It’s not crazy, many services especially in SAAS do honor pricing commitments, even without explicitly saying it (which trakt/justin did many times) for early adopters. Even in some of the worse cases they feature lock down a grandfather sub, so newer features that cost more is skipped. Even Adobe honors their grandfathered pricing, and there are not many companies that are greedier than them. Sometimes companies mess up, but it’s not without backlash either.
If you look at for example Early Access games on Steam, many are sold for less and increase in pricing as more features are added, but those that supported early on got in “cheaper”.
SAAS is different in that it’s not one and done deal, and as many VIP said some pricing correction to follow inflation or whatever bumping 15->20, 30->35 would have went down much smoother, even though they still would have broken their promise and some would have outraged (rightfully).
Those that got in early IIRC trakt had 20k users when I joined, shaped this platform, many promoted it, gave it a community (which inherently adds more value), the early supporters paid for the features that are still in use, most of the site hasn’t really changed in years feature-wise, and what they did add like trakt-lite didn’t go through well. Drop is cool, but should have been done years ago, and it’s mostly a rename functionality-wise of the already existing hide feature.
As mentioned in another post, I’m on the fence on whether or not I will keep the 2 VIP subscriptions in my household.
For me, last.fm is a good comparison to trakt. Both services allow you to keep track of media you “consume”, and allow you to discover something new. For me, last fm does for music what trakt does for movies and tv.
I’ve been a VIP subscriber to trakt for nearly 5 years, I’ve been a PRO subscriber to last.fm for only 1 year. My last.fm subscription costs me €50/year. (Apparently last.fm increased their PRO pricing last year just before I signed up from €30 to €50. Also a substantial increase, but still less than the increase of trakt pricing) I was not aware of the old price so only looked at the cost of €50/year when signing up. Considering that music is more important to me than movies and TV, the price seemed acceptable compared to the $30 I was paying for trakt. (For comparison, I had approximately 32000 scrobbles on last.fm in the last year, compared to 1150 plays on trakt)
Trakt is now doubling its VIP price. This is being justified as follows:
While I understand that expenses have increased as a result of inflation and an increase of the subscription could be justified, I am more difficulty understanding the aspect of increased load. Compared to last.fm, I would think that the load per user on trakt is substantially less. I my case about 27x less! Where does the increased load come from? Would this primarily not be the result of having more users? Meaning more income? So this should not affect pricing per user. Unless of course you are not properly monetizing users in the free tier and are looking to VIP users to fill the hole. This litteraly sounds like a double or nothing bet.
In the end, it is up to everyone to decide for themselves whether or not a product or service is worth its price. What is acceptable for some might not be acceptable for others. In my specific case, it could mean that my wife will keep a VIP subscription, but I might not as movies and tv are more important for her than for me.
This actually gave me LESS confidence. Justin doesn’t have power anymore? This tells me that he sold the site to Venture Capitalists, which makes sense because only VC “advisors” would make such a dumb move.
Perhaps a one size fits all approach to supporting the site is no longer feasible? I for one see NO value in “auto scrobbing” from streaming services because it really just doesn’t work reliably. I’d rather remove and lose that functionality. $60 for what you guys offer is INSANELY overpriced. You bring up a podcast app to “justify” the increase, but you aren’t providing any content, you aren’t streaming any video, and you aren’t even paying for your data (so we are left with the inferior TMDB instead of the superior TVDB because you didn’t want to pay for API access).
Add this to the laughable limits on lists and you are really cutting your nose off to spite your face. A big part of what made Trakt great was the community who all did a LOT of work for you guys, either by making lists, rating content, or even updating metadata.
The Trakt we knew, created by Sean and Justin, is gone. It’s been a slow boil, but the focus has clearly shifted away from the community and towards profit. I suspect soon the forums will be shut down, much like the blog was shut down, the user feedback for new features was shut down, etc.
although the wait times on reported content is insane. I highly applaud Sonply (and Kirstin propbably), because Trakt is super fast (although of course its easier, because tmdb has to verify the claims people make I assume).
