I've Had Enough & Today Everyone Has The Phoronix Premium Experience

[FrankL]

does it hurt to sometimes show signs that there's a real person on the other end, that has emotions, struggles, etc.? I actually find that comforting to know...

[DrYak]

This disruption of web pages by ads is one of the reason I viscerally hate ads, and why I will never ever disable my uBlock (except on the day I'll upgrade to a better ad-blocker).

On the other hand, the fact that I *do* enjoy content like Phoronix is the reason I tip, donate or (in phoronix's case) subscribe to get more of the same content I like.

I do read Phoronix regularly, it is useful for me even in a professional context, so I pay for it.


Now regarding to gettin more money to get phoronix running:

- consider all possible tipping/crowdfunding platforms (Patreon, Flattr ?)

- consider, as other have proposed, putting the tipping button at the header of the article, where it's more quickly visible.

- consider doing goal-specific crowdfundings (like trying to gatter money to visit a conference that isn't currently within your budget, getting your reader to pool money for hardware that you need, etc.)
There's quite a few situation where I would definitely donate.

- maybe, as some have suggested: being a little bit more open about your finances? (personally I don't give a damn. I like the content, I pay for it).

- DO NOT lock content, you'll be losing readership.

(selling items, on a non-artistic site like phoronix is going to be hard. There are a lot of companies that could provide on-demand T-Shirt and Mugs, but it's going to be hard to find enough material to print on them beyond a few funny forum quotes à la "I run Phoronix on my cluster to keep my coffee warm").

A couple of "down" days here and there won't harm much you're readership. Nobody is going to quite reading phoronix if you take 2-3 days off with almost no new content (except perhaps for a few pre-written article that get auto-posted while you're away).

[AndyChow]

does it hurt to sometimes show signs that there's a real person on the other end, that has emotions, struggles, etc.? I actually find that comforting to know...

Yes, it hurts business to show that there's a real person with emotions on the other end. Do you think that many people are willing to buy a lifetime subscription when they realize that the entire venture is based on one individual that might call it quits any month? Do you think that businesses want to do business with an entity that might go bankrupt at any moment?

Most small businesses start in a basement or a spare room, with one or two person. But they get a virtual address and a virtual receptionist, and try to look big. If they don't, they'll never get a corporate client.

In the same way wearing a suit and tie might not make you a smarter or work harder, but it sure makes the people you work with think so.

That's my two cents anyway.

[FrankL]

Yes, it hurts business to show that there's a real person with emotions on the other end. Do you think that many people are willing to buy a lifetime subscription when they realize that the entire venture is based on one individual that might call it quits any month? Do you think that businesses want to do business with an entity that might go bankrupt at any moment?

Most small businesses start in a basement or a spare room, with one or two person. But they get a virtual address and a virtual receptionist, and try to look big. If they don't, they'll never get a corporate client.

In the same way wearing a suit and tie might not make you a smarter or work harder, but it sure makes the people you work with think so.

That's my two cents anyway.

It all depends on your expectations. I've never made the assumption that Phoronix was run by anyone except maybe one or two people from their basement. Imo the 'corporate image' in this type of scenario would feel out of place. In the end I suppose it's a different vision; I feel betrayed when a company portrays itself or their products differently from how they are, as I judge the company/product by my expectations.
The more realistic they keep my expectations, the better chance that I may like it.

Of course, I can't speak for others. Coming from continental Europe, maybe the difference in this view is cultural?

[Veerappan]

- consider doing goal-specific crowdfundings (like trying to gatter money to visit a conference that isn't currently within your budget, getting your reader to pool money for hardware that you need, etc.)
There's quite a few situation where I would definitely donate.

Actually, this is something I've thought of a bit in the past as well. Michael has issues with certain vendors not sending him review samples of hardware, which makes benchmarks of that hardware pretty rare on *nix unless he goes and buys the card/cpu/whatever himself. Plenty of us have workstations or gaming rigs that could use that hardware.

1) Would it make sense for someone to buy a certain card/cpu/motherboard/etc and send it to Michael on a time-limited loan (e.g. 1 month). let him get as many benchmarks of it as he can crank out to prime openbenchmarking.org and then have him send it back to whoever bought it in the first place.

