Important: Please Read! Changes Are Coming!

[Dire Bare]

Another aspect of the cost and how we pay for our ENWorld subscriptions:

I used to purchase all my D&D books from Amazon to save 30%. I've recently started purchasing my books from my FLGS as they have themselves starting supporting in-store RPG play, specifically D&D Encounters.

Should I be annoyed with my store because they choose not to give the the 30% discount that Amazon does? Of course not! Amazon offers that discount because their sales margins allow for it and it can actually increase their sales and profit. My FLGS isn't in the same business class and would go under if it tried the same thing!

In the same light, I have no problem not getting a 6-month or 12-month discount on my EN World subscription. I know that Morrus operates on a tighter margin than WotC does with D&D Insider, and I'm happy to pay full price each month with no discount available. Edit: And eventually I'll upgrade from "Copper" to "Silver", even though the current extra perks aren't really useful to me personally.

 

[Umbran]

A payment in advance is actually the most predictable payment that you can receive.

Yes and no. It is the most predictable for the life of that subscription, but not beyond. A one-time subscription fee is problematic and unreliable in terms of longer forecasting.

In general, the financial status of EN World sounds to have been "boom or bust". Whenever Morrus says, "Hey, guys, we are in trouble!" there's a flush of cash. And after that income reduced to a trickle. And Morrus then doesn't know when the next flush of cash comes in.

One-time pay year-long subscriptions are kind of like that. You don't want to make something like that auto-renew, but then Morrus cannot project if or when the money will come in next year. When you've got tens or hundreds of people working on that basis, the cashflow becomes unreliable.

 

[Dire Bare]

Yes and no. It is the most predictable for the life of that subscription, but not beyond. A one-time subscription fee is problematic and unreliable in terms of longer forecasting.

In general, the financial status of EN World sounds to have been "boom or bust". Whenever Morrus says, "Hey, guys, we are in trouble!" there's a flush of cash. And after that income reduced to a trickle. And Morrus then doesn't know when the next flush of cash comes in.

One-time pay year-long subscriptions are kind of like that. You don't want to make something like that auto-renew, but then Morrus cannot project if or when the money will come in next year. When you've got tens or hundreds of people working on that basis, the cashflow becomes unreliable.

That's what Morrus is trying to do, move from a "boom/bust" method of income to something more predictable and constant. Smart guy, that Morrus.

I guess the other option might be yearly (or quarterly, or whatever) "fund drives" like PBS or NPR does. I sincerely hope Morrus never takes that route, as fund drives are sometimes perhaps necessary but almost always disruptive and annoying. And certainly not predictable or something you can rely on.

 

[Lanefan]

Why not have both?

The monthly subscription money goes to ongiong expenses and Morrus' upkeep; he can budget from these.

The lump-sum payments (from, among others, people like me who will not use paypal but are willing to pay in other ways) go into a capital improvement fund, for things like hardware upgrades.

Lanefan

 

[tuxgeo]

Many thanks to the button-designer -- was that you, Weem? -- for making the "stacked" buttons, such as

Older
News

(and)

Subscribers
Content

which now serve to make that button-bar narrow.
Likewise thanks to Morrus for putting them in place; and for whoever it was who originally suggested that move in the first place! (I'm still looking for the original post to give XP, but thought I'd post this first.)
It does help the readability.

Edit: I checked the thread in Meta, as mudbunny suggests below. weem did make the buttons (have left XP for mudbunny's original double-text-row idea)

 

[mudbunny]

Check the thread in meta.

 

[Orius]

Many thanks to the button-designer -- was that you, Weem? -- for making the "stacked" buttons, such as

Older
News

(and)

Subscribers
Content

which now serve to make that button-bar narrow.
Likewise thanks to Morrus for putting them in place; and for whoever it was who originally suggested that move in the first place! (I'm still looking for the original post to give XP, but thought I'd post this first.)
It does help the readability.

Yes, it's much improved now. I see the menu bar or whatever was tweaked a bit too, but so far I haven't had problems using it. I understand websites need to change their look every so often, but it does annoy me when a site changed everything around so radically that it becomes difficult to find things. At least that hasn't happened here (unlike say, the recent changes at YouTube which I'm finding highly frustrating).

 

[weem]

....Many thanks to the button-designer -- was that you, Weem?....

Edit: I checked the thread in Meta, as mudbunny suggests below. weem did make the buttons.....

Thank you

 

[CleverNickName]

The new layout is looking stellar, guys. Well done.

 

[Nonei]

The new layout is looking stellar, guys. Well done.

Agreed