Freemium Experience: More Features for All with Usage Limits

[Ohifriend (Tyson Kerridge)]

Thats fair - I really don’t know how it works but if there’s an alternative set up, I’d suggest looking into it is all, if you’re not wanting to pay.

Regarding # of people, when you purchase food you technically count as two people, so per account is what I was suggesting whereas you use one therefore share the cost. But yes I understand if you were staying at a hotel for a holiday you’d pay for one room between two. Hotels usually set their prices for that max limit though, and if one person stays you pay the same or try find a smaller room (not always available in the same places). But that’s off topic now

I guess there’s not much more I can do myself but I know what you mean by many people suggesting they’re leaving. Time will tell.

[Ohifriend (Tyson Kerridge)]

Thanks for the kind words. Yeah I understand it’s frustrating and to a degree I can’t say you’re wrong and users should call out seemingly dodgy practices (not just here but in general).

All I’m saying is, as I can’t myself revert any changes, and am just trying to provide steps to work around.

As I suggested somewhere above, there’s various work arounds to temporarily clean up the data while you rebuild, and the Trakt community is usually happy to help find a solution to your use case. But throwing out personal attacks at staff (or others) doesn’t really help your case.

All I can say is thank you to everyone who has been constructive in some way.

[Maddcow]

@Ohifriend, I really appreciate you taking the time to reply and also to attempt to explain some things from your perspective. The fact that none of the other Trakt team members have really made any effort to do so (unless I’ve missed it?), has actually really pi$$ed me off and made me even more determined to find another solution. If Trakt management are this intractable (pun intended ) and/or unwilling to communicate with long-time users - I’ve been using Trakt for nearly 13 years since 2012 - then I simply don’t want to support the business. To be treated with contempt as a customer (intended or not) crosses a big red line in the sand for me.

[Ohifriend (Tyson Kerridge)]

Yeah I get it. I think most, if not all, of the team are at least aware of the concerns but also we can’t all spend our day replying to every single message. Imagine even for anyone being given personal attacks based on something that was probably prepared by not just them - do you think that incentivises them, or others to reply? I’d say not really. But yes, showing a general dislike for the changes or how it’s worded is all fair play.

[Maddcow]

Please just pass on that at the very least, Trakt users really need to be emailed about significant changes.

Many Trakt users never even visit the website or use the app etc because we’ve never needed to i.e. we only use the barebones syncing etc and nothing else. So for Trakt management to only post about these massive changes on the website has hit a lot of users hard because they (including me) only found out about the changes after the fact when there was nothing we could do. This is extremely poor communication and in reading some posts here, it seems like poor communication has been the default modus operandi for some time with Trakt. This has to improve.

[Ohifriend (Tyson Kerridge)]

The defence is the response was pretty clear that the changes are made and you can choose to adapt, not that you’re forced to leave. And many suggestions have been made by others on workaround or solutions. Obviously people have continued to respond after personal attacks but it was an example. We have other things to work on to continue building Trakt, and can’t sit around and wait for people to change their minds.

I don’t think I ever told anyone to go someplace else, if you’re referring that to me.

Also remember that the value is your own perception - obviously many people see the value in Trakt or it wouldn’t exist, for those people nor any free users.

[Ohifriend (Tyson Kerridge)]

I mean, the value hasn’t changed for existing VIP users, so I’m not sure what you’re getting at. By choose to adapt I mean if you’ve gone over the limit based on the introduced free limits, you can do a clean up or not, or look for another workaround depending on your use case. You can still track what you’re watching.

We’re going to continue working on the things we’re working on and monitor the changes, not revert something because something mean was said by a few users. Some people took the time to contact support or make threads and get support from the community on what they could do differently. We can’t help if not everyone wants to do that.

[Maddcow]

A lot of excellent points here, @Clanhold_Cinema!

[Ohifriend (Tyson Kerridge)]

I appreciate your passion but if you didn’t see value at $30 then there’s not much more I can say, clearly. I don’t see why we would reduce the price lower than it was previously.

As I already said, and you’ve pointed out, any damage done is on us and we’ll monitor.

Thanks for your time, either way.