Even if this were the definition of grandfathering (which it isn’t) , they grandfathered nothing for me. I paid my $30 before the price increase, and won’t even get a single year “grandfathered”
But you are absolutely correct, they’re gaslighting about what grandfathering means. Further evidence that they’ve lost the plot.
At this point, anyone that needs to export or transfer data should probably hurry, because it wouldn’t shock me at all if competitor services suddenly have technical difficulties using the API, along with any export features timing out. That’s the next logical step for Trakt to take to ensure its own demise.
Credit where it is due, they aren’t deleting these threads.
I haven’t signed up yet either, I’ve just checked their website to see what they are offering. You can see here what’s included in each tier: https://simkl.com/vip/. Automatic scrobbling for Plex, Kodi, Netflix, etc. is free. I assume webhooks are needed, and Plex Pass of course.
They have 100% overplayed their hand here and I honestly hope they realise this. Someone mentioned they’re a glorified TVDB wrapper which, yeah, is not precisely true but when it comes down to it, thats how I see it. And 10 devs for that is crazy, all the bugs an downtime ive seen over the years made me think it was 1 or 2 devs max. If you want to re-evalute things maybe start with the code and employee count. Who and what is actually bringing value to the site?
If that’s how you want to try and justify things. How about we compare to another premium podcast app.
PocketCasts changed from a one-time purchase to a subscription model in 2019. After initial backlash, they gave every user who had purchased the web app, a lifetime membership.
The big difference between PocketCasts and Trakt is that PocketCasts was a one-time fee. They haven’t had any more money out of the lifetime users. Trakt is a yearly fee and one that users are happy to pay as long as they are being treated fairly.
“Grandfathering is a transition practice that allows users to adjust to new pricing plans”
Clearly Trakt or certain people at Trakt either A) don’t understand what grandfathered plans are or B) think Trakt VIP users are stupid enough to believe the nonsense posted in the update earlier today.
PocketCasts made a misstep but they quickly corrected it. From the update provided by Trakt, it sounds like doubling down in trying to justify screwing over OG users rather than accept that increasing the price for them is a mistake, especially after Justin confirmed that grandfathered users would not be affected by price increases
I’m inclined to agree with you, this is a service, and it costs money to run. I absolutely love that there are no 3rd party ads on Trakt, when I pay for something that has a free option, I’m almost always doing it because the paid option is ad free (I know the free people would have hated this, but I wonder if The Powers That Be ever considered putting ads on the free accounts and having no ads be a VIP feature). HOWEVER, the way this has been communicated to everyone is pretty abysmal. Less than a year ago, Justin told everyone they could “lock in” a price of $30 if they signed up before a certain time. The phrase “lock in”, to me, sounds permanent. Whether they were knowingly lying at that time or not, they promised a price that would stay the same. Now it’s like 8 months later and they’re telling us the exact opposite.
I get a lot of value out of Trakt. The main features I use it for (keeping track of how many times I’ve watched things, checking out my year in review stats, Plex scrobbling) I cannot get elsewhere. I don’t know of anywhere else that tracks things down to the hour of the day it was watched. I’ve looked at SIMKL, to me the UI looks like garbage, so cluttered and unappealing. Letterboxd doesn’t track the time, nor give fun charts and graphs (I don’t think) and they have allegedly been talking about TV tracking for years with nothing to show for it. So for those reasons, despite my utter dismay at how this has been rolled out, I’m inclined to stay for at least one more year, to see how exactly this all shakes out.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, TMDB has gotten better with TV shows, largely thanks to us, but the beginning was ROUGH and there are still issues here and there with updates, especially around show lengths.
My point is more, it’s rich that they can’t see paying for API access for TVDB because that is predatory, but they have no problem charging US more for the free data they get to make pretty.
Simkl is giving me “Trakt pre 2024” vibes. Joined their free discord and the developer has been super responsive, they have the old user feedback engine that Trakt used to use to help prioritize and communicate upcoming features, etc.
This was how it used to work. Trakt was ad-supported and VIP got rid of the ads. It was this reason + supporting Justin that made me sign up for VIP in the first place.
