There was, but it was only mentioned on this forum, which a lot of members did not notice until weeks afterwards. If it had been sent out as an email to all members the same way as the recent email warning that the lists may be reduced to 100 items then I would have seen it and acted on it.
Seems to me that all this has been badly handled, but if this is your final word on the matter than I will just have to accept it and either pay $60 or stay as a non-VIP member. It’s a shame really, because I still think you will be better off financially in the long run if you just listened, but having said that, it’s your business and we all have to accept your decisions.
Stripe typically auto updates this direct from your credit card company. Trakt also emails you when a payment fails, and you should be able to update with a new card if needed and it will auto retry the payment.
So the grace period was going to the VIP page yourself and seeing the discount with no communication from you?
Again, why has the price increase not been communicated? There have been two posts in this forum by VIPs the past day expressing surprise at the price increase. I don’t think that will be the last.
Yeah I mentioned it before but I’m not really in favor of trakts course of action in recent months. Communication with your (paying) user base is key so it doesn’t come to threads like these or others that recently caused a stir.
This specifically doesn’t happen to me since my auto-renewal is on through PayPal but tbh imo recently trakt is mismanaging a lot.
This should’ve been clearly communicated upfront officially through emails like I get with any streaming services price increase.
I for instance didn’t know about the new price weeks after it was already implemented. 99% of the time I’m using the App and am almost never on the website. Also I’m not on the forums all the time which honestly would be a bad idea anyway to communicate price changes.
Telling ppl to contact customer service and then not responding looks just bad. Changing the design to a very specific choice of color right before announcing a “partnership” with a company that coincidentally also uses the new colors… questionable?! Justin being out of office for a week right at the time the new price is hitting VIPs without auto-renewals … Ouch.
When confronted with all this and more on the forum there is a lot of sour and passive aggressive answers coming your way it feels like by some of the users who seem to be close to the staff and some of the staff itself.
I really don’t mean this in an offensive way but rather a wake-up call to adjust accordingly.
You know a lot of the VIPs here are long term VIPs that not only support Trakt but they actively brought themselves in and shared ideas, tested them, bug tested for free and even paid for your service so it can survive and grow. These people do not own Trakt in a legal way but they still do own a small part of it spiritually. And it’s really disheartening to see how they’re being treated lately.
All these silently arranged changes are somewhat a concern where the future of this service lies so I really hope for some changes in 2025 back to where Trakt used to be for so many of us in recent years.
With that being said I hope all of you have a great winter holiday season and a happy new years!
I agree and we will improve our communication moving forward.
Since you are an existing VIP, your plan would remain unchanged and communicating the pricing change wouldn’t have been relevant to you specifically.
I think I’m allowed a vacation time to time We paused support replies until I was back and we formalized the above policies. The pricing went into effect in mid September, not in December when I was out of the office.
This my favorite conspiracy theory
We truly appreciate all of our VIPs and I totally agree that Trakt would not be what it is today without all of you. Thank you
I only knew about the price change because of a Reddit post lol. For now Trakt is still great and i will keep paying the $30/year price.
Design wise we have to accept it’s more ugly but doesn’t affect the use of the platform (for most of us) and VIP have at least the option for the old style now which is a improvement that i can live with. But the price and communication should be improved. And if support is out for holidays/vacation then mention it on the main site with a banner or something or put other support people temporarily on it.
Secretly i hope this is a good lesson for them and hope that they improve in 2025 and in the future of course. Because let’s be honest Trakt is the one and only OG in this game with so many features and community.
@justin, I would really like to know more about that “conspiracy theory”. What company are you teaming up with?
Nothing to complain about this topic, I had auto-renewal on because I was planning to support Trakt going forward. I like the service very much, I use it regularly and I enjoy coming up with improvement ideas whenever I get any. Therefore, I’m happy to have been granted the opportunity to keep my subscription at $30, $60 would have been a bit too much for me as well.
What exactly needs to be communicated? And to whom?
For VIP members on auto-renewal, nothing has changed.
For VIP members that aren’t on auto-renewal, they will have to interact with the VIP page to renew, and the VIP page has a button that explains what they need to know right as they have a need to know it. And their price hasn’t changed either.
For anyone else, the free tier hasn’t changed.
On the flip side, sending out a mass email right before the holidays is a bad idea.
Support will probably do the holiday stuff away from their screens, so replies will already be slower than usual without the additional load of handling the replies from people that don’t need to do anything right now anyway.
Unless I missed something, this seems like a solved situation at this point.
What exactly needs to be communicated? And to whom?
The pricing change. All the policy clarifications Justin laid out here. As I pointed out earlier, there have been two VIPs who posted in this thread unaware of the change.
This isn’t an unusual ask. Things like this being communicated is standard practice.
And they have no reason to think anything will change if they turn off auto renewal.
For VIP members that aren’t on auto-renewal, they will have to interact with the VIP page to renew
Them having to interact with the VIP page is precisely why it needs to be communicated. The onus should not be on the user to find out about a change in policy by happenstance.
the VIP page has a button that explains what they need to know right as they have a need to know it.
Communication about policy changes should be proactive. And what button?
And their price hasn’t changed either.
Except the price did technically change. 50% off of $60 is not the same as a default option of $30.
For anyone else, the free tier hasn’t changed.
But they will never have the option to sign up for VIP for $30.
On the flip side, sending out a mass email right before the holidays is a bad idea.
Which is why emails should have been sent out months ago. But since it needs to be ASAP.
Unless I missed something, this seems like a solved situation at this point.
It’s solved only for existing subscribers reading this thread and people who won’t question why it says 50% off $60 instead of $30 like it did the prior year.
Ironically, it was the email sent out about a month ago regarding consideration being given to reducing the list size that had me delving into the forums here giving due consideration to upgrading to VIP, and that’s when I found out the price had been doubled for new prospective VIP members.
So we had the barely publicized price increase, followed a few weeks later by the well publicized email. I was ready to jump in feet first, but that was until I noticed that the price had increased.
