[Affinity V2, updates, pricing and no subscription (moved)]

就这样吧

[Affinity V2, updates, pricing and no subscription (moved)]

5 hours ago, lettersign said:

I will try to repeat my position again.

1. You give a 40% discount and call it a gorgeous discout for customers of v1, but it is a regular "launch offer" not higher than the % that many companies give on launch. OMG you call it on the site «launch offer" and the launch offer you pass off as a discount for old customers. But this is manipulation and not true. It is a sales promotional discount, a tool to promote sales, not a gift for v1 users.

2. Later it turned out that you give an extra 50% discount on the Suite to owners of any v1 product and a free upgrade for the v1 product they bought already. But you do it secretly, without publishing clear and open criteria for what period this discount is for (without a specific clear date). Still this data has not been published. Although it is correct to do so before such a deadline for a reasonable period. Traditionally, the free upgrade period for design products is 365 days. If you shortened that period, you should have warned users and customers for 1 year before the v2 release, you need to aware that they weren't getting the upgrade to 1.11 or v2. You should have warned that the support and evolution of the product people buy will end after 1 year and they won't get the free upgrade. You did not do that. Now a lot of users are outraged (of course the was maybe just 1%, but they are and you decide to ignore them and make money from them twice. It’s not fair.), you lose their loyalty and the loyalty of long time users who recommended others to buy Affinity and those got caught up in this situation.

3. Why am I writing all this? I believe this situation is taking a huge toll on the trust and loyalty of Affinity products. People will not forget what happened. As soon as become rumors, 2-3 years from now, that v3 might be out soon, people will immediately stop buying v2. Users will come on the forums and tell them to wait, "Don't buy!!!", they will remind new possible customers that Serif doesn't give a new version to people who bought Affinity at a bad time. Which means your sales will drop, the number of users will stop growing. And all users will get a worse product because of luck of budget.

It's fair to give a free upgrade to anyone who buys a license 1 year before the next version is released. It's fair to give all other users 50% for the upgrade. This is fair to the user community. It's transparent and clear criteria, understanding that people won't be afraid of a new version release when buying an old one, because they will know that Serif doesn't want to leave them fooled. It's a simple and obvious solution. Everyone here defending the flawed solution with the v2 release is hurting Affinity.

In order to ensure that what has happened now never happens again, all Affinity users and Support must be interested to make changes, to give clear realictic criterias (now stupid abstract few weeks, but 6 оr 12 months) for the upgrade and use them in the future.
I hope it will happen.

谢谢你 LetterSign，我完全同意你的观点，我也很开心能在这样的 “事件中” 遇到如此 “较真” 关乎客户体验的同类。

但很可惜我越来越感觉这个团队不在意我们所说的东西，当然我更希望的是，他们是真的不懂、不擅长，否则我会后悔当初只因为便宜而选择了这3套软件并把他们推荐给身边的朋友。

如果真是他们不在意我们所说的东西，那些 “NO SUBSCRIPTION” 尽管真的节约了消费者的费用，但也只是他们进入市场的手段而已，是不是真的因为 “客户” ，他们并不关心。

我们似乎担忧了本不该我们担忧的事情，以至于显得有些让人讨厌了

[Affinity V2, updates, pricing and no subscription (moved)]

59 minutes ago, BigGandalf said:

From what I've seen on here, it looks like poor customer service, not knowing how to talk/deal with it's customers, sure I'm not very happy, its worse for those that only bought v1 3 weeks ago to only be told later to pay again for v2.

是的你是对的！

在这个主题讨论下他们的回应几乎都是被动、片面甚至矛盾的。当我看到 @Ash 询问 @lettersign 希望是多少折扣时，我的全身都快僵住了——任何一个回答都会比这样去问要更好吧！？我现在差不多理解了 @Ash 回复所说的 “The main reason for this was App Store customers (which make up around 35% of our userbase). The problems with that are two-fold...” 了，因为他们真的不擅长！

与 Affinity 一系列优秀软件产品比起来，客户服务的短板这次暴露无疑。这样我怀疑 Affinity 团队是否全都是一群自信且固执的程序开发人员，他们似乎完全无法理解许多回复中关于客户感受的部分。这让我很不安——因为我 “批评”  Affinity 此次没有 V1 用户升级优惠政策背后的根本原因是我希望能继续使用 Affinity 的产品，我爱这些软件产品，但在这样的的团队服务意识下——可能某一天我就没机会再用到了

[Affinity V2, updates, pricing and no subscription (moved)]

10 hours ago, ashf said:

Just curious, how do you validate V1 users to give away the bonus contents?

