Being offended by paid-for products is a sign of low personal value.
We're seeing an increasing trend on this forum and elsewhere of so called entrepreneurs and makers becoming offended at anything that costs and isn't provided for free. I'll give two recent examples (links below):
1.) Recently somebody posted a book on IH with an amazon affiliate link and was taken to task for this.
2.) Product hunt posters are increasingly getting complaints that though their product provides a value, it isn't free and therefore unworthy of attention.
I want to issue people who react in this way, with a public health warning.
Taking gross offense at people charging for their products or trying to make money is a sign of deep personal insecurity and a lack of self confidence.
There is a big difference between between blatant self promotion, which never does very well here and is legitimately called out - and trying to make a living from producing something of value.
People who know the meaning of laboring to produce something are never offended by the cost of a product. Sure it may be outside their budget, or not for them - but they never feel personal anger or rage for someone having the audacity to assign a value to their hardwork.
I'll go even further, what we spend money on is a sign of what we hold valuable. Show me what you spend money on, and I'll show you what is most precious to you.
Relevant links:
https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/1019554941801660416
Ryan Kulp is being indulgent here , but he's detecting the same trend:
https://www.ryanckulp.com/im-quitting-indie-hackers/
** Note an earlier reference to a debate about asking for CC details has been removed, as people were focusing on this nuanced and seperate issue and missing the larger argument. This a lesson for me in rhetoric, never give people an excuse to avoid your main argument.
IH thread on credit cards during trial sign-up: That's because a trial should reduce friction to a minimum because it's a trial. A trial comes before committing fully (aka the spending phase). Not wanting to submit credit card details to a system you don't trust yet is completely natural and doesn't mean you don't want to pay for it once you're convinced of the value it says it will provide.
Ryan Kulp missed that IndieHackers is a platform for simultaneous sharing and commercial self-growth. It does not work if you only have one part of that equation (i.e. your commercial gain) but leave out the free sharing. Bootstrapping founders also usually don't have $1750 (up to 4 or 5 months rent for a nomad founder in a cheap country!) lying around to spend on an online course with zero guarantee of success. From his article's writing style and choice of words, he seems to be one cynical, misguided fellow. I hope he can at least find peace in his own beliefs.
You're contributing to a hateful environment, and generalizing a trend as "you cheap entrepreneurs who hate spending for anything", calling everyone here "cheap bums". That'll only worsen the mood on and perception of IndieHackers. If you're really looking for thoughtful discussion instead of stroking your own ego, why are you insulting other people?
Pieter Levels' comments are correct, Product Hunt seems to have that issue pop up a few times now, and the attitude does exist and it's naive.
Yes, social networks commonly "devolve". Not because they're getting worse per se, but because they evolve to exhibit the habits/beliefs of the average resident. And average is pretty average.
A great founder would recognize that and would be able to see past it, to uphold a standard. A petty founder generalizes and insults every individual on the network instead of contributing for better/positive change. (And yes, it's fair to want to leave to use your time for more egocentric purposes, but then don't write a blog article about it shitting on everyone.)
(And before anyone tries to spin this as a black-and-white "us versus them": Yes, I pay for what I use and I'm a proponent of paying for value.)
There's nothing intrinsically wrong with a course costing $1750, even if most people can't afford it.
Value is relative. For somebody, this might actually be underpriced in terms of peceived value gained from it.
I can't afford a Ferrari, but I don't get mad at Ferrari for producing them.
If we can't afford a pair of sneakers or new ride, we don't riot outside the store: so why do people think this is OK with digital products and services?
I would say it's the people bashing products for costing something, who are bringing the hate.
I didn't say there was. I agree a course can cost up to € unlimited.
But he had the wrong assumption that the IndieHackers audience was the right target market to sell his $1750 course to.
Testing markets and building relationships/rapport is sales/marketing 101. And he's selling a marketing course. There was dissonance between the offer and the result, so it's natural that people were critical.
His wording suggests that it's the market segment's fault for him failing to properly sell his course.
You have a point about market/product mismatch for that course.
In fact with high ticket products like this, the price tag shouldn't be mentioned to unqualified prospects. That's a marketing faux pas from a usually briliant thinker: his blog is a goldmine.
