Mimestream, a native Gmail app for macOS(mimestream.com) |
Mimestream, a native Gmail app for macOS(mimestream.com) |
I have to admit that I didn't see a recurring subsription pricing model coming at all. I'm not opposed to the model in general, but I just can't imagine paying $50–60/year for... an email client... I'm scratching my head if there's ever been a (personal) email client (not service) billed similarly. Very weird decision by the founder... sorry, but I'm not buying.
It also feels super shitty to launch 1.0 out of the blue AND then expire the public beta builds that we have been using for 3 years with 4 days notice...
I hate to say it, but this feels like a totally botched overnight transition from longtime free beta to paid app to me. There wasn't even a notice given to existing users that 1.0 was coming (now or later). From the outside, it looks like they hired multiple engineers too fast, maybe they tried to raise VC and it failed, and this is an effort to pay the bills.
I think this pricing is out-of-touch with their userbase and making this drastic move randomly will cause them to lose 95%+ of their users. I would have given them a $30–50 one-time purchase for sure (i.e., something like Sublime's license model).
That was extremely obvious from the beginning. They allowed to use the beta for free and never made any promises on licensing model. So, it was obvious that they wanted to force you to pay subscriptions. Actually that was the primary reason for me to avoid getting use to the app.
Someone would pay, sure, but it's cheaper to get Fastmail than to pay that much for GMail client.
It was a solo founder for a long time. I didn't realize he'd hired other people before today... but you gotta pay those engineering salaries somehow, I guess.
But I agree that the new pricing model announced today feels off.
The 1.0 has a 14 day trial, so that at least extends it to 18 days notice.
It really seems like the beta program might have been a victim of its own success (and ridiculously long duration).
It is interesting to look at it through the lens of what's the social contract between a beta user and a developer? I feel the basics are that users get access to features ahead of time in exchange for reporting bugs if they discover any, but nowadays perhaps folks think there should be more they get out of it? Of course it isn't fun to beta a pre-1.0 product and have the workflow disturbed because the price isn't palatable, but that's the risk?
I think that social contract can be anything you want as long as you communicate it clearly and in advance (they did neither).
---
What "beta" means and its timeline varies widely. Mimestream was technically in public beta this whole time but quality-wise has been production-grade software most of that time. Gmail was in public "beta" for 5+ years.
Of course, many apps hit 1.0 eventually... but then a lot of those migrate their beta program to TestFlight to continue to help fix bugs and as a thank you for helping get the software to 1.0.
But the most important things if you do decide to kill the beta track post-1.0 (i.e., take away features from your users) are to: (1) give your users a timeline and sufficient heads up in advance (e.g., 30–60+ days), and (2) solicit feedback from and listen to your users. If Mimestream had done either of those, this launch would have gone a lot better.
Mimestream also offered beta testers a first-year discount code, which seemed like a nice gesture. But then upon reading the press release, they offered everyone basically the same discount. So that cheapened the offer and made the connotation go from "they're thanking their beta testers" to "they're just trying to convert as many people as possible".
It's kind of surprising to have to say this though... 10 years ago and beyond this was the norm, if not the only way. Software companies figured it out a long time ago. A one-man company or a side project is a different thing with more constraints, but that's not what this is anymore.
There's also the philosophical angle of creating software that cannot be bought or owned. That strikes a nerve with a lot of people (especially on HN).
The fact that Mimestream thinks they can charge $50/y means that either a) they'll fail, or b) there's plenty of room for more competition, and Sublime should come and eat their lunch.
For instances, there's a service called Clean Email [1] that makes it much quicker and easier to burn through an inbox with thousands+ of messages. But it operates as its own SaaS instead of saying integrating into the Gmail site directly.
Their pricing is interesting as well: $10/mo or $30/yr for 1 account (I'm guessing their churn rate is really high). But then they also offer a lifetime plan that's "$199" but then after you cancel, they offer it to you for half that price.
[1]: https://clean.email/
That aside, it struck me this morning that this is the native Mac OS desktop gmail client I have wanted since at least 2008, when I first got a job at a gmail shop (my own email is non-Gmail). In that time, I've tried literally every non-browser client I could get my hands on and none are good. Most are electron-style wrappers or feel decidedly un-Mac-like.
And now, 15 years later, there's an extremely high-quality "Mac-assed" [1] Mac OS client that is everything I've ever wanted. I have to look at my work email multiple times a day, every day of my working life. $50/year to make that a pleasant, productive experience is well worth it in my mind.
[1] https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/03/20/mac-assed-mac-a...
What's news today is the app's Mimestream 1.0 launch [1], and the new pricing model. Changelog is at [2] for the curious.
I understand paying for this if you're a paying Google Workspace customer. But if you're a free gmail user, it doesn't make sense. If you're going to pay for email, pay for the actual email before paying for a client.
> On the Mac App Store, there isn't a practical way to charge for updates. You could release entirely new apps, but then upgrading is a pain for users, and you lose your ranking and reviews -- and it's difficult to charge an upgrade fee. You can gate-keep features with In-App-Purchases the way Agenda does, but then you're giving away bug fixes and polish on the app for free forever, and that's probably 80% of your development time. Plus, I would imagine the upgrade rate on that model is pretty low, since most users won't care about fringe features being added.
> If you really want to offer perpetual licenses with paid updates, since you're a desktop app, you can roll your own licensing system and use FastSpring/Paddle/etc. It's a fair model, but it's a lot of work. It may be worth it depending on your audience - e.g. developers tend to care a lot about this stuff.
> Selling this as a subscription is probably the best path if you can stomach the initial ire of users that don't like that model. Depending on your price point, you could consider a 4x-5x multiplier for a lifetime option if you want to try and keep some of them. Yes, you will lose some users that might have paid for a major version, but you'll probably make that up with the recurring revenue from less price-sensitive users.
> Best of luck. I know this can be agonizing and there's no easy answer here.
These damn users, they literally rob the developers, they force them to give away bugfixes for free.
While the right way to go is to release a bunch of half-baked crap and then charge per-patch.
> and polish on the app for free forever
But even "bug fixes" are sometimes not cleaning up your own issues; for example, macOS updates regularly will break apps. It's like paying someone to lay down a lawn for you and expecting the grass will never need cutting.
Zero chance of paying for this. Back to Mailplane, which is still working (for now anyway).