partner Program will be expended to include other third-party apps, including Android apps.

Younify and other Integrations

I’m going to talk about Younify as an example here because there was a focus on this thread about it but it applies to more core integrations.
I just wanted to clarify, after verification with the team, the following:

As for the API Partner Program, Trakt’s costs with Younify are usage based.

What it means is: as a user that does not use Younify, your VIP subscription is not used to fund Younify, in any way.

And to go back on some of the first points: this doesn’t mean we could easily have 2 paid tiers (we had that!): one with Younify, one without. The main part any VIP subscription covers is not Younify, regardless of usage, it is and will remain infrastructure.

---

I hope this clarifies and/or gives a better level of context on the issues at hand in this thread.

If you still have a specific question not answered, please and I’ll be happy to add the missing information if I can.

[neilcgardner]

@kraftynic

Prices now nearly inline with CONTENT/streaming providers for a lot of people when the basic “content” here isn’t even belonging to Trakt and it doesn’t offer a service anywhere near inline with those services.

I really don’t know how people get ‘streaming’ for $6/month from anywhere that offers something worthwhile. I pay over $115/m for my streaming services. Yes, they are the premium options, but I value quality. The Trakt subscription is noise for me, and I suspect many others.

[quietrain]

Trakt works out at £48 ($60) a year, which is £4 a month. £4 is still a fair bit cheaper than £5.99. It would be a bit cheaper again, if the dollar to sterling exchange rate is what it was before Brexit.

[quietrain]

@kraftynic

I wouldn’t say it’s a fair bit cheaper, not for what both services offer in comparison.

I agree. But you’re confusing value with price.

It would add a little value to Trakt if they started using TVDB for TV instead of TMDB, like Simkl does. Trakt only stopped using TVDB because they did not want to pay, which is kinda ironic considering how much they want to charge us now.

[quietrain]

Agreed. And some can’t accept it either. This thread is still raging on a fortnight after the original announcement.

[quietrain]

@kraftynic

what’s to stop them doing it again, over and over?

Nothing, but it is going to be diminishing gains every time they do it if enough members leave every time something like this happens.

It’ll eventually get to the point there’s no one left to upset.

[Coggi87 (Coggi)]

Hello,

long time VIP user here(12+ years), I’ve always lurked on the forums from time to time but never posted anything.

Like many others said I’ve always viewed VIP as a way to support Trakt more than a way to benefit of features (most of the now VIP features weren’t available 12 years ago, as a side note is funny to think that all those years ago one of the VIP features was the Forum we are now writing on )

The only VIP feature I use is the Plex automatic scrobbler which by the way is not always working (but could be an issue on their end or maybe on my network ecc, not blaming trakt for this at all) and I don’t know if i’m within the limits of the Lists for the free plan as I only have 4 of these (the couchmoney.tv ones).

Aside from this I enjoy watching the Year stats when December comes and that’s it

I tryied the new automatic tracking when it got launched but found out it didn’t really fit my needs as there was no way (as far as I can tell) to decide what to filter or what not and it cluttered my viewed history with things that maybe I did only started for like 10 seconds and than closed, but I get that this is not an issue of trakt too but instead the way some services handle those things natively (es. Disney+)

Anyway, I’ve read most of the topics about the price increase and the replyies here in this one and to be honest I get it, it’s no longer sustainable to offer the VIP package as a whole for 15$/year .

I’m trying to decide what to do because the idea of canceling the VIP membership after all these years saddens me, but my usage is probably not enough to justify a 300% increase of the yearly cost.

The thing I’m currently unsure about is that I’ve received the offer to renew for another year at a 30$ price, and I’m evaluating it just to see another year of those planned new features/enhancements etc.. and decide if it’s worth to me to pay 60$ from the year after or not, but I don’t get why I have to decide on this offer in 30 days instead of it to happen naturally when the time comes, I don’t like this push on FOMO

To conclude if there’s some sort of way to express our “vote” I would also like to vote at this point for tiered plans. (You could even do this like car insurances like 10$ starting price and then if you want let’s say glass protection +2$, if you want weather insurance +3$ ecc )

I get it that it won’t be easy to accomodate everyone needs and that it will defeat the purpose stated in the announcement to simplify things but I think it would be a nice compromise toward the community that has been receiving this VIP change vary badly (as it probably always is when one raises prices )

Last but not least welcome to the Trakt team and best of luck

[SuperDave10 (SuperDave)]

Yeah, the programmers at Trakt evidently would never figure out how to inplement such a complex pricing system. I mean it is SO complicated.

[Skick3 (Stephen McFox)]

I stick to it, if you have now earned 10,000 of dollars through VIP users per year, that will no longer be the case next year. I can’t imagine that 5% of all VIP customers will still be paying trakt next year or even be on the platform as long as the subscription is exclusively $60 dollars.
The standard Trakt VIP user wants bigger lists and maybe even advanced filtering, but that’s not worth $60.
And the fact that other apps are now to be co-financed through the API program is the icing on the cake, as the user has not needed these apps so far and will not need them in the future.

[ImpaktNY48]

@kcador

Maybe with the additional context I’m giving here it will better explain things.

It does nothing to explain why he’s going back on grandfathered pricing.

@kcador

Partners will get a share ONLY of the VIP subscription of the new users going through the link,

Wow so you actually did go through the effort of a payment system as I described and are trying to say tiers are too difficult. I really didn’t think that was the case but here we are.

@kcador

What it means is: as a user that does not use Younify, your VIP subscription is not used to fund Younify, in any way.

Yet the price was still increased because the share coming from a $60 sub is more preferable to a share from a $15 or $30 price.

@kcador

(we had that!)

Not like what’s being requested now. The old $60 tier was just for extra support.

@kcador

this doesn’t mean we could easily have 2 paid tiers (we had that!): one with Younify, one without.

There were other suggestions for tiers.

Having a tier where you’re locked out of Younify entirely seems pretty simple. But Younify doesn’t want that because want every VIP to have access so they can get their cut.

@kcador

The main part any VIP subscription covers is not Younify, regardless of usage, it is and will remain infrastructure.

So continue focusing on that. Stop with the third party focus.

[SnowyBoy (Snowman)]

Probably real busy, working out new budgets, with the revenue downfall, it’s going to be a lot of work.

[SuperDave10 (SuperDave)]

Probably hoping thet if they ignore us we will go away.
Well guess what, you were right. From the response here they are losing quite a few.
I used to recommend Trakt to anyone that I was asisting with Kodi. No more, I will now talk down Trakt and talk up Simkl and anything else.

[otakunet21]

no need to disparage trakt, just dont mention it when helping others set up kodi. theres no need to disparage any company to try to “sell” another. it makes the one you’re trying to sell look worse rather than better