Stuff I've read from you lately has been so over the top cocky, occasionally hateful, that I'm wondering if this is just another crass marketing campaign.
I've seen this user pattern happen over and over again in every online community I've joined. How single individuals paint themselves as harbingers of truth, stirring up shit for their own benefit and generally lowering the quality of the community. I almost expect a future post from you about how you are leaving IH, how no one understands you, that you were persecuted, etc, etc.
For reference, take a look at your language in this post:
"We're seeing an increasing trend on this forum and elsewhere of so called entrepreneurs and makers becoming offended at anything that costs and isn't provided for free." That never happened here. More than most other communities, IH understand you need to get paid because everyone is running or starting a business.
"Taking gross offense at people charging for their products or trying to make money is a sign of deep personal insecurity and a lack of self confidence" I have no idea how you reached this conclusion or why you even connected these two ideas but its armchair psychology at its worst.
"I want to issue people who react in this way, with a public health warning." You are not a admin or moderator on IH. Everyone on IH is an equal and deserve better treatment than being talked down upon.
"Sorry if this is harsh (I'm on a roll this week :), i just had to call out the increasing number of bums on here." You're delusional if you think you're on a roll, you just come of as a judging and inconsiderate person, someone I wouldn't want to interact with. Calling other IHers bums?
I don't know what motivates you to write these things, why you feel the need to shit on other IHers. It reflects poorly on you as a (business) person but, much more importantly, makes IH a worse place.
AGREE 100%
I feel like the main goal of these posts like this is to get people riled up, see his username and do exactly that: self promote. Maybe I'm wrong, but the tone of his posts lately just don't feel right in the IH community
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I've been a member here for about 8 months. I have not seen an increase in "cheap" people. The examples you provided are pretty poor samples. A few tweets and a guy that is simply trying to sell a "marketing course". Really, that's your "proof"?
He's detecting that people don't want to buy another overpriced "marketing course" and he's blaming it on the "cheap" community. He wrote a controversial blog post about leaving IH and Reddit, Instagram, Facebook (anyone else detecting a pattern here?)
This quote from his article tells me he knows NOTHING about marketing:
That's just wrong. Good marketers know how to do it.
If you're offended that people want free products, you're in the wrong line of work. It's going to happen. Just ignore it. Or, embrace it (yes, you CAN make money off of free products).
Honestly, the only bad pattern I'm seeing are posts like yours. People that are irritated that they can't sell their "courses", "books" or "training". Please stop.
See my response to Amin below.
Sorry you feel that way. I'm not selling anything at the moment - but if I was so what? Who can say they only post here for purely altruistic reasons, 100% never having the intention of promoting something they've worked on?
I had been on a 3 month fast from IH; i think it may be time to take another break.
It's not my intention to cause offence.
Nobody is saying that. If your product provides value, go for it. Your current product is "bitching and whining". It does not provide value.
Might be a good idea.
Yes, it was. You're trying to stir up shit to validate your feelings.
I only agree with you on the part about taking another break from IH :)
Valid points. This has been a growing concern at our startup over the last 6 months. I had to change the entire business model and advise our CEO to change the direction of the product itself to accommodate this generation and their culture.
Initially, our app was set to be priced at $5.00 a download, keep forever no Ads platform.
The verdict: I joined the team, proved it wouldn't work and had them rework the pricing.
3 months later they decided it will be a subscription model, pay $49 a year, pro features, no ads. Also came with a free plan, no ads, and no pro features. After several heated sessions they dropped the price to $29.99 a year.
The verdict: I cringed. Had to spend another 4 weeks digging up data on our competitor's pricing and business models and launched in closed beta which ended with several users leaving a 1 star feedback cursing the "pro plan".
Today, we have changed the product so much I hardly recognise it. Its free as free could get. We don't collect user data, we don't show Ads. Its an app built truly for this generation.
So how do we make money? Simple – We sell UGC to businesses and we charge them instead of users. I co-wrote the ToS to be an iron clad agreement.
5000+ DAU, still in beta and not a single complaint about features or pricing (just bugs and latency issues).
