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Help with business model

We have a bunch of datasets assembled manually + merged with open data, like product specifications (name, dimensions, average price, specific attributes like screen size for cellphone and so on), currencies (codes, current quotes, historical quotes, etc.), public companies (ticker, quotes, capitalization, etc.), and other.

We consider making an access to them via NPM, NuGet, REST API, GraphQL to allow anyone to connect and use the data in one click or just download as .csv, xlsx, etc. We like to code such things, support it, however this is a lot of job and we do not know how to monetize it in the best way. We are considering the following option:

Allow anyone to access to the data, but under dual license. For personal and non-commercial uses – free, commercial – paid membership.

Pros:

  • easy access to the data (our goal)
  • no paywall, data becomes public, what makes possible to accept changes / additions

Cons:

  • will ever someone buy subscription license if he (them) can access to it freely (technically)?
  • what the license should say about the case when recurrent payments stop, can data be still used… so why not to buy only one month?
on May 23, 2020