 That's a great question! 

And the answer to this question is the basis for providing the V1 upgrade solution, right?

[Affinity V2, updates, pricing and no subscription (moved)]

8 minutes ago, TheOtherRoland said:

Loocor, I'm seeing your posts in Chinese. Not sure what you're saying: is there a link for translating foreign posts here?

Sorry I have to express it accurately in my native language, hope you can understand. 

You can use google translator from there https://translate.google.com/

Thanks

[Affinity V2, updates, pricing and no subscription (moved)]

8 minutes ago, Victor B said:

I'm a new customer and the release of the V2 was greatly dishartening for me.

I've purchased Photo and Designer just a month ago and it seems that if I want the V2, I will need to pay again. Last week I got the email about V2 launch, I thought to myself "Great!", but in the same email I got informed that there will be no updates to V1. I felt abandoned just a month after purchase. If I knew that this will be the case, I would wait especially that I've paid more for two apps that you are charging now for universal license at the moment for three apps.

When I was buying these apps, there was no info saying: "Hey, we are releasing a new version a month from now, so you may want to wait as there will be no updates to the current one. The update will be paid, so you will need to pay twice within a month".

I am very disapointed with the situation at the moment.

I've sent an enquiry to the Affinity support team a week ago, but didn't get a reply so far.

Don't get me wrong, I like the software very much and I understand the business model, but still... this is a curved ball for me. This should not be the case after just one month after purchase.

尽管我是2015年的用户，但我仍然理解你的感受。

这样我想起 Apple 新品上市的类似场景：Apple 当然不会提前讲新的 Mac 或 iPhone 何时上市，但在发货时如果发现有新品发布且订单时间在14（在中国是个时间）天内，就会邮件或致电客户，提示是否需要更换成更新版本——如果价格没有差异，而如果价格有差异，客户可以把老版本退货重新购买新的。

希望你能得到 Affinity 团队合理的解决方案。

[Affinity V2, updates, pricing and no subscription (moved)]

3 minutes ago, TheOtherRoland said:

The company did explain itself and why they "had to do" what they had to do, pricing wise. We are getting 40% off the upgrade price. The fact that we have to share that privilege with "outsiders" should not make us upset, unless we believe that we belong to a special club of insiders. (I write about human psychology and sociology, so these kinds of explanations tend to creep into my posts because I take my work home with me. ).

That said, I get discounts on upgrades all the time. And here at Serif, I'm getting them too. I'm happy with that. Why aren't others?

好吧你说服了我！我在这个话题上已经花了不少时间了，显然如果不能理解我、以及那些持有相似观念的朋友，我们讲再多也无益。

所以我该停止再继续讨论这个话题了，谢谢你 😄

[Affinity V2, updates, pricing and no subscription (moved)]

这个话题的走向越来越偏——我们讨论的是Affinity（升级）定价策略以及如何对待忠诚度客户的问题——从 @TheOtherRoland @Transrobotism 等朋友的表述来看，我们说现行价格体系不合理/不严谨是因为没有得到 “free trips to Italy” 这样的好处而失望。

这是严重的误解！

首先我想说，我们如实表达不满不是为了贪图“小便宜”，相反我们为值得的产品和服务毫不犹豫的支付费用！我想附上部分软件/服务的订单截图更有说服力：

正如你能看到的，我是 2015 开始的 Affinity 用户，我为值得的产品和服务毫不犹豫的支付费用！不管是一次性买断还是每年按周期支付的订阅！

---

其次我想说，如果对 Affinity 当前的问题视而不见只表达毫无意义的“忠诚”，是在把 Affinity 推向更远更糟糕的地方，“纵容等同于作恶”！

我认为 Affinity 在这次升级中以下两方面是明显的失误：

1. 没有给最近购买V1订单的升级方案。我都不确定 Affinity 团队是真没想到这个问题，还是不认为这是个问题。我没有找到对此的任何官方回复。这种失误是完全让人无法理解的；
2. 信息不透明且不一致。关于 V1 是否继续提供升级维护的表达只在这个主题讨论中出现了肯定的表达，而官网、邮件都明确表示“Please bear in mind that V1 will no longer receive any updates.”