I think it’s a completely reasonable thing to re-implement if VIP subscriptions aren’t generating enough income and it’s definitely a better option that increasing the price for OG VIPs and users who locked-in when we were told that’s what we needed to do
Not really. It’s a standard and widely understood practice. Companies do it because the early adopters are supporters they can rely on in the early days in the hopes of developing a more feature rich platform for mass adoption at a higher price. Said early adopters are supposed to be a minority of loyal supporters that only becomes a smaller minority in the long run.
So the natural question after increasing prices for everyone is are they still a minority? Why are turning around on grandfathered VIPs after increasing prices for new sign ups?
New sign ups at $60 slowing to a crawl is a reasonable conclusion.
I don’t know anything about plex scrobbling, so I perceived it to be like the Younify thing. If others offer it for free (therefore it’s not a bank breaker), then I don’t see why it would have to be in the top tier.
The IDEAL thing is to let users pick and choose which VIP features they want (like up to 5 choices at a lower price point or all for higher), but that would be a headache to implement, so I don’t see them doing that.
You’re probably right. I have a Letterboxd account, but don’t like how there are no TV series. I considered Simkl, but I’m not a fan of how it looks. I’ll have to take some time to look at the other options I’ve seen mentioned.
There are multiple ways to watch movies and TV series legally and free. One of my favorite souces is the public library. Libraries have collections of DVDs and Blu-Rays that people can borrow for free! Some libraries also have partnerships with streaming services like Hoopla, which lets a user digitally borrow and watch select movies/shows for free with your library card. In addition to libraries, people can also borrow physical media from friends/family who already own it. There could also be in-person watch get-togethers/parties with friends where you go to someone else’s house and watch something together. You’re also discounting the free ad-supported streaming services available, like Tubi and Roku. Watching movies and shows does NOT have to be an expensive hobby.
They just keep shooting themselves in the foot here. I said it already but I will say it again. If Trakt doubles back to the regular price (or a more modest increase), they have already proven they cannot be trusted and will not be getting many of us back to VIP regardless.
Of course they are. It’s not just the cost, but the principle.
Imagine going into a store and buying, say, a quart of milk. So, everyone before you gets charged a dollar or $2, but it gets to your turn, and they say $4. Who likes to pay double, or quadruple what others are paying? It makes you feel that you are not worth the same as others, and are being taken advantage of.
At least now when/if someone decides to signup for $60 a year, it’s knowing that you are paying the same as everyone else.
Sure, some can say, I’ve been a member 10 years, but that only equates to $150. If they pay $15 a year for another 2 years (if they could), that would equate to $180. Now a new join would pay that in just 3 years, and then 4 times the amount every year after that.
I can understand early supporters getting a bit of preferential pricing, but if the majority of members are only paying $15-$30, in the longterm that is just not sustainable with the cost of everything going up, and anyone considering paying $60 knowing that they are paying between double and quadruple what others are paying is perhaps the reason why the $60 plans are not selling well.
Personally, I was going to cancel this year, because I would have ended up paying $60 anyway, even before the announcement a couple days a go, but now that I know that everyone is being treated the same, I possibly may keep my VIP membership.
It’s fine as an early phase tactic, and as you say not uncommon.
In such a scenario, you have a very small number of early adopters on very preferentially terms - and a much more significant proportion paying ‘normal’ rates. In this scenario, the subscribers paying normal rates dwarf those on early adopter preferential rates, therefore income is not impacted in any significant way.
However, from the evidence available, this situation is different - it’s not only a very small number of the initial early adopters that are on very preferential rates, but subscribers gained over a decade until quite recently, and after the first 2-3 years when the service was evolving. That is what makes it unsustainable - if the number of subscribers on preferential rates dwarfs those paying the normal, current rate, then you’re not generating enough revenue.
‘Rewarding’ the very early adopters would not be unreasonable - maybe by creating a new tier (VIP+ ?). Anyone that joined as a VIP between 2010 and 2012 (say), and had an uninterrupted VIP membership, could be made VIP+, and retain preferential rates. But only those very few.
That rewards the early adopters, which is what this would be intended to recognise, without creating a situation where revenue doesn’t grow enough to match the costs of a significantly growing number of subscribers.
