Offer a one-time fee model

meadespratley
First off, I love just about everything that Zotero does; but one suggestion:

The annual subscription costs are very expensive /GB given that they last only 1 year.
- Suggestion 1: One time fees /GB
and/or
- Suggestion 2: Cheaper subscription fees, but allow Zotero to save the linked citation:documents locally, so that very large libraries may still be used without taxing cloud-based services. Basically, sync only citation info & linked file info, but not the file itself.
  • adamsmith
    Suggestion 2 is the status quo. You don't pay if you don't sync your attachments and file links are maintained in sync.

    As for suggestion 1 - the Zotero people are making this as affordable as possible. If they were to charge one time fees, those would have to be a lot higher to make sure that Zotero is long-term sustainable.
    See here on why Zotero file storage is relatively expensive:
    http://www.zotero.org/support/storage_faq#why_does_zotero_file_storage_cost_more_than_cloud_service_x
    If you don't need some of it's more advanced features (such as online access and group sharing of files), you can use a WebDav server, which can be significantly cheaper.
  • ajlyon
    The setup in suggestion two is, was, and always will be free.

    I don't speak for the Zotero team and the Corporation for Digital Scholarship, but I don't see any reason why one time fees would be an appropriate change. I don't really trust the model of "pay $40 now, get lotsa space forever!", because the model only makes sense for the hosts if they either expect high user attrition (i.e., the service isn't very attractive or useful) or they don't expect to be around for long. You don't want to take $40 now and incur $5 annual costs ad infinitum. Perhaps 2- and 3-year subscriptions, with some discounting, would make sense.
  • adamsmith
    edited February 25, 2011
    and contrary to how it may appear, ajlyon is not a clone of mine. He's actually much smarter. But slower :-P
  • meadespratley
    Just delved further into the WebDav server. You're right, that is a good cheap workaround! Consider suggestion 2 withdrawn :)

    Thanks for pointing that option out.
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