@justin, I thought it might be useful for you to see how Trakt is used in my particular situation.
I’ve been using Trakt on multiple devices with Kodi since 2012…but I only use the Trakt Collection function and only with TV shows so we (my household) can quickly bring up the Collection list to see if new episodes have screened and are ready to watch. For the last 13 years, it made no sense to me to pay for VIP because I literally use ZERO VIP functions. However, if I’d had to pay for the functionality I need, I would have done so.
In our household, we have multiple family members who add their TV shows to our single Trakt Collection and at the moment, there are 143 shows. Of course, the new 100 item limit means we can’t add any new shows. I’d be happy to pay $$ in order to have a Collection of more than 100 items but I’m curious as to your thinking why I should suddenly be forced to pay US$60 annually (which is AU$100) for all the other VIP features that I will literally never, ever use? I only found out about the new limits yesterday when I was researching online why my family members couldn’t seem to add new shows to our Trakt Collection; there were definitely NO email notifications (I check my Spam folder every day) and because I don’t use Trakt for anything other than the barebones functionality listed above, I never even log into the Trakt website…so I never saw anything about the new limits, let alone the doubling of the VIP price. So this double-whammy with Trakt has been pretty frustrating.
I understand the need to monetize Trakt but the ridiculous overkill here with restrictions and price rises - especially with barebones functionality such as a single Collection list - is nuts. Provide a mid-level tier and I’ll be happy to pay a reasonable fee, but an all-or-almost-nothing approach requiring most free users to suddenly have to pay AU$100 annually just for barebones Trakt functionality is a bewildering decision.
There are already plenty of thoughtful responses in this thread plus it’s already getting excessively long so I just wanted to echo my bewilderment with those changes. this is not a good move. if the watchlist limit had been in place when I joined I would have stopped using the site right away…
if you're inclined to read more
to this day I find the social aspects of trakt to be severely lacking/clunky despite it imho being the one thing that will help the site grow (I’ve given enough suggestions and pointers on where to improve over the years). frankly no one wants to be active in a barren wasteland - I’ve given up mostly myself with posting reviews/thoughts as it is usually not worth the effort for me. we luckily still have some great reviewers on the site but the visible engagement compared to memeboxd is minuscule (I can lookup 90% of movies and find nothing on here, whereas the other site has multiple reviews). but this isn’t what’s getting changed… just passively impacted.
lists offer up far better “targeted” recommendations and discoverability than the on-site feature ever can so hampering their creations to basically only allow it for VIPs is not helping trakt against the competition. if you feel like you need to limit their creation maybe have a look in regards to limiting the amount of public lists - or allow reporting some of them to be flagged as such preventing automated - or vip feature circumventing ones like genre lists - to clutter up the feed (have apps flag theirs as automated?). If anything I want to see more lists - if a user makes the effort to submit content to the site it should be valued and not regarded as “unneeded” data junk. I’ve added a lot of lists in the early days of trakt… and I still get “flooded” with follows bc of that, can’t tell me users are not looking for that (yet their discoverability remains low except for on included items).
as to the watchlist limit… it’s easy to break 100… my backlog is huge, but if I decide to watch something I want to be able to pick from options depending on mood, time, etc. and for that we need space. imagine being born in the year 2025 - try looking up movie recommendations and be hit by a decade of movies to choose from… but trakt forces you to pick a 100 of those…
I’ve also imported my movie and tv Collection into Simkl, but can’t figure out how to integrate it into Kodi where I can find my lists. I also only use the collection feature on Trakt and upgraded at one time on Trakt only to find out that none of the VIP features were useful to me. If Trakt offered a paid option to just remove limits from lists, at a much cheaper price, I wouldn’t have a problem paying for it. However, $60 for a list tracker is obsured, especially for someone that doesn’t use any of its other features.
First time into these forums (didn’t know they existed)… Skimming through comments, it seems like no one is happy with these changes (but who likes change?). Moving some of the features behind the paywall seems like a bad choice. Once users have something for free, it’s bad practice to take it away…
That said, while I get the need to encourage users to pay, there are other/better options to encourage people to WANT to pay rather than removing key features to FORCE users feel obligated to pay. The list change, in particular, makes me glad I never consolidated more lists here. I had to look up why my lists weren’t working correctly, and that’s when I found the change log outlining the overly restrictive change to free lists.
Ultimately, this will just make me use this site less and rely on other services. Until now, the value proposition has been great, but the change (along with the lack of communication about the change to a feature I’ve used regularly) is very disappointing. I hope leadership reconsiders…
Same! I already transferred all of my movies, ratings, watchlist and lists. Letterboxd has a great community, UI, and they do not limit users to 2 lists and a watchlist with 100 items, unlike a certain app.
I loved this site, but it’s time to say goodbye.
I’d rather have the site sell my data than charge me to add more shows to my collection.
I’m moving to Simkl.
I’ve looked into this and I can’t find any Kodi addons that support Simkl lists; this is apparently due to devs not (yet) being allowed access to the necessary APIs for Simkl. I emailed Simkl today to ask about this.
At the moment, Simkl scrobbles really well but it isn’t yet a ready replacement for Trakt in terms of Collection or Lists.
Just logged in for the first time in this forum to say goodbye.
You did not balance our needs, but only your needs as a service in a most predictive way followed by most abandonware sites. Thanks and bye
I’ve been a free user pretty much since the start. I’ve recently started earning a liveable amount and was going to setup a VIP subscription on pay day (31st) - you can choose whether to believe me or not. I didn’t care about extra features, but wanted to support (and thank) a company I value.
However, this agressive and unprompted middle finger underlined by tone-deaf follow-ups has been telling and repelling. I do thank you for years of great service and feel guilty that I’ve not been able to contribute back, but I cannot and will not support, nor enable this behaviour.
I’m not going to join in with trying to convince you otherwise - the fine details aren’t worth debating - you’ve made yourselves clear and I hear you. I’m exporting my data, deleting my account, and you won’t see me again.
It’s laughable - I’ve been a loyal user for over a decade, with genuine admiration for your brand, yet this has driven me to seek an alternative and I’m already happily paying them!
I use the Cinetrak app to access and manage my Trakt data. There’s personal profile with a quick overview of how many titles you watched, rated and collected. I’ve always had all these 3 numbers as equals, even if the purpose of “collected” may be something else.
Recently I started receiving “network errors” — a generic error message — every time I tried to collect a new title. And now those 3 numbers are out of sync.
You can’t possibly fathom the bad side effect this has over anxious people or those with some OCD level!!
As much as I wanted to, for a number of reasons I cannot control, I can’t subscribe to a VIP account, but I believe denying such small feature is really not the best course of action.
I definitely never received any notification (email or otherwise) about this or I would have likely signed up for VIP at US$30 before the price doubled.
I also check my spam box daily, so there’s no way I missed an email.
The whole way this was handled has been an absolute debacle.
Would you care to elaborate on the replacement that you found? Does it integrate with Kodi? I’m also looking for a replacement. I have brought my Trakt collection under 100 and it still will not allow me to add a new TV series to my list.