至于问题核心——没有为老用户提供提供专属的升级折扣——我只想问 Affinity 团队真的是有预先以客户为中心仔细思考过相关的方案吗？正如我在前一个回复里提到的，2015年讲“非订阅”是竞争力，经过7年还讲“非订阅”是不是有点过于“懒惰”了，Jetbrain 等很多授权模式值得参考啊？继续一次性买断授权，我都担心买不到你们的V3了——像目前这样的方式 Affinity 能再坚持 7 年吗？

 

[Affinity V2, updates, pricing and no subscription (moved)]

 

谢谢 Steve 邮件指引我到这里，谢谢 Ash 的分享。我是 Affinity 的老用户和推介者，我知道 Affinity 团队已经做出了了不起的成绩，我希望 Affinity 好。

正因如此，我有些真心话想要说：

1. 前提：Affinity 成功占有市场，定价因素功不可没，但千万别因为这个因素把自己玩“坏”；
2. 前提：Affinity 数据格式距离“事实标准”仍有很大距离，维护用户忠诚度的纽带并不多也不牢固；
3. 疑问：V2 Universal License 如何验证用户多平台的合法授权的？这个验证方式在 V1 里提供在进行升级不行吗？
4. 经验：软件公司需要持续投入大量的成本维持正常开发，定价、收费是公司当然的、必要的权利。同样，用户也有选择与否的自由和权利；
5. 经验：切入市场可以粗暴，保持并扩大市场却需要精细，类似 “still have the issue of customers who bought the previous version 3 months ago vs. those who have had it 2+ years” 这样的问题不能粗暴的处理；
6. 经验：往往用户讨论价格并不是单纯比较数字的多少，而是性价比，或者说是有关投入金钱产出收益的“感受”，还包括这次购买与上次购买差异的感受。所以，千万别以为价格“够低”用户就一定买单，尤其是老用户——因为他们饱含着对功能与尊重的期待。希望你们能认真回味 @monzo @lettersign 分享的内容；
7. 经验：订阅模式并非“十恶不赦”，市场已经完成用户对订阅服务的教育。尤其是现在 Affinity 的升级/价格策略，并不比订阅模式高明多少，看看 Mac App Store 的反馈就知道了，是时候仔细思考了，参考下 JetBrain's perpetual fallback license ？
8. 透明：@ash，你提到有关V1升级的描述，官网、邮件里一个字也没有，官网QA部分现在都还写的是 “Please bear in mind that V1 will no longer receive any updates.”，嗯... any...  这是暗示快些升级，还是警告快些升级呢？抱歉这些负面的可能我都感受到了；
9. 透明：@ash，官网、邮件里都没有关于 “ until 14th December ” 这个截止信息的描述，是期望用户担心错过优惠快些下单吗？无法理解不公布这个信息的原因；
10. 懒惰：@ash，我作为V1老用户及时的收到了 V2 的推广邮件，那些挤爆你们邮箱的邮件我想也是V1老用户，要 validate an App Store 真那么难吗——尤其是与现在的局面对比？
11. 建议：@ash，打通 Mac App Store 与 Affinity 的账户体系如何？似乎一个登记表单就可以完成的事情？ 
12. @Sam Neil 你完全误解了 lettersign 的意思，而且你的表达对老用户太无理了。必须知道，Affinity 没有提供任何两个月内购买V1版本用户的升级或处理方案，两天都没有，对吗？另外，表达失望和反感的都是老用户，他们正常支付了V1的费用，而不是像你说的那样在指望 “Freebie” 或 “Shareware” ；