It's not cool. We're a VC funded startup. I can only imagine the nightmares of Indie developers.
I wanted to run solo a B2C company for a long time (building to consumers feels more "real" than to "cold-hearted" companies or something.) In the end, I concluded that it's incredibly hard to live on that, either you create a product for some specific niche but are constrained to a market, or you create a product with a large audience but are open to competition from VC backed companies.
It can be done, but B2B is a more sensible choice for indie development.
goodbye Indie Hackers, goodbye Low IQ comments that don’t create, only destroy.
Now that I find offensive!
That comment is out of line, as I said he was indulgent (i.e a little spoilt) in that post.
But the point stands, why are people criticizing the price of something if its not for them: just keep it moving if you can't afford something, no need to critique the man for offering a course that may or may not be of value of some regardless of its price-point.
People are people. There's a reason why his course didn't sell here and instead of whining, he should've humbly learned something. You can't shame people into wanting your product. That price is way too high for an audience that understands a course won't guarantee riches--only the hard work we're trying to do! I'm looking to get some knowledge here for free and I'd only pay for modest tools that would 100% advance my goals.
It's a good filter to someone like me. I provide product management and process consulting for founders and small teams. If they aren't willing to pay something for the work, then they aren't my target audience.
I do find it frustrating when the same people trying to hustle to make money from side projects, are the same people not willing to spend money on anything. I had a customer pay me $1500 to lead them through a product discovery process, that ended up generating over $50k in less than a month from the time they started developing.
If you aren't willing to pay for what you need, then you are missing the point IMO.
There's a saying about choosing your customers.
To take this back to the CC issue, insisting on this alienates many people. But it also selects for a better type of customer. The same thing happens when SaaS companies increase their monthly rate.
The economics of the internet are totally broken. The internet, the app store, YT/IG it's all just a global race to the bottom. I'm not sure it's worth getting mad about the fact that that has become the case. I don't entirely disagree with your points, it's just... pick your battles.
Increasingly I see that B2B is really the only place where people don't just expect shit to be free. Other than that people seem to pay for stuff that's actually painful to them. The haters are just noise. In the same way people aren't entitled to other peoples labour (and therefore products) for free, no one is entitled to a profitable business either.
I think my favorite quote that kind of sums the whole debate up is:
Most people have had to spend an hour on the phone or countless emails trying to get out of a "FREE" trial we didn't end up wanting. So, if marketers acted in ethical ways around canceling then users would have more trust in marketers.
I agree, but it’s my self from ten years ago who is agreeing.
In modern products I have never had any issue cancelling a free trial. I think maybe you’ve uncovered something here in that yes, it definitely used to be a minefield cancelling a trial. But I haven’t experienced anything like that in many years.
Bob,
That sucks, i'm a victim of this too, but it's not what the post is calling out.
@AndreyAzimov spent a month creating makeosxgreatagain.com , and all people could say is why isn't this free.
Bragging about being "on a roll" being harsh, complaining about problems that don't exist - that's not the kind of attitude we want here.
Community learning moment:
The real issue here is trust.
People buy from those they trust.
If a random guy posted a link to his hat store, nobody would care.
But when Elon Musk does it, he can sell $700,000 worth with a few tweets. (fortune.com/2017/12/12/elon-musk-boring-company-hats)
Amazon hacked the trust system by building user reviews + great support.
Kylie Jenner hacked the trust system by building a huge public persona — and now she's about to be the world's youngest self-made billionaire (if you could really call it that).
Yeah, it sucks that people complain about price, but they'll stop complaining once they trust you.
Subtle point, very useful.
Amazon is actually a social network: it is the world's largest peer review database with a store attached. This is the surplus value they capture, and the real value of their business, i.e Amazon is actually a Net 2.0 company in disguise.
Damn, hadn't thought of it like that.
Very well said!
I've edited the post to remove the CC card issue, that's a slighly different point.
People are focusing on this, and weaseling out of the larger issue at hand, which needs airing out: i.e a growing resistance to anything paid-for.