[wnjo0009]

@Ohifriend

I mean, the value hasn’t changed for existing VIP users

It hasn’t? So those VIP users that get their recommendations from users’ comments, users’ lists, users’ recommendations aren’t losing value when there’s a non-zero exodus of said users producing that content?

Even moreso, limiting lists, will impact future list creations and editions and probably more importantly current ones. There have been numerous VIP users in this very thread trying to get you to see this exact point. But alas, clearly it falls on deaf ears.

[Ohifriend (Tyson Kerridge)]

The direct value. User content is not something you pay for directly, but sure the changes could hinder that user content.

I’m not sure what you want me to say?

[Ohifriend (Tyson Kerridge)]

Sure, will do. (bow out)

[wnjo0009]

@Ohifriend

I’m not sure what you want me to say?

You don’t have to say anything, I just wanted to reinforce the fact that the value for VIP users (that consume user made content on the site) will presumably (I imagine definitely) suffer at these changes. Totally fine if you disagree, but just needed to make my opinion clear there. Sorry if it come across as a little too hostile.

[Ohifriend (Tyson Kerridge)]

As a shout from beside the ring, you’re fine, but we suggested we want to look into incentivising/rewarding free users who manage popular lists and other useful content creation, etc. We do understand that’s important.

[Maddcow]

It seems to me that introducing mid-level tier pricing would keep a lot of users who would otherwise leave, and Trakt would still earn more money than it was previously because those users were paying nothing.

[Maddcow]

This sounds like a great idea!

[anon58120325]

On a side note: How long do data exports take these days? I’ve requested my export 30+ hours ago and so far didn’t see any email with my data.

[JBaby_9783 (Jessi)]

You’ve been making perfect sense to me. Also, my Trakt value hasn’t been diminished in the slightest. The truth is nothing you say is going to satisfy people here. The only solution they’re gonna accept is lowering the price. Saying that y’all are going to look into regional pricing isn’t satisfying them. Hell some of these people want Trakt to sell them if it means getting Trakt for free. Some are asking for ads. We are living in crazy times, Tyson. But I appreciate you and the team. I can see the work y’all are putting in. Do I think y’all are doing things perfectly? Absolutely not. I think Trakt Lite is weird and waste of resources. Not doing 2FA and/or passkeys is also a weird choice. But I do see y’all trying and I appreciate that!

[justin]

I apologize for not communicating these changes more clearly and we will do a better job moving forward! I’ll try to clarify some key facts about the recent changes and address some incorrect assumptions.

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 . We retired the lower cost plan because it just wasn’t sustainable anymore. It covered things like infrastructure costs, but it didn’t leave enough to help with other expenses like salaries. As I’ve mentioned before, we are planning for Trakt to exist well into the future.

When was this implemented?

VIP pricing was changed in August 2024 on the website VIP page and official apps. We also introduced a $6 monthly plan, along with free trials and regional pricing (India and Brazil) in the iOS and Android apps. We ran various 50% off promotions until the end of the year.

What was the impact?

VIP signups remain steady, so it appears most people that wanted to subscribe still see value with the new pricing. Increased revenue allowed us to double down on product development, hire more people and deliver new features like our Apple TV app, data importers, automatic tracking (streaming scrobbler), better AI recommendations, month in review, etc.

Freemium Limits

Why was the decision needed?

The freemium model consists of a free plan for casual users and a premium plan for power users. A power user is someone who uses Trakt every day and enjoys a lot of the features we offer.

We’ve always had a freemium model, but our VIP benefits were a bit unclear. VIP subscribers were mostly people that realized by themselves they are power users and wanted to support Trakt to keep it going. It also wasn’t easy to try out any VIP features before deciding to sign up (we fixed this by offering free trials).

Collections and lists were misused and cost a disproportionate amount of resources that VIPs are essentially subsidizing. Limiting these to 100 items on the free plan corrects these issues and sets a clear threshold from casual to power user.

How was it communicated?

Not well enough, but we tried. We emailed users with bigger lists (100+ items) about the proposed change about two months in advance. We also offered a 50% VIP discount, but not many took advantage of it.

What is the impact?

VIP signups have increased since enforcing these limits. Another key metric, monthly active users also continues to grow strongly.