2) Instead of that, he could also buy that hardware for review, and periodically clean out the storage closet of the stuff that he doesn't want to do further benches of. if the hardware is still fairly relevant (i.e. still available in retail), I suspect that he could recoup part of the hardware costs that way. Yes, he probably does it already, but if he doesn't, the he's probably got a lot of old hardware laying around just like I do/did.

Regarding #1, Zen, Polaris, and Pascal are all theoretically coming out this year (or even this quarter). If there's a polaris card in the $200-250 range at some point, I'd definitely be willing to buy one, and do a mid-term loan of the card to him. My theoretical upgrade to Zen would probably be available for remote ssh benches most of the day as well (if i'm at work, the system can be woken via WOL and could be used).

[Darknation]

Personally I'm glad I subscribed to premium. I have no other pay subscriptions anywhere else news wise except here. Because I have learned so much from here over the years I feel my meager contributions are the least I can contribute.

[spangry]

Sorry if this has already been said, just copy pasting from my HN post:

I tried using Phoronix with an adblocker exception, but the pages loaded so slowly or not at all (because the adserver was overloaded or something at the time). Adblocker went back on after that. I really want to subscribe for a year, but the only option is a recurring subscription through paypal. Yes, yes, I know I can just go in to paypal and cancel the recurring subscription (once I figure out where they've hidden it this time). But I always have this weird paranoia that cancelling in paypal will also cancel my premium access. Michael, if you're reading this, I have a few suggestions on how you might increase conversion rates to premium:

• Offer non-recurring annual subscriptions
• Make it easier to sign up for premium. Instead of having to create a forum account first, why not have it run the other way (or both ways)? Someone hits the premium button on the front page, enters their email, password and payment and that's it. Afterwards, they can optionally choose a forum nickname.
• Consider offering forms of payment other than paypal. I always feel a little dirty after using paypal, and avoid them if I can. Bitcoin would be nice (maybe through one of those intermediaries that shields you from BTC volatility risk).

[Goldie]

I've just subscribed to Premium, I really value the articles that Michael puts so much time into authoring.

I disagree with those posters who have complained of "professional image" issues - clearly the work the Michael has been doing has been a real labour of passion. Seeing that open-source software is involved here - the realities of how Phoronix is actually maintained feels right to me.

That said, I think the comments of examining different models or ideas for how you can scale yourself Michael are worth examining. While I certainly appreciate the long hours that you put in to make Phoronix what it is, I don't think anyone expects you to keep up 100+ hour weeks to do it.

Many of us who frequent Phoronix will sympathise with the place you find yourself in now (myself included) - I'd encourage you to find a different way to work on Phoronix without requiring as much effort on your part.

For what its worth, I've really valued the comparisons of Raspberry Pi hardware and its competitors. Although there are many cheaper systems with less of the architectural problems that RPi has, none of them has the same software ecosystem. It has been very enlightening to watch your shift of opinions in this space as you've compared the many different systems available.

[F1esDgSdUTYpm0iy]

I don't think anyone expects you to keep up 100+ hour weeks to do it.

Nor is it sustainable, that kind of commitment. It's not healthy. Neither physically nor emotionally. People need time off from the daily humdrum.

[Michael]

Sorry if this has already been said, just copy pasting from my HN post:

I tried using Phoronix with an adblocker exception, but the pages loaded so slowly or not at all (because the adserver was overloaded or something at the time). Adblocker went back on after that. I really want to subscribe for a year, but the only option is a recurring subscription through paypal. Yes, yes, I know I can just go in to paypal and cancel the recurring subscription (once I figure out where they've hidden it this time). But I always have this weird paranoia that cancelling in paypal will also cancel my premium access. Michael, if you're reading this, I have a few suggestions on how you might increase conversion rates to premium:

• Offer non-recurring annual subscriptions
• Make it easier to sign up for premium. Instead of having to create a forum account first, why not have it run the other way (or both ways)? Someone hits the premium button on the front page, enters their email, password and payment and that's it. Afterwards, they can optionally choose a forum nickname.
• Consider offering forms of payment other than paypal. I always feel a little dirty after using paypal, and avoid them if I can. Bitcoin would be nice (maybe through one of those intermediaries that shields you from BTC volatility risk).

The problem with doing premium outside of the forums is that I'd then need to write a subscription management solution myself rather than just piggy-backing off what VB has to offer.

I do accept Bitcoin, mentioned in few articles before, when readers contact me via email and then bitcoin me the money and I manually activate it for the forum account.