Pay for the newest verison?
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I opened Strawberry today and was greeted with a prompt to update to the latest version. I excitedly click the update button and am greeted with a Patreon page. I go to the Strawberry website to download the latest version and am once again on Patreon. I come here to see what's going on and see in the announcement that the download for the newest version for Windows and macOS is only on Patreon. Why? I have to pay for the newest version?
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@IAmTheWalrus I guess the dev ran out of money. Versions other than Windows and MacOS are still free, though. I'll try building the new version from the source.
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@IAmTheWalrus The lowest tier in Patreon is $5, so you are virtually paying that for the new version.
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I've decided to do this based on how much work I've put into it, and there are minimal contributions from the community, and no help from anyone else for over 5 years with regards to windows. macOS releases have already been closed for quite some time and it has proven to work better.
I'm also not happy that some freeware sites have listed strawberry as "freeware" with no information on how to sponsor, some of the sites even containing malware. I've sent some of these sites e-mail asking that strawberry is removed but I'm getting no reply.If someone has been sponsoring in the past I can make access to the downloads outside of Patreon, but Patreon is much easier for me since everyone get's access immediately and I don't have to manually maintain a separate list of username/passwords.
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@jonas I really hope you change your mind. In the mean time, I'll be using a different music player.
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@jonas Understandable. Funny enough, I met Strawberry in one of those sites with malware you mentioned, and yeah, zero information about how to sponsor you or to donate. If it weren't for my curiosity, perhaps I would never met the original Strawberry creator and website. I wish you luck with this idea, for real, five bucks for your music player doesn't sound that crazy.
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@jonas I understand. However, I am physically incapable of paying you. My country isn't in SWIFT, so I can't use Patreon and pretty much every other service that involves sending money abroad. I'll keep using the last free version of Strawberry and hoping that either things improve for my country or that I stumble upon someone sharing their copy of 1.1.0.
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Can I get some sort of clarification on the payment model?
Is it a one time thing or monthly?
Im not subscribing to a service, then cancel to get single point updates every time and Im not gonna stay subscribed for months on end and pay every month.
This is a really sad development. While Im willing to give a little bit of cash, 60$ a year for a media player is just too much to ask.
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@Twist said in Pay for the newest verison?:
Can I get some sort of clarification on the payment model?
Is it a one time thing or monthly?
Im not subscribing to a service, then cancel to get single point updates every time and Im not gonna stay subscribed for months on end and pay every month.
This is a really sad development. While Im willing to give a little bit of cash, 60$ a year for a media player is just too much to ask.
I was about to say the same things @jonas : I will state my opinion, and I do not mean to upset the dev or anything like that, it's a forum for feedback so here is what I think.
I'd go for the $5 and as a DONATION, but not a subscription: everyone's running from companies that do that these days and now all of a sudden, a previously free-app, is now $60 per year?? Are you kidding me? I'm all for buying you a coffee and a pizza, but that looks like a "hangry" move... Let's say I'd go for the subscription mode - are you going to offer hard work and revolutionary features with every new release?
Not to mention that your Windows version still does not support playback of Audio CDs... (Not that a lot of people use CDs anymore, but some of us may have collections at home.) You DO realize that there are OTHER more capable players like AIMP that, also support skins, can look better and do more things, right?? The current interface could still use a bit of polishing - check the image I attached.
I ONLY discovered your player barely a month ago because I was curious and wanted to try out a different app, I liked Clementine and since it did not work well in terms of looks and proper rendering on high DPI screens, I thought I'd try your app. I like to drink some strawberry lemonade whenever I use your player to listen to music. I guess I'll remain with 1.0.23 (however I don't plan to use it or enjoy it that much) - there are still other websites that host that installer kit. The point I'm making here is that I seriously don't feel that there aren't many justifiable reasons to go the subscription way. And it would have been one thing to have the player as a paid app from the start - at least people would have known what to expect. But then, you offer some OS versions of it for free still. So I feel "punished" because I use Windows. No, thank you! -
Strawberry is free software and open source, it was supposed to be a collaborative community effort, but for over 6 years it's been mainly me doing most of the work, which is why it has been a lot more work for me than expected. For long periods I've even worked on it for like 7 hours a day and more in addition to a full-time job working into the night. For all these years, there have not been many days where I have not worked on something related to Strawberry.
If there had been more developers willing to spend a little time on helping out with things such as issues that are reported, it would have been a lot less work for me, but this hasn't happened, even many users said they would contribute never participated at all. Occasionally there have been a minor contribution from someone else, but that's been rare.
For macOS there have been 2 developers who helped for a short while, but the things that were done were pretty minor, as for Windows it's been 100% me since the beginning of this project. To continue support both macOS and Windows a little funding is necessary.
Only a few users donate anything unless the downloads are restricted, it's not the most ideal solution, but it has actually proven to work better, since the donations have increased.
At some point I got to make a change, and I felt like the 1.1 release was the right time, since it fixes some design flaws that have been there since the beginning, it's well worth the upgrade for users, and there is a good reason to spend the money.
Linux can't really be compared, since I do not have to maintain building all the libraries too, as those are already part of the Linux distribution, and most Linux distributions already have strawberry in their package repository, they require only the source code. And I won't close down the source code, it will stay open.
The Linux downloads on the website and GitHub are mainly there because it's part of the continuous integration to test if strawberry builds and to easily test new code, so I might as well distribute them, but very few users actually need them since strawberry is already part of the Linux distribution anyway.
I could create something like AppImage for Linux which would be closed like macOS and Windows are, I asked if someone is interested in paying for that, but no-one has replied, and I doubt anyone cares to pay extra for that since they can just install strawberry from their package manager in their distribution. -
@jonas I would like to do a one-time donation, as I believe that gets me access to the windows and osx versions. Correct?
If so, do you expect a minimum amount? And will it give me access to future versions as well? Or is that just when I subscribe?
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@jonas I totally understand your decision and agree with your points.
For sure I absolutely have no problem with a donation or whatever you may call the fee you would like to receive as compensation for your time, work and effort.
I am used to show my appreciation every now and then by a donation for projects I like and frequently use their software. So I would for Strawberry too. But having the only option for a Patreon subscription and nothing else is like a showstopper for me - and as I understand several of the other comments they think somewhat the same.
So if you would give more options than only a Patreon sub I am sure way more folks would be willing to give you financial support in return. -
There are more options for sponsoring, see https://strawberrymusicplayer.org/#sponsorus, however if you sponsor through one of the other methods you won't get automatically access when you pay, I have to manually send you a login. Send an e-mail to support@strawberrymusicplayer.org and I can send a login.
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@jonas I've subscribed via Patreon and emailed you confirmation with a couple of basic questions. I'm off to do laundry, but will check in later for your response.
Your work is appreciated.