That's one of the reasons I joined IH. I'm having trouble finding the right price tag for my desktop software. My first project is on hold right now, because the (low quality) competitors are free or really cheap and I'm not sure how to address that situation.
The worst thing is I find myself in situations where I see a (digital) product and after seeing its (modest) price tag, I wonder if I couldn't get a similar product for free. There seems to be some invisible force dragging people (like myself) down this obviously wrong road ...
The point about targetting B2B is relevant to you, here there is less resistance to sales, and it seems this is where the smart indiehackers are focusing their energy.
It seems consumers expect free as groomed by the unicorns, and are happy to be data slaves for the privilege.
I think you have entirely missed the point and you generalise on the subject.
It is different to be happy to pay for the service, and it is different to get your Credit Card captured before you can test and see the product. I have no problem with paying for products, but let's be honest - if unknown SAAS is asking me for CC without letting me to test the platform, without allowing me to see if the tool is as good as advertised, if the code base is proper and if there are no serious bugs, then I will look for similar established services elsewhere.
You are really generalizing here.
Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned the CC aspect; the other two examples stand.
Couldn’t agree with this more. I got pretty flamed yesterday for saying basically what you said above.
I think the people who think everything should be free have obviously never spent a year working 18hrs a day
Building something with their own hands that has come from their own mind.
The perception that apps and software in general (never mind music and video) should be free is a curse of our society.
I insist : affiliate links should not be authorized ... or the forum will attract spammy affiliates. We won’t know if they’re honest or just trying to push for their commission.
I don’t want the forum to become the next warrior forum :/ actually most serious forums ban people who place an affiliate link.
It was a discussion, where the Guy made a pertinent and relevant book suggestion, and used his Amazon affiliate link.
He wasn't spamming. I have no problem with this.
If we say this isn't allowed, then how can we allow people to link to products and services they own and run, which people do all the time?
Once you allow affiliate links, you will see all sorts of spammy links appear to courses and other products that's why it's not allowed on most forums :/
There is a difference between promoting your thing / product because you believe in it and the products of someone else with an affiliate link as you might be there just for the commission even if you don't believe in the product !
Do you see the difference ?
Check what people on Quora have to say about it :
https://www.quora.com/Why-doesnt-Quora-allow-affiliate-links
PS : I do Amazon affiliate too but won't place any links in this forum.
We get shit pretty much on a daily basis for the prices we dare to charge for our products. Stopped caring and started ignoring this a long time ago. If anything, it only makes me want to increase prices.
But to be honest; I have not really noticed this behavior on IH's so far. Did I accidentally miss all those posts/replies that flame people for charging money, even though I spend a good amount of time on the forums daily?.
"hey guys, I'm ryan and my sales funnel dried up so I wrote a novel about it"
complaining like a loser, while calling other people loser -- can't wait to learn more of his wisdom in his $1750 course on how to build a SaaS in 2015. I guess step 2 is "post on IH and wait for sales to roll in LOL busine$$ is eazy guise".
I agree with leaving IH but not because you can't post and expect people to open their wallets like it's sunday church. founders should hang out with people who have money and problems, not solutions and no-money.
I think IH is way too nice and timid. Being offended by "I'm entitled to your wallet" ryan is a sign of a properly calibrated BS detector.
you linked a thread about some guy asking whether or not people are comfortable with providing credit card info for trial runs as proof of your point? really?! gtfooh
That has been removed, you can't use it to weasel away from the main argument: reading comprehension homie!
The two examples now listed stand as valid.
it wasn't removed an hour ago when i posted that... also, i'm not sure how a single tweet that shows somebody stating that a con of another project is that they do not also have a free tier plan verifies what you're saying. i'm not even gonna bother reading and listenign to the ryan thing. i agree with you that people shouldn't be outraged or whatever by products or services that aren't free, but, goddamn, you've done an amazing job at muddying the waters
No worries, the cc issue was a poor example.
Lol interesting topic... Im going to grab some popcorns and just enjoy the discussion.
This comment was deleted 3 months ago.
Thomas,
I've removed reference to the CC issue, it's distracting from the main point.
Okay - cheers! I'll delete my post. Not sure how that will affect the dependent comments so this might look a bit weird.